The unique characteristic of store retailing implies that parameters that define service quality in retailing differ from any other service (Finn and Lamb, 1991; Gagliano and Hathcote 1994). As such measures developed for measuring service quality in pure service setups would fail to work in retail store context. Realizing the need for investigating the dimensions of service quality in retail stores and developing a scale to measure retail service quality, Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, Dabholkar et al. (1996) developed the RSQS, a multi-item scale measuring five dimensions of retail service quality. This scale included 28 items, 17 of which came from the existing SERVQUAL scale and the remaining 11 items from the researchers’ qualitative work. They argued that those items could be grouped into the five dimensions shown in Table 2. And they used only performance-based measures instead of the gap between perceptions and expectations used in the SERVQUAL model, because evidence indicated that perception-based measures had stronger predictive power than SERVQUAL’s gap score approach (e.g. Cronin & Taylor 1992; McAlexander, Kaldenberg & Koenig 1994).
The two instruments are similar in some ways but different along important dimensions. For the RSQS, the physical aspect dimension includes not only the appearance of the physical facilities but also the convenience of store layout and public areas (e.g. fitting rooms). The reliability dimension is similar to the SERVQUAL reliability dimension and involves the store’s ability to keep promises and do things ‘right’.
The personal interaction dimension is a combination of the SERVQUAL scale dimensions of responsiveness and assurance. Problem solving was a new dimension proposed by Dabholkar et al. (1996), which measured the store’s ability to handle problems or even potential problems. The last dimension – policy – was also a new dimension added to address the influence of store policies on service quality. The RSQS model has been applied to numerous studies of retail management. Dabholkar et al. (1996) have found that, compared to the SERVQUAL model, the RSQS model had a better fit in retail service businesses, possibly because the SERVQUAL model is a general service quality perception model while the RSQS model focused only on retail service. Especially when tested with department store customers in the US, their scale demonstrated strong validity and reliability scores as a measure of retail service quality.
Searching for a Valid Measure of Retail Service Quality
Despite the inherent limitations, which mar both SERVQUAL and RSQS rendering them less effective measures of retail service quality, the absence of any credible alternative has resulted in the SERVQUAL and RSQS instruments being widely applied for measuring service quality in the retail environment. It therefore becomes imperative for researchers to either come up with alternative measures of retail service quality or to suggest modifications to SERVQUAL and/or RSQS so as to make them effective tools for measuring service quality of retail stores. Since the development of a new measure of retail service quality is beyond the scope of the present paper, an attempt has been made to suggest modifications that would help in refining the present scales so that they may be pronounced as valid, accurate and acceptable measures of service quality across different retail formats in cross-cultural, cross-national studies. 不要机译~谢谢