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Abstract
These days all organizations are facing challenges in delivering quality services, creating values
and satisfying customers, let alone in the retailing industry. The economic instability due to
government policy, the rising cost of living, players in the retailing industry are forced to
downsize, relocate branch and minimize its operations. Not only that, retailers which have direct
access to individual customers personally try their best to satisfy its customers through monthly
promotions, member's discounts, extending physical store to online store and many more. The
primary purpose of this paper is to know the factors that have an impact on customer satisfaction.
Other objectives can be classified as:
1. To know the service quality dimensions in retail

2. To know service quality dimensions that make customer satisfied
3. To know service quality dimensions that are dominant in influencing customer
satisfaction
The research methodology was carried out in a survey cross-sectional applied. Result of the
research showed that services offered by the retail units have positive impact and are significant
in building customer satisfaction. Findings of the paper reiterate the point of view that service
quality dimensions are crucial for customer satisfaction in retailing, especially in the unorganized
sector so as to meet the competition from the organized retail formats – a sector with high
growth potential and opportunities in fast growing economies like India.
INTRODUCTION
Retailing is a cluster of events that is achieved through offering or selling products or services to
all types of consumers for their personal, family or institutional use. Therefore, the retailing
industry is important for the economies, deeply dynamic and very reactive to economic
turnarounds. The service quality within retailing industry is crucial for satisfying and retaining
customers and creating loyalty among them. Customer satisfaction can be described as the result
of a comparison of the customers’ expectations and their subsequent perceived performance of
service quality [2]. A study conducted in South Africa found that South African retail customers
have a “shallow commitment” to the store at which they shop due to the poor service quality [3].
Other issues were the rigid and not flexible operating hours [4] and bottlenecks at the payment
counter [4]. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between
tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and customer satisfaction in the retailing
industry. This research used SERVQUAL to analyze the gap between perceptions and
expectations of the customers in the retailing industry.
Table 1: Five broad dimensions of service quality
Dimension Definition
Tangibles Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and written
materials
Reliability Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately
Responsiveness Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately
Assurance Employees’ knowledge and courtesy and their ability to inspire trust and
confidence
Empathy Caring, easy access, good / communication, customer understanding and
individualized attention given to customers
Source: Adapted from Zeithaml et al. (1990)
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Research has always been concentrated in measuring customer satisfaction or SERVQUAL for
customer services. What most researchers agree and have a consensus on is that SERVQUAL
being a crucial element in customer satisfaction even when the offering involved a combination
of a product and service. The study aims at measuring the influences of service quality in
unorganized retailing with customer satisfaction taken as the effective outcome measure.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
SERVQUAL has two components to it:
1/Customer expectations 2/ Customer perceptions

Customer expectations are those that the customer expects as should be and can be type of
services.
Service offered varies with providers and the amount of variation that customer can tolerate is
known as tolerance. The gap between what is thought to be adequate service and desired service
is known as zone of tolerance. The present study concentrates on customer perceptions of the
following service quality dimensions, price and product quality:
• Tangibles • Reliability • Responsiveness • Assurance • Empathy
For the purpose of data collection a structured questionnaire was constructed taken into account
SERVQUAL dimensions such as tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and

other dimensions like price, product, quality and customer perceptions of unorganized retail
outlets to assess customer satisfaction, repurchase intention and positive word of mouth. Other
secondary sources were also used for the purpose.
Data Sources
Information has been gathered from various journals like Academy of Management Journal,
Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Vikalpa, Management Review, and Journal of
Marketing Research. Secondary information has also been gathered from Business magazines
like 4P’s, The Retailer, Business India and Business Today. The researcher has also referred to
various websites that have previous research studies and empirical investigations. Research
carried out by Ernst and Young, and by Morgan Stanley along with Pantaloon’s annual reports
forms the basis of secondary data.
A structured questionnaire was constructed taking into account SERVQUAL dimensions such as
Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy, other dimensions like Price,
Product Quality and Customers perceptions of outlets to assess Customer Satisfaction,
Repurchase Intention and Positive word of Mouth. The method employed was personal
interviews conducted for the respondents for primary Sources
A pilot study was carried out on a random basis and the characteristic taken in the pilot study
was whether the respondents visited Pantaloons’ retail outlets or not for Sample Size
Determination.
Research methodologies used in this study are descriptive method and historical method.
Descriptive method is a method that describes the study systematically, factually and accurately
utilizing facts
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study is to assess the influence of service quality on customer satisfaction.
In accordance with this objective, the survey encompasses the following objectives:
a. Describe service quality dimensions in unorganized retailing business that perhaps influence
customer satisfaction
b. Assessing servqual dimensions that contribute to customer satisfaction
c. Assessing the dominant service quality dimensions that influence customer satisfaction in the
unorganized retail sector.
CONCLUSIONS
It can be determined that the respondents at the hypermarket agreed that the service quality
influenced their satisfaction and experiences. The service quality in retail industry was
influenced by tangibility, reliability, responsiveness and assurance. Hence, the managers should
put in more efforts in these aspects. This may include developing strategies to improve the
quality of service delivery as well as training for all employees. The layouts of each products can
be managed in a more organized way, for example, put related items in the same row or section
or so that customers can find the products easily. As for future researchers, it is recommended
that more studies should be conducted in the retailing industry as there were limited to be
referred and it would be interesting to see a comparison of service quality at different retail in
order to explain more on the relationship between service quality and customer satisfactions.

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3/Write a three pages summary for each of the articles.

 Summary for article one

1. To know the service quality dimensions in retail

Table 1: Five broad dimensions of service quality

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

SERVQUAL has two components to it:

1/Customer expectations 2/ Customer perceptions

• Tangibles • Reliability • Responsiveness • Assurance • Empathy

SERVQUAL dimensions such as tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and

b. Assessing servqual dimensions that contribute to customer satisfaction

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