“Senhora está no céu!” Estudo sobre o uso do pronome de tratamento em lojas de vestuário feminino

Abstract

An important factor for customer satisfaction is the quality of service. In the context of small businesses, such as small clothing shops, this importance is not always taken into account. The clothing sector is connected to the changes in social relations, is rich in symbolic content, allowing the observation of expressive aspects of material culture, as well as the use of treatment pronouns mainly 'you' and 'madam'. In this sense, the aim of this study was to identify the consumers opinion in relation to the treatment pronoun used by employees in female clothing stores. Data were computed and processed using SPSS software. Techniques of descriptive statistics (frequency distribution and cross tabulations), nonparametric tests (chi-square) and multivariate techniques such as cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were used. It was observed that, especially for the group of women aged between 30 and 40 years the use of the pronoun 'madam' can lead to dissatisfaction and even purchase abandonment. Also, clothing can be seen as means of status and age, conveying meanings and allowing visual identification of the class and age of the wearer. Moreover, the paper contributes in order to instruct managers and training teams.