Offering quality service in retail is highly imperative for retailers, as competition is getting stiffer day-by-day and customers are becoming more demanding and discerning. Creating unique customer experience is essential for retailers to woo customers and retain them in the long run. If the service quality is good, the probability of customers remaining loyal and patronizing a store through word-of-mouth is high. Hence, retailers should focus on improving customer service quality by carefully analyzing the perception and expectation of customers towards the store on various dimensions of retail service quality, and taking appropriate actions to improve the situation.

In the era of shorter product life cycles, faster imitation, and rapid commoditization, creating unique customer experience proves to be a real value creator and differentiator for the customers and the store. Take a cursory glance at the retail outlets around us today. All seem alike from both inside and outside. Swanky shopping complexes, sophisticated interiors, glitzy ambience, mellifluous background music, glamorous lighting, proliferation of brands and offers, form the common features of many outlets today. One can hardly make out any difference between two stores, which are alike on these platforms. Then, what could be the real differentiator? It is the people inside the store and the quality of customer service that ultimately keeps customers coming to a shop again and again. When customers are treated the way they expect them to be treated (as they are emotional beings), then the probability of their visiting and patronizing the store is higher. They also become the store's advocates who market the store to others through word-of-mouth.

Since quality customer service plays a pivotal role in influencing shopping behavior, retailers should know and understand the tools that are available for measuring service quality in the context of retailing. This article explores some of the tools for measuring retail service quality, and the means for diagnosing the validity and relevancy of these tools in the context of Indian retail. The article also throws light on the five dimensions (related to the five Ps of retail service) for measuring retail service quality.

India is the fifth largest retail destination in the world and is expected to grow to $573 bn by 2012-13. According to A T Kearney's eighth Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), India is one of the most attractive emerging markets for investments in the retail sector. The Indian retail sector accounts for 10% of country's GDP and 8% of employment. A report titled "Booming Retail Sector in India" published in 2008 by market research and analytics company, RNCOS, had predicted that organized retailing in India would reach $50 bn by 2011. However, organized retailing is still in a nascent stage in India compared to that in many other countries. It accounts for only 5% of the total retail market in India, though it is expected to grow to 6-7% by 2012-13.

Marketing Mastermind Magazine, Indian Retail, Rapid Commoditization, Customer Service, Global Retail Development Index, Emerging Markets, Organized Retailing, Indian Retail Market, Global Financial Crisis, Urbanization, Foreign Direct Investment, Brand Retailing, Indian Business Houses, Foreign Companies, Customer Satisfaction.