MKT30015: GAP Analysis Report on Customer Satisfaction at Aldi

This report presents a gap analysis focusing on customer satisfaction within the context of Aldi Supermarket. It begins by defining gap analysis as a methodology for evaluating service quality and identifying customer dissatisfaction, highlighting the five potential gaps: product/service delivery, management perception, product/service specifications, external communication, and perceived product/service. The report emphasizes the importance of defining the target audience in marketing strategies and outlines key questions to guide this process. It then explains how gap analysis compares the importance of service attributes to customer satisfaction levels, identifying areas for improvement. The benefits of gap analysis for businesses are detailed, including insights into areas needing improvement, identifying weaknesses, and guiding decision-making. The report concludes by summarizing the gap analysis process, comparing actual and desired results to identify suboptimal strategies and recommend steps for organizational improvement and elevated performance.

Running head: GAP ANALYSIS
GAP ANALYSIS
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1GAP ANALYSIS
4. Information required to fulfil the research objectives:
Gap analysis is referred to as the popular methodology for the purpose of
management and evaluation of the service quality. In other words, it is a tool used to find out
the experiences of the customers. Customer satisfaction itself is a broad concept and it
includes the quality of the service as well as the other aspects which are related with the
satisfaction of the customers with the physical products which they have consumed
(Mineraud, et al. 2016). Basically, gap analysis is used to find out the causes of the
dissatisfaction of the customers. Furthermore, gap analysis is an essential tool which reflects
about the past causes of the dissatisfaction of the customers and helps to lead to the possible
answers. A customer can be dissatisfied due to the existence of five possible gaps and these
gaps are- Product/Service Delivery, The Perception of the Management about customer
needs, Product/ Service Specifications, External Communication and Perceived Product/
Service (Qadri 2015).
The success of any business does not depend on creating of a valuable product or
service or putting them in the market. It is also important to define the target audience as this
will help to widen the scope of the strategies of the business. However, defining of the target
audience can be considered as the difficult aspect of the digital marketing strategy (Dodson
2016). There are few target market questions which can help to define the target audiences
and these questions are about-
 The idea about the business, product or service along with its benefits
 Whether the audience currently purchase products similar to these products
 The reason for choosing that particular product or service
 The problems which can be solved with the help of this business, product or service
 The demographics and the locations of the targeted audiences

2GAP ANALYSIS
 The drivers which drives the buying decisions of the target audiences.
Gap Analysis helps to show the differences between the importance of the attributes or
services to the respondents and how much these respondents are satisfied with these attributes
and services. Moreover, it has been considered as a useful way for the purpose of comparing
the results of the satisfaction and the important questions which can be used as an
interpretation tool. Once the satisfaction scores and importance are compared with the help of
a chart used in the gap analysis then the priorities for improvement can be identified
(Lagzian, Abrizah and Wee 2015). According to the results of the gap analysis, if the
satisfaction is shorter than that of the importance bar then it indicates that the business may
have failed to meet the expectations (Guirao, García-Pastor and López-Lambas 2016).
Gap Analysis is a tool which is frequently used by the business organizations and
companies because they can bring many benefits to them (Parviainen, et al. 2017). These
benefits include-
 It gives an insight to the business about the areas which needs improvement like
the efficiency, profitability, products, performance, customer satisfaction,
participation, competitive advantage and performance.
 It ensures whether the requirements of the project have been met or not
 It helps to find the areas of weaknesses
 It helps to uncover the differences in perception and reality
 It helps to take better decisions by guiding the decision makers with the help of
required information
 It helps to identify the best places for the purpose of deploying resources and
focusing energy

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 The results of the gap analysis can be easily understood if it has been performed
well.
Gap Analysis can be explained as a process which helps to compare the actual result
or performance with the desired or expected result. Therefore, this method helps in the
identification of the suboptimal strategies, capabilities, structures, processes, practices, skills
or technologies and accordingly recommends the necessary steps which are useful for the
business organization to meet their goals. It helps the business organizations to make a
comparison of the current state with the targeted state and as a result, the business units or the
business teams can determine the requirements which is necessary for the better performance
of the organization to get on the right path within a short span of time. It also helps to elevate
the team or individual performance of a business organization (Stent and Dowler 2015).

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References
Dodson, I., 2016. The art of digital marketing: the definitive guide to creating strategic,
targeted, and measurable online campaigns. John Wiley & Sons.
Guirao, B., García-Pastor, A. and López-Lambas, M.E., 2016. The importance of service
quality attributes in public transportation: Narrowing the gap between scientific research and
practitioners' needs. Transport Policy, 49, pp.68-77.
Lagzian, F., Abrizah, A. and Wee, M.C., 2015. Measuring the gap between perceived
importance and actual performance of institutional repositories. Library & Information
Science Research, 37(2), pp.147-155.
Mineraud, J., Mazhelis, O., Su, X. and Tarkoma, S., 2016. A gap analysis of Internet-of-
Things platforms. Computer Communications, 89, pp.5-16.
Parviainen, P., Tihinen, M., Kääriäinen, J. and Teppola, S., 2017. Tackling the digitalization
challenge: how to benefit from digitalization in practice. International journal of information
systems and project management, 5(1), pp.63-77.
Stent, W. and Dowler, T., 2015. Early assessments of the gap between integrated reporting
and current corporate reporting. Meditari Accountancy Research.
Qadri, U.A., 2015. Measuring service quality expectation and perception using SERVQUAL:
A gap analysis. Business and Economics Journal, 6(3), p.1.