Impact of Total Quality Management on Customer Satisfaction in the Retail Sector: Case of indigenous Supermarkets in Botswana.

Abstract

The study sought to investigate the impact of Total Quality Management on customer satisfaction on indigenous supermarkets in Botswana. In today’ s contemporary business environment, customers no longer tolerate poor or average quality of products or services, leading organizations to seek ways to overcome the problem of mediocre quality of service and product. Total Quality Management is one of the prominent quality improvement practices, whose goal is total dedication and commitment to nonstop process of improving the quality and productivity of organizations. The objectives of the study were to identify service quality attributes to invest in order to enhance customer satisfaction, to determine the impact of total of TQM on customer satisfaction and finally to determine the relationship between service quality attribute and customer satisfaction.  To achieve the objectives, the researcher integrates the famous Servqual scale into Kano Model to bridge the gap between marketing and total quality management. A sample of 128 respondents was randomly chosen from ten indigenous supermarkets in Gaborone, Botswana. The Profusion method was employed to get reliable robust results and identify service quality attributes which indigenous supermarkets should invest into in order to compete competitively in the retail sector. The Consumers Satisfaction index was also employed to measure the extent of service quality attributes that evoke customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction respectively. SPSS version 20 was used to compute the regression and correlation coefficients to determine the relationship between TQM and customer satisfaction. The results obtained in the study suggest that TQM has a significant on customer satisfaction and where it is not implemented customer dissatisfaction lever increases as in the case of indigenous supermarkets in Botswana. Indigenous supermarkets need to have quality as one of its strategic focus and make quality the focus of every employee. Indigenous supermarkets must stop buying and selling generic brands. They also need to continuously engage its customers in order to understand their needs and develop TQM goals and strategies based on customer needs. In order to realize the full benefits of TQM, indigenous supermarkets should invest in employee empowerment and involvement. Continuous improvement is a must for indigenous supermarkets and to achieve this goal employee training and development should be part of indigenous supermarkets’ core business.

Key words: Total Quality Management, Customer Satisfaction, Servqual model, Kano model.