Comparing Discount Stores

Comparing Discount Stores

Introduction:

When a consumer needs an object there are many places they could turn to, if they are not in immediate need of the item they may choose to order it off of a online store, if price isn’t an issue they may turn to high-end retailers. But if they need an item which has both the quality they want, does not break the bank, and they have access to it immediately many customers may turn to discount stores. Discount stores include the likes of: Target, Walmart, and Dollar General among many others. These discount stores typically sell products which are of quality value and prices that their typical customers could afford. Discount stores are increasingly common to find, they have spread like wildfire reaching

to the smallest cities and even, in some cases, around the globe. One of the companies which is most well-known, some may argue infamous, for its spread across countries is Walmart. This group has decided to rank the three stores, in terms of customer service, as Target, Walmart, and Dollar General which is somewhat similar to the American Customer Service Index.

Brief Report on Walmart:

Walmart is a multi-billion dollar corporation that has locations all across the globe.

There are three different types of Walmart stores: Walmart Supercenter, Walmart Discount Store, and Walmart Neighborhood Store. Walmart’s total revenue for the previous fiscal year that ended on January 31, 2017 was $485.9 billion. Which currently makes them one of the biggest retailers in the world. Not only can you shop for groceries at Walmart, but also clothing, electronics, home goods, etc. Walmart is constantly coming up with innovative ways to improve their customer’s quality of service. For example, Walmart’s online presence has grown in the past few years with online grocery pickup and two-day free shipping

options.
Walmart goes by the mission statement “Saving people money so they can live better” (). Walmart really implements their mission statement through their Placement of stores, Promotion, Products, and low prices. Walmart’s targets mainly lower, working, and middle class individuals seeking discounts on products as well as a one-stop shop, which is why Walmart stores are strategically positioned in both urban and rural areas. Walmart also offers a variety of sale promotions to reel in customers, such as coupons, price-matching products, and great value products.
In the past many customers complained of poor customer service with Walmarts all over. To fix this problem Walmart has been putting in lots of effort in making sure that their customers are satisfied, even so much that majority of their stores have a customer service center in them. Walmart also puts satisfaction surveys on the back of receipts and on their website. Walmart’s customer satisfaction efforts seem to be working, because they still manage to be the highest ranked retailer in the world.

ACSI Rankings:

Based upon our personal experiences at these, Walmart, Target, and Dollar General, discount stores. This group has decided to rank these three stores, in terms of customer service, as the best is Target, second best is Walmart, and last, but not least, Dollar General. The consensus was that Target had items of more quality, and, in general, the customer could be more confident in showing off their purchases. While at Walmart, the consensus was that even though the customer could afford more items for the same price, the items at Walmart were generally of lesser quality. Finally, we ranked Dollar General last because even though it is definitely a discount store and you could purchase much more items for the cost of Target and Walmart prices, there is a drastic loss in the quality of the item, there is also less variety of items at Dollar General.
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the best discount store of these three is Target. Target is the clear winner of these 3 discount stores with a American Customer Satisfaction Index score of 77 points, Dollar General is in second place with a score of 73, and in last place is Walmart with a score 71 points (). This means that Target is more focused on customer service than it’s main competitors, especially since the company merged their discount and department stores together in 2004 ().
There is not a lot of difference between the ACSI rankings and our personal rankings.

The biggest difference was there was a flip in ranking between Walmart and Dollar General. One possible reason for this difference between our personal rankings and the ACSII rankings is a difference in policy: both in the way of thinking and in the policy of customer service. First off the way of thinking, which could also be contributed to bias, is fundamentally different. This group was basing our ranking off personal experience and quality of the item, whereas the ACSI ranking is based off a survey taken by customers where each question is weighted to determine customer loyalty (). Within both of these companies, Dollar General and Walmart, are also fundamentally different customer service policies. At a smaller store like Dollar General, there is more likely to have an employee within sight, and the employee is more likely to walk the customer to the item they are looking for if asked for help, or at least be more helpful in determining where the item the customer wants is. Whereas in Walmart, if you can even find a employee to ask for help, there are so many different departments in such a big store, that the employee is more likely than not to not know where the product

is.

Conclusion:

Discount stores provide more customer satisfaction in both the needs and accessibility of their products. The main reason millennials are supportive towards discount stores is the varied selection of products. Discount store are much more known for selling products at a lower price than any other retailers and it is one of the biggest reason behind their success. For consumers being able to get every need fulfilled in their paycheck is what discount stores are very popular for. Discount stores play a huge role in the lives of Americans for everyday wants and needs.