Developing a service quality scale in context of organized grocery retail of India

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to check the reliability and validity of a well-acknowledged scale developed by Pratibha A. Dabholkar (1996) in the context of Indian organized grocery retail and also to identify new aspects of service quality with respect to grocery retail from literature that have not been taken into account in earlier studies and to finally develop a new scale to measure service quality of organized retail grocery stores with consultation from several experts. Design/methodology/approach: In order to achieve the objectives of the research, both descriptive and exploratory research designs have been employed such that a survey of 800 respondents was undertaken as part of descriptive research whereas exploratory research was conducted to add new dimensions to the existing service quality measurement model so as to develop a new comprehensive scale. Findings: The results of the study suggest that all the five dimensions of Dabholkar’s model are not suitable to measure service quality in Indian organized grocery retail stores. Therefore, a new instrument with total four dimensions has been developed. Practical implications: The study is of great importance for the retailers as it offers a more comprehensive and specific scale to measure service quality of organized grocery retail stores. Originality/value: This research supports and makes contribution to the previous research on development of service quality measurement scales in Indian context.