A Comparative Study of Consumers’ Perceptions of Service Quality of Customer Services in German and British Hypermarkets

Abstract

This exploratory study aims to execute a cross-national comparison of perceived service qualities of 15 selected customer services in hypermarkets in Germany and the United Kingdom by using an adapted version of SERVQUAL. Between the German and the British consumer samples, similarities predominantly occur for the levels of importance in terms of rank order, whereas differences are mainly apparent in the average evaluations per customer service as well as in the perceptions of overall service qualities. These differences and similarities can be traced back to economic and cultural aspects; however, managers’ assumptions about consumers’ levels of importance are also responsible for the degrees of perceived service qualities – mainly when these are negative. Therefore, it is concluded that store managers to carry out more consumer surveys to be better informed about consumers’ requirements.