This is to help the writer to get a better understanding of the subject and what I’m trying to achieve. I will also attach my proposal from last year for the writer to look at:
Please Please it has to be someone who as knowledge in the area of strategies and marketing and management and where English is their first language.
My research proposal was on customer perception of service quality in the small and medium size independent retail sector looking at predominately family run grocery/convenience stores. It was to look at how customers perceive the quality of service provided by their local grocery/convenience stores as they can’t always compete on price with the likes of supermarkets therefore differentiating themselves through service quality is how they try and gain an advantage. I predominately looked at the SERVQUAL model and talked about that in my proposal in order to help owners/managers of the grocery/convenience stores to improve service quality so they can gain a competitive advantage.
But also remember where you’re local Grocery/convenience stores are now much more than a place where you buy your daily milk and bread, but compelling enough for one to do their weekly shopping as they provide a personal service as they know their customers by name, know what they like, they are demographically placed making it easier for older people to have access and go out of the way to help them select their groceries, therefore looking at how they engage with them as they are much more than a faceless person at the till but have built up a relationship, interpersonal skills and intangibles which has so much more value such as brand loyalty & know what they are going to buy. Where they have used a raft of different innovations, such as branding, store layout, lighting, opening hours. Also in times of change how they look to improve service quality to customers, where excellent customer service should be the priority and making sure customer needs are met, leading to satisfaction where customers perceive the service to be high and thus return showing loyalty.
I am now doing my dissertation where my supervisor has stated that I cannot just look at quality of perception in isolation; I need to contextualise it around where grocery/convenience stores have been pro-active in strategies to improve quality in service. So there is a need to understand what that is before one can go on and talk about the perception of it: Therefore my first research question should be to map the strategic change towards quality in grocery/convenience stores. Where it is time dependent something that has happened in the last decade and see if anybody has been writing about strategy in this sector, any current models that can help us to understand that change. Is it all to do with marketing & branding, or to do with supply chain discounted products or a broader range of services, or targeted group, where lots of different innovations have been used which also includes technology. Also how they use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to analyse what customers buy over time or what the best products are. All helping them to gain competitive advantage through crm and service quality.
And hence in my Literature review I need to critically analyse strategies for service quality that lead to competitive advantage in a broader context. Where I have been told: you are looking at strategies for service quality that leads to competitive advantage. The convenience store issue is not particularly an issue for the literature review as it is designed to look at the academic output on strategies for service quality in general.
I would really appreciate it if the writer could start the introduction something along the lines as: saying how quality in service is fast becoming important to retailer due to high competition in the market. Then go on to say: This chapter will firstly define service quality concepts by looking at quality and what it means, critically review relevant literature on strategies for service quality which leads to competitive advantage for the retailer. and therefore the literature will help to look at key writers in helping to understand strategies so on. Secondly to analyse key themes, allowing the reader to understand how retailers can differentiate through service quality…………
As I will be interviewing 5 small to medium size owner/managers of grocery/ convenience stores to see what strategies they use for service quality to help them gain a competitive advantage in customer service.
– So firstly the Literature Review: Cites key relevant writers using a mixer of books but mostly journal articles
– Includes current literature, 5 years or less but up to the year 2000 can be used and if need be older ones ONLY if it is relevant to the subject and nothing else can be found such as key theorists, like when using Porter’s Generic Strategy, or talking about Parasuraman et al……
– Critically comments on the literature, does not simply repeat what the authors wrot
This is a 3500 +/ – 10% critical literature review; also to make sure it is the Harvard referencing style and to make sure if in the literature review you use a direct quote to use double quotation marks and cite author, year and Page no. for example, Saunders et al 2007:12 denoting page no. but if you have just paraphrased a sentence a sentence then use Saunders et al, 2007. And in the ref. list to make sure you put pp. 70-85. To make sure the journals used are credible and easy to locate. Would like the writer to use 75-80 references where some can be repeat.
And to follow this layout
2.1 Introduction
2.2 service quality concepts: Where you define what quality is and what it means to different people. The end of each paragraph must link with the next subject e.g. Therefore to be able to provide quality within the service industry, managers need to know how to manage the quality of the service provided with regards to service quality. Then go onto 2.2.1 Service Quality Definition and go onto define what that is
2.2.1 Service Quality Definition- and its importance and how it helps one gain competitive advantage and so on…………
2.3 Service Quality Strategies- what is strategy/strategies why does one need strategies its importance to service quality something like how it can help open up new markets or differentiate from others through new products or services in order to help again gain competitive advantage through differentiation and so on……..
2.3.1 Porters Generic Strategy- diagram of model and then talk about cost leadership and differentiation strategy……….. finish of by saying something maybe like this alone will not be enough so organisations have to incorporate a raft of innovations such as different strategies :marketing strategies, CRM strategies and other service quality strategies…………
2.3.2 Marketing Strategies- what it is, may be how it can help add value therefore help meet customer needs leading to customer satisfaction by understanding customers wants and needs but also say how maybe internal marketing is just as important interaction of employee and customer.
2.3.3 Customer Relationship Management – what it is and why it is important how it can help retailers target customers in order to retain customers and how it can help in improving maybe service quality on the lines of something like that
Not sure what to go on talk about after this may be look at other strategies such as how technology helps or other marketing strategies and the last section finish off with maybe customer satisfaction or loyalty…… This is just an outline or template for the writer to follow but I’m hoping they will have a better understanding of service quality if their area is management and strategies therefore is free to lay it out how they see fit. All references must be credible writers and use a good source of journal article where they see fit backing up with good examples. Thankyou….. I really need my Literature review to be of good quality.
MY Area of subject is Man