INTRODUCTION

Significance of the Study

We all need to visit a pharmacy or drug store at least occasionally due to an

injury, disease or just to stock up on vitamin & other supplements. The Pharmacy &

Drug Store Franchises market consists of neighbourhood pharmacies, large domestic or

global drug store chains, supermarkets, retailers with specific drug store departments

and various pharmacy chains. The Pharmacy & Drug Store Franchises market serves

its clients a range of prescription & over-the-counter medicines, toiletries, beauty

products & other forms of consumable goods. The players involved in this industry are

not independent but exactly like other retailers that operate under franchise

agreements. The terms & conditions specified in the franchise agreement govern how

these stores operate. While drug stores & pharmacies are ubiquitous, the competition

in the industry is extremely intense as retailers have to adapt to rapidly changing trends

around the world and seek to enhance customer loyalty. There has been rapid growth in

the 21st century in the Pharmacy & Drug Store Franchises market.

The long term success of organizations depends on many factors. The service

sector organizations need to strive through service quality. These organizations try to

satisfy customers by providing best quality services. Quality is considered to be main

determinant of customers' satisfaction in both manufacturing and service quality. As this

research is restricted to service sector and further to drugstore retail industry, only those
variables are taken that proved to be dimensions of service quality. The five dimensions

identified as part of the construct service quality are; tangibles, empathy, reliability,

responsiveness, and assurance found satisfied customers of retail sector have high

extent of usage and intentions to repurchase in future. Those firms expecting to create

and sustain advantages over competitors in this market should be seeking to deliver a

superior and service quality.

Objectives

The major objective of this study is to find out the gap between customers perception

and expectation of the customer about the service rendered by the drugstores.

Specifically, it will obtain to:

1. To know the expectation regarding service quality in drugstore of Kidapawan

City.

2. to look into the perception of customers regarding service quality in drugstore of

Kidapawan City.

3. to evaluate the gap between the expected and actual service quality in drugstore

of Kidapawan City.

Expected Output

1. the expectation regarding service quality in drugstores of Kidapawan City.

2. the perception of customers regarding service quality in drugstores of

Kidapawan City.
 3. the gap between the expected and actual service quality in drugstores of

Kidapawan City.

Scope and Limitations

The study focus only on determining customers expectation and

perception towards drugstores in Kidapawan City in order to increase the

understanding of customer perception and expectation. The study will only be limited

to the household of Kidapawan City.

Place and Time of the Study

This study will be conduct to the customer of drugstores at Kidapawan City from

October to December 2018.

Operational Definition of Terms

Assurance refers to a positive declaration intended to give confidence; a

promise, confidence or certainty in one's own abilities, insurance, specific and

something is true or will happen, you say that it is definitely true or will definitely

happen, in order to make them feel less.

Customer refers to an individual or business that purchases the goods or

services produced by a business.

Drugstore refers to a store that sells medicines and usually other goods, esp.

products relating to cleaning and caring for the body

Empathy refers to caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.

Expectation refers to a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in

the future.

Perception refers to the process by which a customer selects, organizes, and

interprets information/stimuli inputs to create a meaningful picture of the brand or

the product.

Reliability refers to the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service

Responsiveness refers to the speed with which the response is produced.

Satisfaction refers to the act of fulfilling a need, desire, or appetite, or the feeling

gained from such fulfillment.

Service Quality refers to an area of study that has developed to define and

describe how services can be delivered in such a manner as to

satisfy the customer.

Tangible is refers to a thing that is perceptible by touch.

.
Theoretical framework

Service quality has widely been discussed since 20th century and its idea is still

relevant to help today organizations in creating differentiation and gaining competitive

advantage in an era of borderless world and globalization [Ali et al. 2016, Fotaki 2015,

(Karatepe 2016]. In a quality management literature, service quality is often seen as a

multi-dimensional construct. For example, Nordic school of thought suggests that

effective service quality should have two important dimensions, namely technical quality

(i.e., what customers' received from services provided by an organization) and

functional quality (i.e., how an organization delivers services to customers) [Brady &

Cronin 2001, Gronroos 1994]. Later, the service quality construct has been modified

and simplified by US school of thought where it proposes that effective service quality

should have five specific dimensions, namely tangible (physical facilities, equipment,

and appearance of workers), reliability (ability to perform the promised service

dependably and accurately), responsiveness (willingness to help customer and provide

prompt service), assurance (knowledge and courtesy of workers and their abilities to

inspire trust and confidence), and empathy (caring, individualized attention the

organization provides its customers) [Ismail, Rose & Foboy, 2016, Baldwin & Sohal

2003, Parasuraman, Berry & Zeithaml 1991, 1994, Wan Edura & Jusoff 2009].

However, these quality school of thoughts have different perspectives, the source

of their ideas are developed based on individual attitudes and perceptions [Sriram,

Chintagunta & Machanda 2015, Yuen & Thai 2015]. This view believes that service

quality is an important outcome of comparison between customer expectations before

and after their experience of the service [Gronroos 2007]. If customers view that their
expectations for service performance conform their perceptions of the service, this

situation may lead to induce the notion of service quality [Gronroos 2007, Kitapci,

Akdogan & Dortyol 2014, Zeithaml 1988]. Customer satisfaction is broadly defined as

a difference between customers' expectations and experience performance after using

a service and/or product at a certain period [Azman, Ilyani Ranlan et al. 2016, Mosahab,

Mahamad & Ramayah 2010]. by psychological bond and hold favourable attitudes

toward a good or toward the organization supplying the goods or services [Deng et al.

2010, Gede Mahatma Yuda Bakti & Sumaedi 2013, Yeo et al. 2015]

Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework of the study displays that the customers’ expectation and

perception towards drugstores will be the dependent variable. Although, the

independent variable or factors affecting customers expectation and perception consist

of service quality being provided. The five dimensions of service quality are

tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. These are the factors

in evaluate the customers expectation and perception.

Independent Dependent
Variable Variable

Reliability

Responsiveness Customers expectation and

perception towards
Assurance drugstore
Empathy

Tangibility