Significant Service Quality That Have High Influence On Customer Satisfaction In Selected Foreign Fashion Retail Stores

Despite the vast study by researchers on the relationship between in-store services quality and customer satisfaction, little is known about which services have high impact on customer satisfaction, thus increase the likelihood to recommend. Service quality is a multi-dimensional construct and not all quality attributes are viewed as equally important to customer. Moreover, organizations have limited resources and are constrained in determining how to best allocate these resources, that is invest in providing which in-store services to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction. Also knowledge of how critical services are perceived by customers from different cultural background is important in the design and implementation of an effective service strategy to satisfy all customers.Using the Retail Service Quality Scale(RSQS), a total of 202 respondents evaluated the instore services provided in four selected foreign fashion brand stores(H&M, C&A, ZARA and Forever 21). Various measurements of service quality exist, like SERVQUAL model, Gap Model, SERVPERF, etc. however, RSQS was selected due to its ability and suitability to measure service quality in the retail industry. RSQS has five main dimensions.In the classification of service quality based on the Kano model, a number of studies have proposed various ways to explore the asymmetric and non-linear relationships in the model. In this study, a moderated regression approach employed aid in classifying these services into three quality factors(basic, performance and excitement) with each factor having difference implication for customer satisfaction and empirical results demonstrated that these classifications differ across the two samples.The study findings also reveal H&M was the store most visited(52%) and among all the stores, female customers patronize is high. Another finding is satisfied Chinese consumers are more likely to recommend the store than their foreign counterparts.Also a stepwise regression shows there are critical services that have significant contribution to customer satisfaction. The author discusses theoretical and practical implications of the study.