Measuring service quality in the Irish retail sector : applying the SERVQUAL model to Identify service quality gaps

Authors

Moreno, Marisol Manzo

Issue Date

2015

Degree

MA of Business Administration

Publisher

Dublin Business School

Rights

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Abstract

In a hyper-competitive market, the customer enhancement is challenging, when it comes to a business and its growth strategy, change is constant. The ongoing state of flux is forcing the businesses to continuously optimize their processes, researching and innovating, finding ways to differentiate their services from its competitors, making the business as customer oriented as possible, focusing on the ability to build a long-term sustainable relationships with the customers. Bearing this in mind, the researcher has design a study aiming to evaluate general levels of satisfaction among customers of the service delivered by the Ranelagh launderette, by using a modified SERVQUAL instrument. The study will include the analysis of the impact of each individual SERVQUAL dimension components regarding customer satisfaction. According to several theories and concepts around quality and customer satisfaction that were found on the current literature in order to develop the body of this research, on the data collection, 50 questionnaires were handled face-to-face by the researcher to the customers of Ranelagh launderette, having all of the questionnaires successfully filled up in a correct way. For the analysis of the sample, the researcher used the computer software Microsoft Excel 2010. Where according to the results the general serviced quality perceived by the customers is seen has high and therefore the majority of the universe is feeling satisfied with the service provider, this mainly because the service provider communicates in a correct way the premises about their service. Nevertheless, the results shown some failures in the actual strategy, therefore this research suggests some actions to improve and provide the right service. Author Keywords: Services Marketing, Service Quality, SERVQUAL, Customer Satisfaction