Customer Satisfaction in Retailing Sector: A Gap Analysis

The financial reforms initiated in the year 1991 posed a lot of challenges before the Indian Retail sector. One of the major challenges that is faced by the Indian retail sector deals with customer satisfaction and loyalty. Today the customers have become more aware and rational in their approach than ever before. Formulation of marketing strategies in order to attract more and more customers is now becoming a key survival for every participant in the retail sector. Therefore, the current study is an attempt to find out gap between expected and perceived satisfaction level of customers in retail sector. For the purpose of the current study, data was collected through primary sources by framing a structured questionnaire based upon Retail Service Quality Scale by Dabholkar et al., 1996. In order to analyze the collected data, Gap Analysis and t-test have been employed. The results of the study bring out the major differences in customers' expectations and perceptions in retail sector thus showing dissatisfaction among these customers.