Construction of an Instrument to Measure Retail Service Quality of

Grocery Store – SARUP Model

Dr.B.SenthilArasu1 R.Ayyamperumal2
Introduction

Of all services marketing topics, service quality has gained much research prominence in
recent years (Schneider and White, 2004). Existing research indicates that consumers
satisfied with service quality are more likely to remain loyal (Wong and Sohal, 2003).
Service quality is perceived as a tool to increase value for the consumer; as a means of
positioning in a competitive environment (Mehta, Lalwani and Han, 2000) and to ensure
consumer satisfaction (Sivadas and Baker-Prewitt, 2000), retention and patronage (Yavas,
Bilgin and Shemwell, 1997). With greater choice and increasing awareness, Indian
consumers are more demanding of quality service (Angur, Nataraajan and Jahera, 1999) and
players can no longer afford to neglect customer service issues (Firoz and Maghrabi, 1994,
Kassem, 1989).
Much of the attention focused on the service quality construct is attributable to the
SERVQUAL instrument developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry (1988) for measuring
service quality. Several studies subsequently employed the SERVQUAL to measure service
quality and to assess the validity and reliability of the scale across a wide range of industries
and cultural contexts (Carman, 1990; Finn and Lamb, 1991; Gagliano and Hathcote, 1994;
Blanchard and Galloway, 1995; Mittal and Lassar, 1996; Zhao, Bai and Hui, 2002;
Witkowski & Wolfinbarger, 2002; Wong and Sohal, 2003).
Little is known about service quality perceptions in India (Jain and Gupta, 2004) because
research focus has primarily been on developed countries (Herbig and Genestre, 1996).
Given the relatively mature markets where the service quality scales have been developed, it
seems unlikely that these measures would be applicable to India without adaptation. Angur,
Nataraajan and Jahera (1999) examined the SERVQUAL in the retail banking industry and
reported a poor fit of the scale to the empirical data. Despite this, several researchers (Sharma
and Mehta, 2004; Bhat, 2005) have used the SERVQUAL scale in similar settings with no
assessment of the psychometric soundness of the scale.
Service quality in retailing is different from any other product/service environment (Finn and
Lamb, 1991; Gagliano and Hathcote, 1994). For this reason, Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz
(1996) developed the Retail Service Quality Scale (RSQS) for measuring retail service

1
Dr.B.SenthilArasu, Assistant Professor in Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Trichy.
2
R.Ayyamperumal, Assistant Professor in Business Administration, VHNSN College, Virudhunagar.
quality. Studies assessing the applicability of the RSQS have reported encouraging results.
Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz (1996) replicated their own study and found all the RSQS
dimensions and sub-dimensions to be valid in the U.S. Mehta, Lalwani and Han (2000) found
the RSQS five dimensional structure appropriate for measuring the service quality
perceptions of supermarket consumers in Singapore. Kim and Jin (2001) report the RSQS a
useful scale for measuring service quality of discount stores across two different cultural
contexts of U.S. and South Korea, though they reported empirical support for a four and not a
five dimensional structure. Boshoff and Terblanche (1997), in a replication of the Dabholkar,
Thorpe and Rentz (1996) study, report highly encouraging results for the RSQS applicability
in the context of department stores, specialty stores and hypermarkets in South Africa.
This study takes effort in construction of a tool to measure the retail service quality of
grocery stores using factor analysis. If this is found to be valid and reliable it will be the first
such instrument available to Indian grocery retailers. If not, then researchers and retailers
alike would be forewarned about using an unreliable scale for measuring retail service quality
in India.
Service Quality of Retail Grocery Store – Factor Analysis

Instrument
SERVQUAL instrument developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry (1988) for measuring
service quality was the base for construction of the tool for measuring the retail service
quality of grocery store. The process used of examining face validity of the items for
inclusion/exclusion was similar to the procedure used by Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry
(1988) when developing the SERVQUAL. The two items excluded by the researcher as
being inapplicable for Indian retail pertained to ‘Providing service at the time it promising to
do so’ and ‘service at the time it promising to do so’. All other 24 items were found relevant.
The final instrument consisted of these 24 items. Validity/reliability of the data is examined
by Cronbach's Alpha test. All items were measured using a seven point Likert scale, from ‘1-
Strongly disagree’ to ‘7-Strongly agree’. An in-depth interview of four shoppers was used to
pre-test the instrument.
These shoppers were selected because they had visited at least three different chains/local
large format stores in at least two different cities in India in the last six months and had spent
a significantly large amount on shopping during such store visits. During these interviews and
based on the suggestions of the two store managers, explanations were added for some items
to avoid any chance of ambiguity.
Factor analysis
Factor analysis is executed to group the factors that contribute to the quality of service
in grocery retail store. These factors are grouped and named.

KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling
Adequacy. .510

Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-Square 1804.635

Sphericity df 276
Sig. .000

The first step is to know whether factor analysis can be used with the collected data. KMO
and Bartlett’s Test is used. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling adequacy is above
0.5 and Bartlett's Test of the Sphericity has a significance less than 0.05 hence factor analysis
can be executed. Further principal component analysis is made using varimax rotation to
group the factors in to five.
 Total Variance Explained

Initial Eigenv alues Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings

Component Total % of Variance Cumulativ e % Total % of Variance Cumulativ e %
1 3.556 14.818 14.818 2.896 12.067 12.067
2 2.934 12.226 27.043 2.675 11.144 23.210
3 2.261 9.419 36.462 2.627 10.945 34.156
4 2.155 8.981 45.443 2.392 9.966 44.122
5 1.867 7.778 53.221 2.184 9.099 53.221
6 1.575 6.561 59.782
7 1.290 5.374 65.156
8 1.077 4.487 69.643
9 1.029 4.287 73.930
10 .878 3.659 77.590
11 .868 3.615 81.204
12 .697 2.905 84.110
13 .631 2.630 86.739
14 .520 2.166 88.905
15 .488 2.035 90.940
16 .464 1.932 92.872
17 .399 1.663 94.535
18 .273 1.138 95.673
19 .249 1.038 96.710
20 .234 .975 97.686
21 .177 .739 98.425
22 .152 .631 99.056
23 .131 .548 99.604
24 .095 .396 100.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analy sis.

Rotated Component Matrix

Component
1 2 3 4 5
Behaviour of employee
instills confidence in .003 .035 -.098 -.773 -.216
customer
Knowledge of the
-.081 .285 -.129 -.768 .112
employee
Consistently courteous
-.741 .075 .005 .202 -.188
with customers
Giving prompt service by
-.012 .260 .225 -.129 .645
employee
Never too busy to respond
to customer's request .004 -.304 .111 -.024 .381

Performs the service right

.026 .593 .128 .050 .028
the first time
Individual attention -.478 -.007 -.027 .268 -.026
Tell customer exactly what
.399 -.071 .681 .089 .118
will be performed
Safety in transaction .304 .280 .694 .098 -.325
Accept most major credit
.380 .260 .133 .123 -.138
cards
High quality merchandise .210 .160 .336 .050 -.637
Error-free sales
.666 -.145 -.101 .212 -.220
transactions and records
Willingly handle returns
.096 .377 .405 -.203 .016
and exchange
Convenient operating
.820 .097 .056 .236 .207
hours
Visually appealing
.038 .704 -.128 -.132 .174
physical facilities
Visually appealing service
-.079 .760 -.218 -.211 .075
material
Modern-looking equipment
.017 .534 .033 .334 -.124
and fixtures
Promise to do something
.069 .251 -.217 .610 -.078
by a certain time
Handling customers'
complaint directly and .309 .068 -.684 -.001 -.165
immediately
Sincere intrest to solve
.135 .420 -.580 .181 -.204
problem
Clean, attractive, and
.178 .221 -.498 -.371 .087
convenient public areas
Store layout makes it easy
for customers to find what .346 .073 .017 .078 .620
they need
Store layout makes it easy
for customers to move .259 .201 .309 .340 .460
around
Availability of
.447 .171 -.089 .238 .400
Merchandise

The result of the factor analysis is grouped in to 5 components based on the factor loading.
The components have been grouped and named. The name of the model is SARUP.
Sincere Reliability Statistics
-Consistently courteous with customers
Cronbach's
-Individual attention Alpha N of Items
.581 3
-Promise to do something by a certain time
Accessible Reliability Statistics
-Giving prompt service by employee
Cronbach's
-Never too busy to respond to customer's request
Alpha N of Items
-Store layout makes it easy for customers to find what they need
.574 4
-Store layout makes it easy for customers to move around

Reliable Reliability Statistics

-Accept most major credit cards
-Error-free sales transactions and records Cronbach's
Alpha N of Items
-Convenient operating hours
.539 5
-Handling customers' complaint directly and immediately
-Availability of Merchandise

Unique
-Behaviour of employee instills confidence in customer
-Knowledge of the employee Reliability Statistics

-Performs the service right the first time

Cronbach's
-Visually appealing physical facilities Alpha N of Items
-Visually appealing service material .641 8

-Modern-looking equipment and fixtures

-Sincere interest to solve problem
-Clean, attractive, and convenient public areas

Promise
-Tell customer exactly what will be performed Reliability Statistics

-Safety in transaction Cronbach's

Alpha N of Items
-High quality merchandise
.644 4
-Willingly handle returns and exchange

Conclusion:
Organized retail sector is growing rapidly and consumers are shifting to shopping in
organized retail stores. Thus, understanding of shoppers’ behaviour is the key to success for
the retailers. Marketers will have to understand the consumers’ shopping behavioural
dimensions that will help them to tap the consumer in a better way.
The customers visiting organized grocery stores are status and quality conscious while
deciding on the store to purchase from and brands to purchase. They always look for the
benefits of shopping in a store over the traditional retail outlets in terms of self- selection,
variety, comparison of brands and discounts available and also seek value for the money they
pay. The researcher has identified the following components that contribute to retail service
quality of grocery store. This model is named as SARUP model.
Sincere – 3 factors
Accessible – 4 factors
Reliable – 5 factors
Unique – 8 factors
Promise – 4 factors
The above component contains some factors that have to be taken care of the grocery retail
stores to maintain quality. In order to taste success a marketer has to equip himself by taking
into consideration all the said aspects of the study because potentiality in itself is not going to
serve any purpose.

References

1. Angur, M.G., R. Nataraajan and J.S. Jahera (1999). “Service quality in the banking
industry: an assessment in a developing economy,” International Journal of Bank
Marketing, 17 (3), 116-123

2. Babakus, E. and Boller, G.W. (1992). “An empirical assessment of the SERVQUAL
Scale”, Journal of Business Research, 24 (3): 253-268

3. Bhat, Mushtaq A. (2005). Correlates of Service Quality in banks: An empirical

investigation,” Journalof Services Research, 5(1), 77- 80.

4. Blanchard R. F. and Galloway R. L. (1994). “Quality in Retail Banking”, International

Journal of Service Industry Management, 5 (4): 5-23

5. Boshoff, Christo and Nic Terblanche (1997). “Measuring retail service quality: A
replication study,” South African Journal of Business Management, 28 (December), 123-
128

6. Brown, Tom J., Gilbert Churchill Jr. and Paul Peter (1993). “Research Note: Improving the

Measurement of Service Quality,” Journal of Retailing, 69 (Spring). 127-139

7. Dabholkar, Pratibha, Dayle Thorpe and Joseph Rentz (1996). “A Measure of Service
Quality for Retail Stores: Scale Development and Validation,” Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 24 (Winter), 3-16

8. Gagliano K.B. and Jan Hathcote (1994). “Customer Expectations and Perceptions of
Service Quality in Retail Apparel Specialty Stores,” Journal of Services Marketing, 8 (1),
60-69

9. Jain, Sanjay K. and Garima Gupta (2004). “Measuring Service Quality: SERVQUAL vs.
SERVPERF Scales,” Vikalpa, 29 (2), 25-37
10. Kim, Soyoung and Byoungho Jin (2002). “Validating the retail service quality scale for
US and Korean customers of discount stores: an exploratory study,” Journal of Services
Marketing, 7 (2), 223-237

11. Parasuraman, A., Valarie Zeithaml and Leonard Berry (1988). “SERVQUAL: A
Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality,” Journal of
Retailing, 64 (Spring), 12-40

12. Sivadas, Eugene and Jamie Baker-Prewitt (2000). “An examination of the relationship
between service quality, customer satisfaction, and store loyalty”, International Journal of
Retail & Distribution Management, 28 (2), 73-82

13. Zhao, Bai and Hui (2002). “An Empirical assessment and application of SERVQUAL in
a Mainland Chinese department store,” Total Quality Management, 13 (2), 241-254.