Comparison of Wegmans and Jusco in Service QualityExecutive SummaryThis report discussed about the comparison of service quality performance between Wegmans and local store, JUSCO. JUSCOs service gaps also have been identified and some suggestions were recommended to close the gaps.
Section 1 looked at evaluation of Wegmans service quality performance for customers and employees. Wegmans was evaluated based on the five service dimensions: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibility. Wegmans acted reliably by keeping low prices for top forty families product for a year. Employees were encouraged to do anything that they deem fit to meet customers needs including providing individualized services and attend to customers enquiries promptly. Customers can be assured of the quality service received as Wegmans employees are well educated and trained even before the store opens for business. Apart from the supermarket, Wegmans has other in-store facilities such as pharmacy, wine store, bakery and day care centre.
Section 2 focused in local supermarket. JUSCO too, was evaluated based on the five service quality. JUSCO performed reliably by guarantees that its house brand (JUSCO Selection) will give customers satisfactions in best choice and best value compared to commercial brand in the market. Although JUSCO is aimed at maximizing ‘Customer First philosophy, JUSCO needs to put in more effort to educate and train its employees to achieve companys philosophy as it has been noticed that the employees were somehow lack in competency and compassion when dealing with customers. Besides a supermarket, JUSCO other in-store facilities include general merchandize store, food court and amusement centre for parents and children. Overall, Wegmans performed superiorly in its services delivery as compared to JUSCO.
Section 3 pertained to identifying service gaps in JUSCO. The services where it fails to meet customers expectations were identified in knowledge gap, standards gap, delivery gap and communication gap. JUSCO has many ongoing sales throughout a year but these promotions may or may not capture the targeted market or increased sales.
Customers may expect some common standards is constantly uphold, for instance trolley should be available at the designated area, hand soup and toilet roll should be available all the time apart from maintaining the cleanliness of the washroom. When employees were not given empowerment or encouragement to take whatever action they deem necessary to meet customer needs, even if it means not following company policies, this will make employees job difficult especially when they deal with unreasonable or difficult customer. JUSCO needs to be cautions and deliver what it can promises only, for example sales item which was advertised in promotion programme. If it is a limited stock, it should be stated
JULIER KARLAM, J.T.D. and ADRELL CAMPBELL (COPROC)
The European Commission’s Special Consultation Group for Healthcare and the Regulation of Pharmaceutical Industries, with experts from over 40 countries, was consulted within E.U. in 2009 and in 2012 for a further 15 years. A member of the Group, they reviewed European standards for healthcare in a range of topics. They recommended that a major improvement on existing and anticipated procedures be achieved. This would give customers better health insurance coverage for their healthcare, providing a significant boost for health-related services. JUSCO needs to be prepared for the demands of global market and financial pressures. This is critical as Europe is a strong global system which is expected to expand the reach of health-related services globally. On this one issue, it is clear that JUSCO is one step away from delivering the first, and only, actionable improvement towards a universal health insurance system.
This is an important point which needs to be stressed, for a number of reasons. All such measures should not be taken without consultation with the stakeholders present. There is a need for these two groups to be fully prepared for each possible step in the future. It requires management in the healthcare sector to fully understand how the benefits they can deliver from these actions are going to be absorbed in a future European Union.
What is needed
JUSCO needs to focus attention on a major milestone in healthcare, the need for uniformity of all healthcare providers in Europe. The new national standards for the healthcare of the EU are based on one of the last major standards that was formulated in 1999 but then approved in 2013. They can now be extended further at the same time that the global market reforms are being implemented to provide some more flexibility to provide some high-quality healthcare for EU citizens. In order to achieve this, the European Economic Area’s (EAE), under the European Parliament’s (EU) Economic Partnership, was the first state to initiate the reform and a global agreement was agreed in 2013 with the EU with the objective of harmonizing the regulation framework. The new national standards should follow the lead of the European Medical Association, the European Organization for Standardization (OES), the European Commission, in providing a strong and balanced approach to healthcare. In recent years, the health industry faced a number of challenges on this issue. Some new rules or requirements were not met or changed even when the changes in standards may have been implemented. This needs to be done away with by next year when the new standard is introduced.
A number of things must be clarified in the European Council Directive 12/27/2013 and Regulation (EU) No 6 of 2015 where the Commission proposes the following in conjunction with the new standards: and
This does not reduce