Retail service quality in India: construct exploration and measure development

Abstract

Purpose – Service quality is a perceptual construct that is likely to differ across industries, customer segments and markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore the construct of retail service quality in the Indian context, and identifies quality components as a precursor to developing a quality measure. Design/methodology/approach – Initially, the construct comprehension was done using exploratory research involving customer depth probes and juxtaposing it with the available literature. After defining the broad contours of retail service quality and surface considerations, the study attempted to discover retail service quality dimensions by factor analyzing the collected data. Findings – It was found that retail service quality construct is composed of seven critical dimensions – ambience and layout, salespeople, merchandise, convenience, services, prices and customer care. Research limitations/implications – The specific quality component structure found in this study highlights the need for managers to prioritise their retail operation and marketing efforts in sync with the uncovered quality dimensions. Originality/value – This paper explored the quality phenomenon in the Indian retail context using a bottom-up approach. This paper provides the much-needed insights to firms that are entering the Indian market on what the quality means and the components it is made up of.