CUSTOMERS SATISFACTION TOWARDS THE

SERVICES OF GORKHA DEPARTMENT STORE,

DAMAK

Submitted by

Your Name

Exam Roll No.:

T.U. Registration No.:

Submitted To

Faculty of Management

Tribhuvan University

Kathmandu

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Bachelor of Business Studies

Damak Multiple Campus

Damak, Jhapa

Jan, 2021
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Customer service is the act of taking care of the customer in support of company or business core
products or services. Customer service is the process of providing comfortable service to the
prospects or buyer or clients or customers of any entity which satisfy their needs and wants.
Customers are the buyer or the receivers of the offer. At the same time, service is a benefit or
activity that one party can offer to other parties. Customer satisfaction is a critical issue in the
success of any business system, traditional or online. In this competitive era, all business entities
are looking for a way to gain a competitive advantage and dominate the market. A department
store is one of them.

A department store is a retail establishment that specializes in satisfying a wide range of durable
goods and products to the customer’s personal and residential needs; and at the same time
offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all
product categories. Department stores offer a wide range of products under one roof. In today’s
largely competitive market environment, departmental stores are increasingly realizing the need
to focus on service quality as a measure to improve their competitive position. It is the element
of customer service that plays a vital role to have a competitive advantage. The success of
external service depends upon the internal service system and it depends on the relationship
between the company and employees. It links between the company and employees. The fruitful
relations should be maintained by the company through the services provided to the customers.

Good service or quality customer service includes politeness, responsiveness, promptness, care,
and commitment towards the customer and designing systems, procedures, and responses to
make the customer feel secure, special, and satisfied. Tom peter, a famous American author of
corporate management and Leaderships books has quoted that “Listening to customers must
become everyone’s business”. With most competitors moving faster the race will go those who
listen and respond”. While this is true for all businesses, it has special relevance to retail: such a
customer service quality is also being reflected, in the form of or dimensions such as Tangibles,
Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy. Further, the service quality is situation-specific and
largely defined subjectively and qualitatively by the customer. Departmental stores provide
different types of services to their customers such as free home delivery, after-sales services,
parking facilities, and recreational facilities, etc. Customer satisfaction is the total of the
customer’s expression of the service quality of department stores. Quality service helps to
maximize the benefits and minimize such errors. Understanding customer expectations and
measuring an organization's performance concerning them are a central component of building
service quality.

Kotler (1997) defines customer satisfaction is a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment

resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance to his or her expectations. Over the
last decade, organizations of all types and sizes have increasingly come to understand the
importance the customer satisfaction. It is widely understood that it is far less costly to keep
existing customers than it is to win new ones. Tse and Wilton (1988) state that customer
satisfaction is, the customer’s response to the evaluation of the perceived discrepancy between
prior expectations and the actual performance of the product as perceived after its consumption”.
Customer satisfaction refers to the extent to which customers are happy with the product and
services provided by the business. Therefore, customer satisfaction is an asset that should be
monitor and managed just like any physical assets.

Customer satisfaction levels can be measured using survey techniques and questionnaires.
Gaining high levels of customer satisfaction is very important to a business because satisfied
customers are most likely to be loyal, place repeated orders, and a wide range of services offered
by a business. This study will be based on a survey of respondents and the sample of the study
will constitute 100 respondents who regularly purchased and experienced the service provided by
the GDS. For this research, the non-probability sampling method is used. This study intends to
find out the satisfaction level of customers towards the services provided by the GDS.
1.2 Profile of the Gorkha Department Store

Gorkha Department Store has been operating since 2nd of Ashad, 2056 BS. Located at the heart
of Itahari, it has gained almost all centralized controls of its regular customers in comparison to
other local markets. GDS serves us with 5 different branches situated differently within eastern
Nepal. i.e.: Itahari, Dharan, Pathari, Biratchowk, and recently in Damak. GDS is a store that
claims to offer everything you could ever want. At a time when traditional retail stores are
floundering, department stores have emerged as the shopper’s choice in the eastern region-and
their business is booming. A large number of department stores have come into operation in
various urban cites of province no. 1 and their customer numbers are increasing daily.

1.3 Statement of the problem

Departmental stores offer different types of products in different quantities. Service quality is
the difference between customer expectations of service and customer experience. Any company
needs to know how the customers perceive their products, services, or the organization as a
whole. If the organization attempts to find the customer's perception then, it can alter its products
accordingly and offer them to its customers. So, understanding the customer’s perception is a
very difficult and vital task of the organization. The study will mainly focus on the following
issues or research questions:

1. What will be the level of customers’ satisfaction towards the services of Gorkha Department
Store, Damak?
2. Why do people want to shop at the Gorkha Department store, Damak?

1.4 Objectives
Research is carried out under the fulfillment of some objective or the achievement of the desired
goals on any topic. The main objective of the study will be to understand customer satisfaction
regarding the services of Gorkha Department Store, Damak. The basic objective of this study
will examine its effectiveness, efficiency, systemization in the distribution of the services by the
GDS. However, the specific objectives of the report will be enlisted below:

1. To examine the level of customer satisfaction towards the services of Gorkha Department
Store, Damak.
2. To find out the reasons why the people shop at Gorkha Department Store, Damak.
1.5 Significance of the study
This study will be very much important for the student because it will help to obtain practical
knowledge from the actual working field so it plays a major role in generating highly skilled and
professional employees in the coming future. The study will involve ascertaining the customer
perceptions towards the various areas such as price, promotions offered, billing system and
parking facilities, etc. of departmental stores. The study will also try to know why the customers
visit and shop at a department store and get valuable suggestions from them.

The following are the points which will be enlisted as the significance of my study on this
research topic:

 The research will be based on reliable data; it will guide others as a sample or example to
carry out their research works.
 It will provide information about the various customer services provided by the GDS.
 This study also may contribute to the department store's management in allocating their
resources to improve service in a more effective way to satisfy the customers.
The data will be obtained from the study can help a further researcher to study in-depth.

1.6 Review of literature

A few scholarly studies, to date, have been undertaken to identify quality dimensions and details
aspects of services and their relationship with customer satisfaction. One of the more widely
used instruments for assessing customer satisfaction is SERVQUAL developed by Zeithmal et
al., (1988). SERVQUAL is a tool for determining how the customer can perceive the quality of
services which is direct to customer satisfaction (Shahin).

Zeithmal, Valarie A, Berry, Leonard L, Parsuraman, A, (1993) developed a conceptual model for
customer service expectations based on 16 focused group interviews with customers of various
service industries. The model states the distinction between customer satisfaction and service
quality assessment within a single framework by specifying three different levels of customer
expectations that are, the desired service, which reflects what customers want, adequate service,
the standard that the customers are willing to accept, and predicted service, the level of service
customers believe is likely to occur. Parsuraman, A, Zeithmal, Valarie A, Berry, Leonard L,
(1994) state that the increasing use of SERVQUAL has been accompanied by an ongoing debate
about the need for SERVQUAL’s expectations component, the interpretation, and
operationalization of expectations, the psychometric soundness of SERVQUAL’s difference-
score formulation and the number of dimensions represented by SERVQUAL’s items. They
found that the managers can obtain a truer assessment of service quality by comparing
perceptions against expectations than by interpreting perceptions alone.

Satnam Kour Ubej and D.D. Bedia (2011), quoted that customer satisfaction is a complex
phenomenon for marketers as well as researchers. The objectives of the present study were to
analyze the customer satisfaction in shopping malls concerning product, price, place, and
promotion in Indore city and to study the variations in customer satisfaction due to different
demographic variables. The sample of the study included 175 active mall shoppers. The data was
collected using a self-designed questionnaire and during data analysis, eleven factors relating to
customer satisfaction were explored. The factors were product consciousness, price
consciousness, billing flexibility and facilities, salespeople consciousness, over a choice of
stores, employee consciousness, and test consciousness. The study will help the managers of a
shopping mall to understand the factors that are related to shopping malls and may help in
analyzing customer satisfaction to the shoppers in the malls.

1.7 Research methodology

The researcher needs sequential steps to adopt a realistic study or studying a problem with
certain objects in view. Therefore, through research methodology researcher can get appropriate
guidelines and knowledge about the various sequential steps to adopt a systematic analysis.
According to Grazino & Raulin (2000), the survey method is often used to study people’s
feelings and thinking about specific issues. A research methodology is defined as the technique
used by the researcher to find out the objective result of their specific research. So, it is the
investigation tool of any certain area and it means observation of a certain object. The main
purpose of the research methodology is to describe the nature of research design, sampling, and
data collection and analysis procedures (Adhikari & Pandey, 2016). The primary method of data
collection is the questionnaire technique will be used to collect the data required. Respondents
will include both males and females. So, this chapter will include types of research, population,
and sample, types of data, data collection procedure, instruments, techniques of analysis,
limitation of the study.

1.7.1 Research design

A research design is a conceptual structure within which research is conducted. It is the blueprint
for the collection of data and analysis of data. In this study, descriptive research design will be
used which involves observing and describing the behavior of a subject without influencing it in
any way. Descriptive research studies are those studies that are concerned with describing the
characteristics of a particular individual or a group. This study will explain the customer's
perceptions regarding the services of GDS. So, this study will be descriptive.

1.7.2 Population and sample

A population is the entire collection of all interest for the research. After the selection of the
topic for the study, it is very costly and time-consuming for the study of the Universe (entire
population). Thus, to easier the study, a representative portion of the population will be selected
for the study that is known as a sample. A large number of customers visit the Gorkha
Department Store daily (i.e. more than 300 customers). Among them 100 sample sizes will be
selected for the survey. Customers of both genders will constitute the population of the study.
The total sample size for the study will be 100 respondents of all ages, gender, occupation.

1.7.3 Sources of Data

The data collected for the first time by the investigator himself from the field of inquiry is called
primary data. The study will be used both primary (original, new, and fresh data are primary
data) and secondary data (reliability, suitability, and adequacy data). Collected data that will
include in this project are both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data included descriptive
information and quantitative includes the numerical facts and figures collected from various
sources. Primary data collection includes observation, surveys, and questionnaires. While
secondary data collection includes documents and papers obtained from some published or
unpublished sources such as magazines, journals, articles, reports, related books, etc.

1.7.4 Data collection procedure

Data is defined as the information or facts collected through records, observation, and
measurement. The data will be collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data
will be collected through questionnaires, observation, and face-to-face interviews. Similarly,
secondary data will be collected from published or unpublished information originally collected
by someone else. Thus, data will be collected through these sources for the fulfillment of my
research objectives.

1.7.5 Data Analysis tools and techniques

Various statistical tools will be used to analyze the data available to the research. These tools are
used in research to draw a reliable conclusion through the analysis of collected data. Some of the
statistical tools like tables, bar diagrams, pie charts, percentage analysis, IBM SPSS statistics
tools will be used to analyze the data.
References

Satnam, Kour Ubeja and D. D. Bedia (2011). A study of Customer Satisfaction from Organized
Retailing (With reference to Indore city), Prestige International Journal of Management and
Research , Vol. 4, Issue 2, pp. 38-45.

Zeithmal, Valarie A, Berry, Leonard L, Parasuraman, A, (1993). The nature and determinants of
customer expectations of service, Academy of Marketing Service, Vol. 69, Issue 1, pp. 420-415.