Monitoring Service Gaps Part I - Examining Customer’s Expectations OfAdequacy And Superiority In Hong Kong Apparel Merchandising Business

Abstract

The function of an apparel merchandising office in Hong Kong is to act as an agent or a representative for international apparel buyers to develop, source and procure large volume of regional textile and apparel products. This sort of offices conventionally provides professionoriented services, much characterized by high degree of buyer-interaction and professional identity. Because of its nature of individualism and operational autonomy, the apparel merchandising offices are seeking a novel concept of monitoring and improving their service performance to retain their international buyers. In this paper, we discussed a case study in which a Hong Kong-based Australian merchandising office adopted an instrument to measure and analyze its provision of quality service. The instrument evolved and was refined pertaining to the well-known “Servqual” model, that measured service quality on the customer’s expectation-discrepancy basis. The result findings provided specific and proximate evidence for the office to assess the service quality levels and diagnose the potential service gaps, from the perspectives of buyers’ perceptions and expectations in use of apparel merchandising services. The research also provided insights for today’s management of professional merchandising service to achieve a more meaningful service excellence.