Effects of Retail Employees' Behaviours on Customers' Service Evaluation

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test a conceptual model of the effects of customer and service orientation behaviours of individual retail employees on individual customers’ perceptions of service encounter quality, service quality, value, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions.
Design/methodology/approach – The sample (n = 271) was customers of a supermarket in Central India, and they completed questionnaires following mall intercept. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modelling using LISREL 8.7 was employed.
Findings – 1) service and customer orientation behaviours are positively related to service encounter quality and service quality, 2) service encounter quality is positively related to service quality and customer satisfaction; 3) service quality is positively related to value perceptions and customer satisfaction; and 4) customer satisfaction is positively related to retail customers’ behavioural intentions. However, value is not related to customer satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications – More research is needed on customer perceptions of value in non-Western contexts and service evaluation frameworks in other cross-cultural contexts
Practical implications – Retail managers need to train or select retail personnel that are able to perform their roles in a service oriented and customer oriented way, and value does not appear to be as important to Indian retail customers as it is to Western retail customers.
Originality/value – This study extends current service evaluation frameworks by including service orientation and customer orientation as antecedents, and it analyses an Indian retail context.

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ORCID for Andrew Farrell: orcid.org/0000-0002-5903-3611

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