1.
The Management of Service and
Quality in Retailing
Dr. Gopal Thapa
Tribhuvan University

2.
What constitutes Retailing
 Tangible features
 Intangible services
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3.
Service components in retailing
 Transaction with merchandise
 Owned-goods service would be the traditional outright
purchase and ownership of a good from a retailer.
 Rental-goods service would deliver a tangible good, such
as a car, for the personal use of the customer.
 No ownership exists and the good has to be returned.
 Service with bought goods indicates that the retailer
performs/supplies extra services.
 These could include delivery, wrapping, providing credit,
etc.
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4.
Transaction without merchandise
 In retailing there is also service without goods:
pure services without goods.
 Pure services are provided by a wide range of
retailers who are involved in arranging or
organizing travel, financial transactions and
services, or providing personal services such as
dry cleaning, a haircut or shoe repairs.
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5.
Service Characteristics
 intangibility;
 perishability;
 inseparability
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6.
Service Quality Management
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 Product-attribute approach
 Consumer-oriented approach

7.
Product-attribute approach
 The product-attribute approach is based upon
trying to match the product’s conformance to
standardized requirements which have been set by
reference to what company managers think the
failure point to be.
 Product-attribute approaches rely on trying to
control the company’s output by using an internal
standard-setting perspective.
 This relies on an inward-looking and trading-led
management style, rather than a marketing-led
approach.
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8.
Consumer-oriented approach
 It recognizes that the holistic process of service
delivery has to be controlled by taking into
consideration the expectations and attitudes of
retail customers.
 If the starting point for management is the
understanding of how quality is judged by
customers then the perception processes of this
judgment, as to whether a service is good or bad,
can be managed.
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9.
The Gronroos model (1982) of
perceived quality management
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10.
Technical Quality (What?)
 Technical solutions
 Know-how
 Computerized systems
 Machines
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11.
Functional Quality (How?)
 Customer contact
 Attitudes
 Internal relations
 Behavior
 Service-mindedness
 Appearance
 Accessibility
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12.
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13.
Model of Service Quality:
Ziethaml (1985)
 Gap 1: Ignorance of the customer’s expectations
 Gap 2: Requirement for service design standards
 Gap 3: Not delivering to service standards
 Gap 4: Inconsistency between performance and
promises
 Gap 5: The service shortfalls
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14.
Implementation of Service
Management
 Leadership and commitment by senior management,
 The focus of all changes and objectives should be defined
by the customer
 The orientation of the organization needs to adopt a
process and systems approach to match or exceed customer
expectations
 Human resource management is required to motivate,
reward, train and educate staff
 to understand and deliver the concepts of quality.
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15.
Implementation of Service
Management ( contd…)
 Assessment needs to be made of the added value
and benefit of any change rather than there being
an emphasis on costs and profit implications.
 That is, the long-term benefits of any change need
to be the focus of decision-making.
 A need for quality audits and control to ensure the
service meets or exceeds customer expectations
must be recognized.
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16.
Factors with potential for prompting
complaints and compliments
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17.
Growing emphasis on quality
control
 Companies need to find new ways of creating
differential advantage by providing better service
levels than their competitors.
 Retail competition has increased because services
and goods are available from a wide range of
channels and manufacturers are creating
technically satisfactory goods that require little
after-sales service.
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18.
Growing emphasis on quality
control (Contd..)
 The increased levels of consumerism and the
greater media attention on quality have meant that
companies have to be more responsive to quality
issues.
 Consumers are far more aware of their rights and
are less likely to suffer quietly from the results of
poor quality.
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19.
Growing emphasis on quality
control (Contd..)
 There has been a growing sophistication of consumer
markets, with the non-price factors of image, retail offer
positioning and service delivery processes becoming more
important.
 Technology is one of the new applications to quality
enhancement.
 It can aid service by providing higher levels of
convenience:
 for example, automatic vending or ticketing machines, bar
code checkout systems to improve accuracy and speed of
transaction, or smart card developments – all of which
provide memory of purchases.
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20.
Key Terms For Quality
 Quality is the totality of relationships between
service providers (functional aspects) and the
features of retailing (technical aspects) which are
related to the delivery of satisfaction.
 Quality control checks, and also monitoring
processes to ensure that measurement of service
delivery is taking place
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21.
Key Terms For Quality (Contd…)
 Total quality management (TQM) is a holistic
organizational approach which systematically attempts to
improve customer satisfaction by focusing on continuous
quality improvements without incurring unacceptable cost
increases.
 TQM is managed by quality assurance arrangements; that
is, a system is instituted to allocate responsibility for
planned and systematic activities which will ensure that the
product will provide the right levels of satisfaction for all
concerned.
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22.
Key Terms For Quality (Contd…)
 In order to measure whether the quality delivery
complies with the planned delivery of the service a
quality audit needs to take place to judge the
effectiveness of the total service delivery
arrangements.
 For a system to be audited correctly a method of
creating unbiased feedback must be found.
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23.
Characteristics of Quality
 Merchandise
 Service
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24.
Merchandise categories
 performance based upon inherent operating
characteristics, such as the sound and clarity of a
hi-fi system;
 features which add to the basic function of the
product;
 reliability of the product not to break down in
normal use;
 conformance to standards of safety or operating
performance needs;
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25.
Merchandise categories (Contd..)
 durability based upon the length of time a product
will last;
 serviceability – relating to the after-sales service
and ability to be repaired;
 aesthetics of the look, feel, design, sound and
smell of the product;
 image of the brand association, reputation and
personality of the product.
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26.
Service categories
 Tangibles
 Reliability
 Responsiveness
 Competence
 Empathy
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27.
QUALITY AUDITING SYSTEMS
(Based on Customers Preferences)
 external appearance of the branch;
 merchandise pricing in window display;
 greeting upon entry;
 staff approachability;
 staff availability to help;
 manager availability;
 whether the manager is recognizable;
 the number of customers served simultaneously by
one staff member;
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28.
QUALITY AUDITING SYSTEMS
(Based on Customers Preferences)
 efficiency/promptness of enquiry handling;
 branch stock levels;
 staff awareness of fashion trends;
 speed of stock location;
 staff awareness of advertised lines;
 helpfulness of staff advice;
 honesty of staff advice;
 standard of fitting rooms;
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29.
QUALITY AUDITING SYSTEMS
(Based on Customers Preferences)
 availability of advertised stock;
 colour/size availability;
 selection within size;
 availability of alterations advice;
 availability of garment reservation;
 eye-catching quality of window displays;
 eye-catching quality of interior displays;
 speed of till transaction;
 comparability of service in other Jaeger branches.
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30.
Benchmarking
 A method now widely used for assessment of the
service standards of a company is to compare
them with those which are deemed to be the best
available
 It is a continuous process of selecting the best
practices and services against which to judge.
 It is based upon the Japanese concept dantotsu,
meaning ‘best of the best’
 If you seek out and match the best practice there
is the possibility of the attainment of superiority
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31.
Four Types of Benchmarking
 Internal: where the best internal company
examples are utilized
 Competitive: based upon external directly
competing retailers and their merchandise
 Functional: which measures against the best
external market leaders or functional operations
 Generic: which is to take measures of the best
practices regardless of what sectors or industry is
represented
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32.
Service Recovery
 Service recovery relates to the planned systems
and effort that a firm provides to correct a problem
following a service failure with the specific
objective of retaining a customer’s goodwill.
 Given that the estimated cost of finding a new
customer is five times that of retaining an existing
one,
 there is growing emphasis on customer retention
and relationship marketing..
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33.
Service Recovery
 When a dissatisfied customer defects, the lifetime
value of that individual and anyone else who
switches due to negative comments is affected
 Long-term revenue can be enhanced by service
recovery strategies.
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34.
Service Recovery
 Good service recovery procedures allow a
customer to refocus on the satisfactions received
from the service delivery process rather than to
question why corrective action was not taken.
 A problem tests the system and if a customer
complaint is dealt with appropriately the customer
is likely to become more loyal.
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35.
Effective recovery requires
 Acting fast
 Admitting mistakes
 Empathy
 Relationship
 Informing and clarifying
 Remedial action
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36.
Individual service recovery
strategies
 Watching for sign language
 Preplanning
 Training
 Empowerment
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37.
Any Queries?
Thank you
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