RETAIL FOOD STORE EMPLOYEE INFLUENCE ON CUSTOMER SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

Retail food store employees presumably improve the level of satisfaction customers realize during a shopping trip. A review of the literature revealed few significant contributions supporting or refuting this contention. A telephone survey of 505 households in Fort Collins, CO during the Fall of 1988 was conducted to generate information on retail food store employees helpfulness. The findings revealed little explicit impact of helpfulness. Statistical analysis determined a number of relationships between dollars spent in a store and the perceived level of employee helpfulness. Retail food stores were not selected, patronized nor avoided based exclusively nor extensively on perceptions of employee helpfulness. On the other hand, employees were considered necessary for an enjoyable shopping trip. Employees are neither change agents in retail food stores nor are they apparently significant stress inducers or inhibitors compared to the potential stress realized by an inconvenient location, high prices or a poor variety of products. It is recommended that employees be more closely associated with obvious service strategies, and that services be made more obvious and predominant in the promotion and advertising of the retail food store.