Service quality measurement for retailing: Benefits, need and implication

The retailing industry has been present in our country through history. Today, it consists of organized and unorganized retail stores. Post-liberalization, deregulation of many businesses, changing consumer behavior and preferences has sown the seeds of a retail transformation. Organized retail environment in India is changing rapidly and is characterized by intense competition among the domestic players, domestic and foreign players and among foreign players. On the otherside, customer has greater expectations related to his or her consumption experience. With the increase in disposable income there is less leisure time to spend on purchasing. Consumers have become more aware and are seeking more information, better quality of product and service, wider variety, hygiene, good ambience as well as enhanced customer service. Organized retailer in Indian can not compromise with the quality of service as it is perceived as a tool to increase value for the customers, as well as means of positioning in the competitive environment. In the Recent competitive retail environment, delivery of high service quality has long been treated as the basic retailing strategy and retail businesses are also considered as service businesses.

This paper focuses on models of service quality measurement such as SERVQUAL, SERVPERF widely adopted for the evaluation of service quality across different industries. This paper reviews their application in retail sector across countries. Further, it reviews retail service quality scale (RSQS) specially developed for retail stores. The main objective of this paper is to identify the appropriateness of the above mentioned models in context of service quality evaluation of Indian retail stores.