Role of Service Quality in Retaining Loyal Customer; Prioritizing Servqual at Sainsbury's Local

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

1.0 Chapter Overview1

1.1 Introduction1

1.2 Rationale3

1.3 Aims and Objectives5

1.3.1 Aim of the Study5

1.3.2 Research Objectives6

1.3.3 Research Question6

1.4 Methodology6

1.5 Chapter Summaries7

1.6 Chapter Summary for Chapter 18

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW9

2.0 Chapter Overview9

2.1 Main Conceptions of Service and Service Quality9

2.2 Dimensions of Service Quality11

2.2.1 Reliability12

2.2.2 Responsiveness12

2.2.3Accessibility12

2.2.3 Courtesy12

2.2.4 Competence13

2.2.5 Customerisation or Customer Profiling13

2.2.6 Communication13

2.2.7 Security13

2.2.8 Tangibility13

2.3 Effect of Service Experience on Service Quality14

2.4 The Role of Emotions in Service Quality16

2.4.1 Emotion16

2.5 Emotions and Service Quality17

2.6 Models of Service Quality18

2.6.1 The Gap Model19

2.6.2 The Servqual Model20

2.7 Criticism on Service Quality22

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.0 Chapter Overview

This chapter of introduction provides an overview of what this research is all about. The part of introduction first presents a background from which the main topic of the research has driven. After presenting the topic of the research the introduction chapter describes the aims and objectives that are to be achieved through this research paper. Research questions are postulate in this chapter. Reasons are also presented in this first chapter to conduct the research which means that it presents the justification and significance of the research.

1.1 Introduction

The world in which we live today is moving at a fast and rapid pace. In this fast and rapidly changing world organizations and brands compete fiercely and the existence of the competition is of cut throat level. In this extremely competitive world there are a number of factors that the organizations and brands adopt so that they can retain their loyal customers. Retaining loyal customers provides an opportunity to the organizations to retain and attain competitive advantage. Some organizations use the factor of after sales service. Some organizations use the factor of high quality products and some organizations use the factor of the services to gain and the loyalty and to retain the loyalty of the customers. Gaining and retaining the loyalty of customers through high level of services becomes increasingly important when it comes to the service sector such as retail stores. As almost all the retail stores provide same products to the customers and there is a very limited scope to deal with the competition on the basis of products so, retail stores majorly rely on quality of services. The aim and objective of this paper revolves around the same phenomenon of using the factor of services in order to retain and attain the loyalty of the customers. Dawkins and Reichheld (1990) implies that “in order to get success and to survive in this fiercely competitive environment delivering the quality service is an essential strategy that organizations can use to gain customer's satisfaction and loyalty (Dawkins and Reichheld, 1990, 42).”

In today's competitive environment, service quality has become a strong part of a successful organization. Its importance has been widely acknowledged in past decades due to its distinctive characteristics and importance of service quality i.e. it helps to increase customer loyalty, attract potential customers by word of mouth, and helps to reduce customer ...