Waitrose Case Study Business Studies

Waitrose level of customer satisfaction may be affected if the supermarket expands. This is the feeling that the buyer gets when he or she is happy with the level of customer service that has been provided.
Customer satisfaction will decrease if the product quality decreases. This is as Waitrose is a premium supermarket with high prices supplying high quality products. If the product quality decrease, for example a bad cut of meat, then customer satisfaction will not be high. If Waitrose expands then there will be more stock with more chance of products going wrong. Also it will require more staff to check suppliers and to check products which will increase costs. With more staff, there is also a higher chance for human error as some staff may not do their job properly. This means a higher percentage of low quality products may make it to the shelf which would mean the product quality decreasing and customer satisfaction decreasing.
Value for money can be considered as a very low factor in customer satisfaction when compared to many different indicators and supermarkets. This is because Waitrose does not focus on value for money, unlike supermarkets such as Iceland, they focus on a business with guaranteed high quality and trusted brands. For customer satisfaction to decrease with value for money there would need to be a very large increase in price to affect customer satisfaction and there is no evidence that this would occur as of expansion. It is more likely that the opposite would happen as there would be an increase in sales throughout more stores so a higher profit margin is not needed on each product.
Trust is very important for Waitrose as no matter what customers expect quality in the staff, products and service. If Waitrose expands then they run the risk of losing a personal service as staff will be hired on a far larger scale. This will increase the chance of hiring the wrong people, tarnishing the Waitrose reputation. If customers feel that they