TITLE: A study on retail service quality towards kannan departmental

stores in erode.

OBJECTIVES:

To understand the customer perception about service quality in kannan departmental stores.

TO analyse the key dimensions influence shopping at kannan departmental stores.

To understand the needs of the customers better than the competition.

To analyse the competition advantage is the delivery of high service quality.

To give sugession for improving the service performance in kannan departmental stores.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

Indian retail sector is undergoing a buoyant transition from unorganized retailing. This has given raise to severe competition among the organized retail sector. Understanding the service quality in terms of physical aspects, reliability, personal interaction, problem solving and policy.

This is identified as the problem area and the study has attempted to address the above said issues with respects to kannan departmental stores.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

This research gives a broad frame work of the kannan departmental stores service quality gives customers. This can be used as a guideline in the future business plan and making changes in the current activities. It gives an idea of the areas, which need emphasis and development.

This study has been conducted in erode city covering all the areas falling within the erode zone wtih a sample size of 250 respondents. All classes of customers were met and their views were analysed.

COMPANY PROFILE:

Shri Kannan Departmental Store (p)ltd is the best of al departmental stores in south region of Indian. All your needs and expectations in shopping are fulfilled with great attention. They have a well trained, experienced and motivated staff to serve their valuable customers with great attention and enthusiasm.

Shri Kannan Departmental Store, one of the biggest and largest selling departmental stores in erode was commenced by Mr. D.Navaneetha Krisnhan. The store was stauted in 1989 with 5 employees working in it. The departmental store has everything under one roof. Almost all the products such as cosmetics, grocery, fancy and gift items, snacks and bakes, home appliances, medicines baby care products, fruits and vegetables, etc are available.

` It does not matter how much the customer purchase. They supply all kind of maligai (groceries), food items, masala (spices) and all varieties of rice for customers family functions and occasions whether it is a small one or big. They also provide catering services to their functions with variety of south Indian, North Indian and Chinese food items.

They are having their own bakery and food production unit with highly sophisticated and hygienic equipments with fully experienced staff under strictsupervision in a pollution free environment. Their products are branded as shri kannan and distributed to other vendors also.

Initially, many hurdles were faced as the people had an opinion that the products available in the store would be expensive. But the products sold in the store are priced reasonably and affordable by all class of people. The store currently has 750 employees working in it. Customer satisfaction and reasonable pricing are the key areas where the store has more strength.

The store has its head office at erode. They had in total 40 branches all over Tamil Nadu. The store has major branches in the area of Tirupur, pollachi, Karur, Coimbatore and salem. The firm has grown and expanded such that it has opened 5 branches at erode. Thus, Kannan departmental stores have proved to maintain its standard, quality and have over thousands of satisfied customers. The store celebrates customer day in the months of December and January to delight its customers.

Customer can purchase everything for their need of their choice for home or office. Brands of all renowned companies latest products, stationeries, utensils, and gifts & novelty items are available.

They have their own door delivery network. So they need not worry ! A phone call is enough- The things will reach safely at customer door step with in a stipulated time.

Divisions in shri kannan departmental store, Grocery products. Oil & rice. Chocolate & sweets. Cosmetics. Medicines. Fruits.

INTRODUCTION:

DEFINITION:It can refer to the way business is conducted in the retail sector; the

very stage in which goods and services are delivered to their end users.

RETAIL SERVICE QUALITY:

The retail environment is changing more rapidly than ever before. It is characterized by intensifying competition from both domestic and foreign companies, a spate of mergers and acquisitions, and more sophisticated and demanding customers who have greater expectations related to their consumption experiences.

Consequently, retailers today must differentiate themselves by meeting the needs of their customers better than the competition. There is strategy for creating competitive advantage is the delivery of high service quality.

The most widely known & discussed scale for measuring service quality is RSQS, a scale designed to measure five dimensions of service quality;

Physical Aspects. Reliability. Personal Interaction Problem Solving. Policy.

A retail store experience involves more than non-retail service experience in terms of customers negotiating their way, through the store, finding the merchandise they want, interacting with several store personnel along the way, and returning merchandise, all of which influence customers evaluations of service quality. Thus, although measures of service quality for pure service environments and for retail environments are likely to share some common dimensions, measure of retail service quality must capture additional dimensions. Our purpose is to investigate the dimensions of service quality in a retail environment and to develop and validate a scale to measure retail service quality.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem or to obtain a solution to a problem with a specific purpose, through a systematic approach.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure. The task of defining the research problem is the preparation of the design of the research project, popularly known as the “Research Design”.

Research design is used to study about the descriptive research.

DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH:

Descriptive research study includes surveys and a fact finding enquires of different kind which helps the researchers to describe the present situation that makes the analysis about the customer attitude and helps to each the objects.

The main characteristics of this method is that the researcher has no control over the variables; He/She can only report what has happened or what is happening.

SAMPLING TECHNIQUE:

A sample design is a definite plan for obtaining a sample from the sampling frame. It refers to the technique or the procedure the research would adopt in selecting design is determined before any data are collected.

The field work is the actual collection process and the respondents, who are buying product from Shri Kannan Departmental Stores. The respondents were met and told about the objectives of the study and data were collected through questionnaire form. Convenient Sampling method is used in the study.

CONVENIENCE SAMPLING:

When population elements are selected for inclusion in the sample based on the ease of access, it can be called convenience sampling. The sampling elements are selected based on convenience of the researcher.

SAMPLE SIZE:

The sample size taken for study is 250 respondents.

DESIGN:

The questions are based on multiple choices and it is designed on the basis of summated scale of Likert -type scale under technique.

DATA COLLECTION METHOD:

The data collection method includes one type of data; Primary Data.

PRIMARY DATA:

The study comprises on “ Primary Data”, which has collected from the respondents.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:

The limitations of the study are as follows: The survey was limited to erode town only, so the results may not be

applicable to other branches. Due to limit only a limited data were collected. The result will not be same in the next period and uncertain predictions

be expected. Many of the customers were not able to give complete data due to their

busy schedule.