Measuring Customer Satisfaction with the Sporting Goods Trade - Essay Example

?Table of Contents INTRODUCTION TO PROBLEM OUTLINE 2 2. AIM & OBJECTIVES 2 3. ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND 2 4. LITERATURE REVIEW 3 6. METHOD 5 6 Questionnaire Design 5 6.2. Sample Selection 5 6.3. Data Collection 5 6.4. Data Analysis 6 7. TIMESCALE 6 8. LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH 6 Appendix 1: Research Onion Appendix 2: Learning Style Assessment Appendix 3: Building Blocks of Deductive Approach Appendix 4: Project Plan Appendix 5: Market Research Society Principles Appendix 6: Philosophy Table Appendix 7: Research Ethics Form Appendix 8: Participant Information Sheet Appendix 9: Consent Form 1. INTRODUCTION TO PROBLEM OUTLINE Sportswear retailing is a diverse and fairly fragmented market. Even though at a slower rate, sports retailing chains are showing a steady growth over the years. Retailers are looking for introducing new formats in business along with increasing the number of stores. Independent sports retailers like Sports Direct have established their place in the market and managed to gain major share in the markets. The research focuses on analysis of customer satisfaction in sports retailing concentrating on Sportsdirect.com in Liverpool One. Companies are in a situation where it is no longer enough to satisfy the customers, they need to delight customers. The simple way to measure customer satisfaction is by taking surveys. A successful survey begins with a good questionnaire, and a good questionnaire is built from the customer’s point of view (Horovitz, 1990). 2. AIM & OBJECTIVES The aim and objectives of this research are to: Measure the customer satisfaction in sports retailing, focusing on Sportsdirect.com in Liverpool One. To find out about satisfied and dissatisfied customers and based on this, put forward suggestions for the improvement and to better serve customers and retain them. To make generalisations about the customer satisfaction in sports retailing sector. The researcher will collect quantitative data from the customers of Sports Direct for the analysis. This will be done using a survey in the form of a questionnaire and will be analysed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) to develop statistically relevant information. The report is relevant not only for Sports Direct but also for all other sports goods retailing industries as customer satisfaction is at the root of customer retention and in effectively raising the bar on the firm’s future profitability. 3. ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND Sports Direct International Plc was established in 1982. It is now UK’s number one sports retailer with annual turnover exceeding well over ?1 billion. (Sports Direct Annual Report, 2008). They acquired a lot of companies during their race to success and have around 375 stores in UK and around 60 global stores. They focus on growing UK retail business by continue to drive efficiencies and delivering outstanding value to customers (Sports Direct Website, 2011). Moreover, a significant percentage of Sportdirect.com customers are online clients and manage to get the cushion of market leadership by differentiating themselves from rival firms who manufacture and sell sports goods using the discount-based competition market strategy. 4. LITERATURE REVIEW In the current business world, customer care has a major influence on a company’s long term profitability. Cook (2000) categorises clients as the premise of business and as the element that keeps business alive. The knowledge, attitudes, educational background, and cultural and social environment of an individual have got a major role in moulding his perspectives (Antonides & Raaij, 1998). A well-educated and well-informed customer of the present era has had a clear understanding of standards he expects and this makes it more complicated. As a result, there is considerable attention being taken into account of maintaining relationship between the service providers and customers (Barnes, 1997; Reinartz & Kumar, 2002; Coulter & Coulter, 2002). The bygone twenty years has seen the growing up of relationship marketing as the pivot of business strategy (Egan, 2008) Besides, a lot of factors acted as a driving force for its emergence. Some of them include fast growth of service economy along with enhanced competition (Lehtinen, 1996), escalating breakup of markets(Palmer,2002,Shani& Chalasani,1992,Bennet & Wel,2006) and discrete buying preferences, lower life product cycle and impact of information technology on service delivery (Bitner, 2001; Kandampully, 2002).Quality of service has been recognized as a major difference maker and it has developed as the most potent spirited arms which any enterprise could own. (Berry et al., 1988). Gronroos (1978) points out three dimensions in service quality and they are termed as technological quality, functional quality and corporate representation. The result of the services rendered is the main mover in technological quality, while functional quality is gained through interacation between provider and customers. The third element is the corporate representation and is bothered about the views on service, technological and empirical qualities, pricing, outside messaging, looks and the competencies and conduct of the employees. In contrast, Parasuraman et al (1988) detailed service quality on the basis of five counts- that is, reality, dependability, receptivity, guarantee and understanding. Concrete action comprises of the physical infra structure and looks. Dependability is the competence to deliver the promised service ably and well. Receptivity is the ability and eagerness to help clients. Assertion is the knowledge and competence of workforce to increase belief and aplomb and finally understanding is the notice provided to the clients. Customer satisfaction is the most important objective for any organisation. Customer play crucial role in organisational structures. Promoting customer satisfaction aims to promote customer loyalty. Loyalty can never be considered as an isolated task; rather it is an integral part of every business management configuration (Linton, 1993, Gremler & Brown, 1996). Researchers calculate the cost of recruiting a fresh customer as five times more than the cost of preserving an existing customer (Barsky, 1994; Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). All the more, there are major values resident in making and sustaining and affording the nexus with clients as it affords to improve and enhance the conviction and loyalty that customers maintain toward the enterprise. (Sheaves & Barnes, 1996). The superior levels of trust and commitment in turn are linked with higher levels of customer retention and without doubt, organisational profitability (Crutchfield, 2001). Also, employees play a major role in retaining the customers by shaping the services. Alternatively, from a customer’s perspective, a sustained nexus with the service givers reduces risks, makes choices easier to make and affords a sense of optimum satisfaction to clients.(Gremler & Brown,1996) Retailing is the management of resources to supply the product and services for the customers, including supply chain and the exchange processes (Davies, 1993). In retailing industry, customer is more likely to maintain relationship with individuals and company itself rather than with consumer goods.(Bendapudi & Berry,1997; Parasuraman,2002).Thus relationship marketing in the retail trade could be said to be the nexus customers enforce with enterprises, specific branches, stores, units or with separate sales officers.(Beatty et al 1996).Berry (1986) differentiates that many profitable goods retailer separates themselves, not through the similar kinds of goods they hawk, but through the kind of service which they offer. Besides, large competition in the retail trade constrained retailers to maintain high quality standards (Zhao et al., 2002). Besides, these concepts of positive viewpoints of a retailer providing high quality could be changed to attitudes of the kind of quality of products provided to consumers (Kerin et al., 1992) 5. METHODOLOGY The major two research philosophy approaches are interpretivist (or enomenologist); in which qualitative analysis is used and the second one is positivist; in which quantitative analysis is used. The data will be collected and a thorough analysis of the data based on the reality of the situation would be done. Quantitative analysis helps in summarising these data and to reach generalisations based on sets and analysis. The key is to knowing how and where to collect relevant information and how to combine separate pieces into a rational profile (Ghauri & Gronhaug, 2005). Even though Guba and Lincoln (1994) argues both in terms of qualitative and quantitative methods may be used appropriately with any research paradigm; being a positivist, the researcher is more tend to quantitative methods. Quantitative methods aim to reduce ambiguity through transforming perceptions into pre-structured, quantifiable categories (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000). Hence, the researcher will be using surveys as the research strategy. A cross-sectional time horizon is chosen by the researcher as this is an academic thesis having a limited time period and this method is more suitable for questionnaire surveys. Moreover, the researcher is aiming to present a report concerning the customer expectation and customer satisfaction and a cross-sectional method is preferable for this. The results in a qualitative approach could be biased according to the relationship between the researcher and the people taking part in it, hence it is subjective (Bryman & Bell, 2004). Moreover, it is often criticised for its unsystematic approach. And these make it difficult to replicate the conclusions on another occasion. However in the case of quantitative analysis, as cited by Saunders et al. (2000) and Gill & Johnson (1997), ‘in positivism there will be an emphasis on a highly structured methodology to facilitate replication’. 6. METHOD Generally, customer satisfaction research tries to explore and identify the likely characteristics that might influence the satisfaction, either positively or negatively. The researcher is planning to use a self administrated, cross sectional survey. The following methods are used for data collection in this research. 6.1. Questionnaire Design As in a deductive method, the questionnaire will be developed in a theoretical basis. Hence to collect the data for testing the hypotheses, the questions will be designed in such a way as to measure the relationship strength, service quality, trust, customer loyalty, and commitment. The initial questions will be simple direct questions to tick in such as age, gender,employment or freelancing and so on. Then, there will be questions aiming at understanding customer perspective and the relationship the customer maintains with the store. For this purpose, questions with Likert Scale answers will be included. This will be carefully done to include the most appropriate and least appropriate answers at the opposite extremes and a neutral answer in the centre. 6.2. Sample Selection The respondents of this survey will be the actual customers of Sports Direct in Liverpool One. The sample for the survey will be selected from the large customer base by using a simple random sampling procedure. Each member of the population has equal chance in a simple random method. The main advantage of this method is ideal for statistical purposes. The researcher is aiming to do the research associating around 200 to 250 respondents. The attitudes and perceptions of the customers are assumed to reflect the shopping experience and satisfaction rate. 6.3. Data Collection Respondents will be approached in the premises of Sportsdirect store in Liverpool One, and will be asked to participate on the spot. If agreed, a self administrated questionnaire will be given to the respondent to fill up on the spot. Assistance will be provided by the researcher if needed. On completion, the questionnaire will be collected and will be thanked. If not agreed, the researcher will continue to the next customer. But according to opinions of industrialists, only 50% of customers will be willing to co-operate. So (as a contingency plan) if the researcher found it difficult to reach the required number of responses, the customer will be given the choice of filling it in his/her free time and in that case a reply paid envelope will be attached to the questionnaire. Secondary data will be collected from journal articles, books, websites and newspapers which are available online and from the learning resource centres of the University. 6.4. Data Analysis The data collected using questionnaires will be analysed using SPSS. Tests will be performed in this software by selecting relevant scales and coding words in numbers. Then, the analysis of data will be performed by the program and statistical results will be produced. Appropriate graphs and charts will also be generated and used for easy understanding and examination of the results. A T-test analysis will be carried out for the comparison of the means. A probability value of Read More