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Services Management

Notes 8. Perceived quality: Consumers develop a perception due to company-controlled stimuli
like advertising, publicity and brand promotion, and social effects like word-of-mouth.
A Parasuraman et al.: Parasuraman, Valerie Zeithaml and Leonard Berry identified five
dimensions with which consumers judge services.
1. Reliability: The service should be performed with dependability, and as per its promise.
2. Responsiveness: This concerns the attitude of the service provider to be willing to provide
service. It also includes their sensitivity as well as timeliness in responding to customer
requests.
3. Assurance: This relates to the knowledge, skill and competence of the service providers. It
also indicates their ability to generate trust and faith, and also capability in service delivery
with politeness and consideration.
4. Empathy: This dimension relates to caring, feeling as well as the ability to give personalised
service.
5. Tangibles: This is a measure of the effectiveness of the physical evidence of the service
provider like design layout and facilities.

Case Study Case: Central Bazaar

Measuring Quality of Intangibles and Experiences
Central Bazaar is a popular upcoming direct-to-home shopping service in South India. It
offers goods and services ranging from provisions, home maintenance, groceries, toiletries,
beauty, health and home deliveries, exchanges, etc. Its service was offered initially to the
residents of New Delhi and Gurgaon, and then went on to include other towns.
It was a bold new experiment in electronic retailing format, tried for the first time in India,
where customers ordered for their merchandise either through the net or the telephone. A
24-hour service delivery concept, it involved selling branded goods at a one per cent
discount to maximum retail price (MRP), and unbranded goods at a five per cent discount
to existing rates. Central Bazaar was cautious in using the web as an exclusive method for
taking order, following the bust of dotcoms in 2000 and the bad name that e-commerce
had earned. In addition, it set up call centers, which became the mainstay for receiving
orders, and which was more in the comfort zone of the housewives.
The Central Bazaar model, then, was that of an online Kirana store, where the line was
defined as telephone as well as website. The ‘store’ did not have an outlet where customers
could come and shop; instead, all orders were to be booked through the phone or its
website, with the company promising 24-hour delivery.

The Process of Ordering from Central Bazaar: The customer has to call up the call centre.
There is a very efficient and trained team, at the service of the customers, ready to take
down their orders. Here, Information Technology has helped the call centre to a great
extent. Central Bazaar has a system where the call centre, the warehouse and the dispatch
centre are all well integrated with each other. There is effective and efficient flow of
information across all these levels.
All the products that are available with Central Bazaar are stored in a database, complete
with the recent prices and quantity and also the promotions carried out by different
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