Customers’ Evaluation of the Service Quality of the Appliance Sales Departments of Retail Stores in a South African Context

Consumers in developing countries apparently have lower expectations of the service quality (SQ) in retail than consumers in developed countries. A survey was done in the appliance departments of 20 stores in Gauteng, RSA: 296 respondents judged the SQ of the particular departments and completed an appliance knowledge test. When subjected to factor analysis, an adapted version of Dabholkar’s five dimensional SQ scale collapsed to two dimensions, which suggests a simpler evaluation of SQ in this context. Low means scored in the knowledge test contradict the above average means for both dimensions of SQ, which indicate shortcomings in the facilitation of buyer decisions that need to be addressed to augment the service offering.

Citation:

Alida Gothan and Aletta C Erasmus (2008) ,"Customers’ Evaluation of the Service Quality of the Appliance Sales Departments of Retail Stores in a South African Context", in LA - Latin American Advances in Consumer Research Volume 2, eds. Claudia R. Acevedo, Jose Mauro C. Hernandez, and Tina M. Lowrey, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 61-70.