Observational Research:
You will explore another aspect of qualitative research in this assignment. Observational research is a necessary skill that all marketing managers should possess. Pretend that you are a “secret shopper,” and you must prepare a report for store executives about the quality of service that you received during your shopping experience in the stores. Your first step is to shop the Web site, then go to the store and assess the quality of service that a customer receives. It is not necessary to buy anything, but you should ask employees questions.
Part I: Shopper Observations
For each store, compare its Web presence to that of the brick-and-mortar location. Complete the following:
Create a rating system that can be used to make comparisons.
Describe the differences or similarities in the way that each makes you feel and the different processes that are used by each in displaying, selling, and closing a purchase.
What are the consistencies and inconsistencies that you found in your comparisons?
This section of the paper should be 1 page.
Part 2: Analysis
Answer the following questions:
Which image is being portrayed in the brick-and-mortar stores?
Does this fit the segmentation strategy (in Week 1, you researched the area demographics)?
Which store is the most successful, and why? Provide your rationale.
Use the small set of data that was collected from the brand-loyal customers of store 1 and store 2 (in your Unit 2, IP Template ZIP file) to complete the following:
Write a null hypothesis and an alternate hypothesis for each of the 4 aspects of service quality that are included in the analysis (assurance, empathy, reliability, and responsiveness) to see if there is a difference between the stores.
Run 4 independent sample t-tests to test the null hypotheses.
State the decision for each of the SSPS tests.
This section of the paper should be 2 pages. Be sure to cite your resources.
Part 3: Recommendations
Research service quality using articles in the library’s full-text databases. Support your suggestions in today’s changing retail environment using what you learned about service quality.
What improvements would you suggest to corporate leaders to heighten the consumer experience at each store? Be sure to use your t-test findings. Make at least 3 suggestions for each store.
This section of the paper should be 2 pages and must use research from your course text and the library’s full-text databases.