A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration, School of Management

Research Studies Project Report (M.B.A.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2000

The fast development in Vietnam within five years back from now has made the retailing industry become more competitive and dynamic. The competitive priority has trend to move from price to product quality to service quality today. Therefore, the major objectives of the research is to identify the gaps and differences between retailer staff view points (self-service department store) and customer viewpoints on the importance of attributes for customer and customer perception of attributes. The research, then, suggests possible reason for these gaps and differences. Final is to make some recommendation to improve service quality in self-service department store. These objectives were achieved through combination of exploratory survey, customer survey, staff survey, indepth interview with manager, discussion with selected staff and qualitative and comparative analysis methods. Basically the research has fulfilled the original objectives. From the findings and analysis, the research propose three steps to improving service quality for the store. The first step is to implement the change in approach and policy toward service quality. This step aim at ensuring that, things got done in the right obit and the store gets the common harmony. The second step is to determine what should be done in current context and environment. This step to ensure that the best competitive priority, service specification, service delivery specification, direction and new opportunity will be defined and followed. The third step is to determine what should be done to translate the goal, direction in service quality into operation. The step aims at ensure that the right action will be taken