Customers perceptions of service quality in Tuskys; a megastore in Kenya, an empirical study

The study aims to measure the customers‘ expectation levels of service quality in the food retail sector against their perceptions levels of the service quality at Tuskys hypermarkets and to determine the gap between customers‘ expectations and their perceptions of the service quality.

A descriptive research design was adopted to carry out the research. Using a SERVQUAL survey instrument based on the Dabholkar RSQS model this study was conducted with customers from Tuskys stores in Nairobi Kenya. Through a self reported questionnaire, 100 respondents were approached using a convenience sampling method from the store locations. The survey instrument that was used to collect primary data was the SERVQUAL questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 29 statements of service attributes grouped into five service quality dimensions and participants were asked to provide the ratings of perceptions on the provided statements related to service quality.

Key findings include confirmation that customers have higher expectations for service quality in retail supermarkets than is anticipated. Gap 5, which is a gap between customers‘ Expected Service and customers‘ Perceived Service, was identified. Also Tuskys needs to offer its online shopping services to satisfy its customers and stay in line with its competitors who have already been offering this service.

This study does not differentiate applicability of the RSQS in the different formats of the retail store. Future research should examine the impact of the different retail formats in using the scale for measuring retail service quality. Also the customers were a little reluctant in revealing the information because of the lengthiness of the questionnaire.

This is one of the few studies which attempted to investigate customers‘ expectations of service quality in retail supermarket in Kenya. Though some studies have been conducted in South African Supermarkets but a detailed study has not conducted in Kenya.