Service quality at selected fashion retail stores in the Greater Durban Area

Abstract

The interest of service quality in the fashion industry has grown over the last decade due to increasing competition, new fashion trends and new designs. This has led managers to finding ways of improving profitability. One area of interest is service quality and how it affects customer satisfaction and its impact on the bottom line, which is why ascertaining service quality at selected fashion retail stores in the Greater Durban Area is significant. The purpose of this study is to examine the expectations and perceptions of customers in the selected fashion retail stores in the Greater Durban Area. The focus of the study is based on the measurement of the service quality dimensions and the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction in order to generate quality models of the Selected Fashion Retail Stores. This study focuses on the determination of customers’ expectations and perceptions of service quality in the SFRS in the Greater Durban Area. The main objective is to ascertain the level of service quality in the selected retail fashion stores in the Greater Durban Area. The study was descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional in nature, probing the effect of service quality on customers’ satisfaction. From the findings of this study, the fashion retail stores can identify specific failures in their service quality and seek to improve them. Service quality dimensions that appear to be good predictors of service quality for customers of the SFRS offering have been related to factors such as the “Tangibility”, Reliability”, “Responsiveness”, “Assurance” and “Empathy”. It is hoped that the results obtained from this study will aid these fashion stores in adopting practical customer service quality measures that will assist them to succeed in the highly competitive fashion industry.