A PROJECT REPORT ON "CONSUMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS METHODEX PRODUCTS AT PATNA" Submitted to In Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Submitted by Name : SOMYA Roll. No. : 1166370030 MBA (MARKETING) KCC INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C, Knowledge Park-III Greater Noida UP 201306 (2012) 1 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
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A
PROJECT REPORTON
"CONSUMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS METHODEX PRODUCTS AT PATNA"
Submitted to
In Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Degree ofMASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
* MCTL: Methodex Computer Technology Ltd, a group company provides
comprehensive Computer Literacy program’s in Schools, with Faculty, latest
Hardware/Software, Consumables and accessories.
CONSUMER
The main consumer of these products naturally are Offices/Banks etc. Besides the direct
consumer it is also use for the some purpose of providing it to the mass by hoteliers
restaurant owners and various other Office Automation/Office Furniture peddlers. These
products are the choice of the professionals. Thus it can be said that id is product of mass
consumption.
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Sales Promotion- A Theoretical Aspect
A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF SALES PROMOTION
Sales promotion is the highly specialised function of marketing division of the enterprise.
Sales is the life blood of business. The ultimate goal or production is sales of product.
Industrial revolution and technical advancement have brought a revolution not only in the
field of production but also in the field of sales promotion. Competition has increased the
importance of sales promotion. Sales promotion is basically effective communication
with the customers. It is job of marketing people that he made available the product at the
right at right place. Sales promotion is described by various author by various ways :-
Professor William Stenton says that Sales promotion is one which include such
activities as setting display, holding trade shows and using exhibition and using samples
and premium.
Professor George W. Hapkins defines sales promotion as an organised efforts applied
to the selling job to secure the greatest effectiveness for advertising and for dealers help.
Dr. Philip Kotler says that the sales promotion consists of wide variety of promotional
tools designed to stimulate earlier and or stranger market response. They include tool for
customer promotion such as sample, trade, promotion such as incentive price etc.
According to American Market Association (AMA) sales promotion includes those
activities other than personal selling effort which are not in the ordinary routine. Thus
sales promotion consists of activities other than personal salesmanship.
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(1) INTRODUCTION
Sales Promotion is essentially a direct and immediate inducement that adds and extra
value to the product, so that it promotes the dealers, distributor ort ultimate consumers to
buy the product.
In recent year, sales promotion activities and techniques have come to be regarded as
important tactical devices to be used with as much care, planning, creativity and control
as any other business activity.
It is strange that although some companies have created sales promotion department,
many companies do not have a sales promotion manager and leave the job to the
individual product of brand managers to choose and organize their over promotions.
What has encourages companies to take a closer at sales promotion techniques and
measurement is the level of inflation and competition. Companies now seem to be using
sales promotion more aggressively to show customers ways to money and gain more
value in the market place.
(2) What is Sales Promotion ?
Sales promotion is an immediate or delayed incentive to purchase or acquire, either in
cash or in kind, usually during a temporarily or short-lived period of activity, a product or
services.
Sales promotion schemes are used by a large variety of organization, including
manufactures, distributors, retailers, trade associations and non-profit groups viz,
churches and charities.
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(3) The growth of sales promotion:
There are a number of specific, factors, which have contributed to the growth of sales
promotion most particularly over recent year and in consumer markets.
Internal factors include :-
(a) Promotion has become much more acceptable to top management as an
effective way to stimulate sales.
(b) More product managers are now qualified to use sales promotion
techniques.
(c) Product Managers are under more pressure to obtain quick sales response.
External factors include :-
(a) Brands have greatly increased in number.
(b) Competitors have become more promotions minded.
(c) Inflations and recession made consumers more deal oriented.
(d) Manufactures are under greater pressure from the trade to offer deals.
(e) The belief that advertising efficiency may have declined due to costs, media
clutter, Government controls and then restrictions.
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(4) Nature of Sales Promotion:-
Although sales promotion tools- Coupons, contests, premiums and the like are highly diverse
they have three distinctive characteristics.
(i) Communication : - They gain attention and usually provide information
that may lead the consumer or the product.
(ii) Incentive : - They incorporate some concession, inducement or
contribution that gives value to the consumer.
(iii) Invitation :- They include invitation to engage in the transaction now.
Companies use sales promotion tools to create a stronger and quicker
response sales promotion can be used to dramatise product offers and to
boost sagging sales. Sales promotion effects are usually short run, however
and not effective in building long-run (brand) preference.
(5) Purpose of sales promotions:-
Sales promotion tools very in their specific objectives. A free sample stimulates
consumer trial, while a free management advisory services cements a long-term
relationship with retailer.
Sales use incentive types promotion to attract new tries, to reward loyal customer and
increase the purchase sales of occasional uses. New tries are of three types-uses of
another brand in the same category used in other categories and frequent brand in the
same category used in other categories and frequent brand switches. Sales promotion
after attract the brand switchers because uses of other brands and uses in other category
handly notice or ac on a promotion. Brand switches are primarily looking for low price
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good value or permoursnet. Sales promotion are unlikely to turn them in to loyal brand users.
Sales promotions used in markets of high brand similarly produce a high sales response in the
short run but little permanent gain in market share. In market of brand dissimilarity sales
promotion an after markets shares more permanently.
(6) Importance of sales promotion:-
In a competitive market, sales promotion comes handy to a marketers, to solve several of
his short-tern bundles. Short term because, the impact of sales promotion measures are
not durable and lasting like the results attained through advertising and personal selling
sales promoting by and large in understood and practiced as a catalyst and a supporting
facility to advertising and personal selling
(7) Setting Objective:-
There must always be a set objective or target for opening a sales promoting campaign. Otherwise there is absolutely no financial or marketing reason for running one.
Sales promotion objective are derived from basis marketing communications objective are derived from more basic marketing objectives developed for the product. The specific objectives set for sales promotion will vary with the types of market.
(i) Consumer :-
Objectives will include encouraging more safe and purchases of longer sized units by uses building trail by non-users, or attracting trail by other brand users.
Building and retaining brand loyalty is expensive and deserves to have funds invested in activities designed, at the very least, to maintain it and hopefully improve it. With competition becoming smaller, the fight for the purchaser's proud depends in many cases
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on the extra value or benefits perceived by buyer bestowed on the product through the medium of sales promotion.
(ii) Retailers :-
Objectives will include encouraging the retailers to stock new items or large volume, helping off reason buying, stocking of related items, off setting competitive promotion, and gaining entry in to new retail outlets.
(iii) Sales force :-
Objectives include encouraging support of a new product or model, getting more prospects and stimulating sales in off seasons.
(8) Tools and techniques of Sales Promotion :-
There are so many tools of sales promotion, some of which are discussed below :-
(i) POP/Display:-
Point of purchase (POP) promotion is one of the most widely used promotional tools. It is also sometimes referred to as point of sales promotion. With the proliferation of brands, innovative displays have become a prerequisite for success brands complete with each other for consumers attentions mind has become the prime concern of marketers. Hence, the importance of POP/displays a lot.
Various kinds of displays materials like poster, danglers, stickers, mobile, wobblers and streamers are used at the retail shop level to induce purchase. In the modern context of high intensity, marketing the retailers are virtually flooded with POP's by all manufactures. If they are just dumped in a forsaken corner of the shop the brand does not get the intended sales promotional benefit from the POP's.
(ii) DEOMONSTRATIONS :-
Companies resort to product demonstration for sales promotion, especially when they are coming up with a new product. In India in recent year, several products - low unit, price, products like beverages and washing powders as well as high unit price products like
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washing machines personal computers and television have utilised product demonstration as a tool of sales promotion.
(a) DEMONSTRATIONS AT RETAIL STORES :-
Sometimes demonstrations are organaised at retail by company salesman for the benefit of retailers as well as consumers.
(b) SCHOOL DEMONSTRATIONS :-
When the product happens to be a costly one and a hi-tech one, companies arrange school of demonstrations. In this case, consumers are invited (giving prior intimation) to a particular place, say a hostel, and demonstrations are arranged. In computers, several companies in India organise this type of demonstration.
(c) DOOR TO DOOR DEMONSTRATIONS :-
Consumers product companies quite often resort to house demonstration. It is considered a highly specialised field of sales promotion. Salesman employed for such demonstrations are given special training to handle peculiar situations involved in this field.
(d) DEMONSTRATION TO KEY PROFILE :-
Sometimes, demonstrations are organised for the benefit of key people and influential persons. Journalist and other media men, community leaders etc. are invited and the product is introduced to them.
Demonstration is a good selling technique, which involves the co-operation of sales representatives and protective consumer in the actual process of demonstration of the product. Participation of the consumer persuades him to learn more about the product and it serves as persuasion for him to try the product.
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(iii) SAMPLES :-
Samples are offers of a free amount of a trial of product for consumers. The samples be delivered door to door, sent in the mail, picked up in a store found attached to another product, or featured in an advertising offer. Sampling is the most effective and most expensive way to introduce a new product store found attached to another product or featured in an advertising offer. Sampling is the most effective and non most expensive way to introduce a new product.
(iv) COUPONS :-
Coupons are certificates which offer price reductions to consumers for specified items. They are distributed through newspaper and magazine and advertisements, or through the package of the merchandise, or even by direct mail. Coupons normally perform two specific functions for the manufactures. Firstly, they enthuse the consumer to exploit the bargain. Secondly, they survey as an inducement to the channel for stocking the item. The manufacturer thus succeeds in attracting consumers as well as in promoting the channel to stock the merchandise through introducing coupons. They are useful for introducing a new product as well as for introducing coupons. They are useful to introducing a new product as well for straightening the sale of an existing product.
(v) PREMIUM :-
In the Indian market today, premiums, free offers and price-offers are extensively used by manufacturers. Sometimes back, "Aristocrat modled tugged introduced on attractive sales promotion offer. It also ran an a company in support of the sales promotion endeavor. Aristocrate announced -
"If you buy and Aristocrat within the next week, you get a Phillips 2 band transistor worth Rs. 266/- free."
And the ad repeated this message "It's only for a week, starting today." Suzuki Shogun bike offered Ray-Ban Sunglass free as part of its sales promotion. The campaign read - "Free Ray-Ban Sunglasses with Suzuki Shogun the most powerful bike of its kind."
(vi) PRICE - OFF :-
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Hawkins pressure cookers have come up with several sales promotions scheme during the last few years. In one of these schemes. Hawkins announced up to Rs., 150/- off or a new Hawkins in exchange for any old pressure cooker. Any the ad specified that the offer is opened only up to a particular date.
(vii) GIFTS :-
Companies also distribute gifts to the people customers dealers and influential and key people. These gifts include pens, pencils, calendars, diaries, table decoration etc. Gifts cell carry the company's name and logo. The gifts are intended to create goodwill towards the company and indirectly promote the company's sale interest.
(viii) TRADE FAIRS AND EXHIBITIONS : -
Trade fairs and exhibitions are extensively used sales promotion tools. They also form one of the oldest practices in sales promotion. Trade fairs and exhibition provide companies with the opportunities of introducing and displaying their products. This brings company's products and consumers in direct contact with each other. "Seeing is believing" is a concept behind large-scale exhibitions.
(ix) CONSUMER CONTESTS :-
Consumer contests take a variety of forms quiz contests, Beauty contests, Scooter and car rallies lucky draw suggesting a brand name, covering a slogan suggestion a logo etc. Whatever he the type of contest filling up the quiz, writing five words about the brand, or taking part is a rally, the marketer is to create, widespread action and news around the brand. To get the consumer interested in the brand include him to buy it is the central in all consumer contests.
(x) SPONSORING MAJOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL EVENTS:-
When major national and international place, companies associated themselves with such events, spending a lot of money. The field of sports usually provides maximum number of such events. Business firms either sponsor the even as a whole, to take the leading role in specific aspects associated with the events. Watch manufactures take up the role official supplies of soft drinks and food items. The intention is to remain part of the news creating events and reap the best of sales promotional benefits from associations. Such efforts also from part of sales promotion.
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Liquor and tobacco companies dominated the sponsorship of the sports events. The restriction on advertising for these products left these companies with few avenues for brand promotion sponsorship of sports related events were seen as a solution to this problem. In course of time, marketing of other products too started using sponsorship is a big way. Vazir sultan Tobacco (VST) for years sponsored join up Dowla cricket tournament and the championship-the Ranji Trophy through its chairman challenge up. Later ITC, Too started active cricket sponsorship with its trophy. The 1987 Reliance World Cup in cricket became a major events in sales promotion.
The success of this programme tempted more and more companies to take up such sponsorship on a large scale. MRF up to this time active mainly in motor rallies - "Organized the MRF cup in cricket. Today, companies like ITC, PEPSI, JK TYRE, SIGER and AB Corp. are among the major sponsors of national and international events.
Winning the right to spouse are event is just the beginning of the sales promotional effort companies have to effectively promote the event and construct the whole set of marketing activities around the event. How companies use promotions to get more reward out of sponsorship is the real test.
CONSUMER PROMOTIONS :-
In building a strategy for a consumer, promotion one of the crucial decisions to take which will bear on the type of scheme selected is whether to aim for a "trail" of the consumer.
A "trail" usually involves getting single purchases sales from a wide range of customers-many of them possibly non-product users. Whereas 'loading' tries to get a number of purchases for a smaller group of buyers many of them possibly already uses on a regular basis.
Trail is obviously the one positive approach and is followed by brands with growth ambitions. 'Once a user, always a user' is the thought that lies behind this concept. Put the product in the prospects hands and you have a customer.
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Loading, on the other hand, in used by companies whose product or brand is on the slide or those who face competition from new products. Here the company obviously whishes to keep their customers loyal and stop them defecting. Naturally some promotions have some trail and loading effects combined.
TRADE PROMOTIONS :-
Today, with many large retailers, in very powerful positions, trade promotions is an area which can be costly for manufactures if they have not worked out what their strategy is and how effectively their budget will be spent.
The manufactures aim is too increases sales and profits of particular brands. Retailers, on the other hand, are only concerned with raising the total turnover of their stores, and in doing so, they don't mind which brand they sell.
Many promotion aimed at the trade are after disguised discounts, advertising or point-of-sale material contributions. Competitors and dealer loaders are aimed more particular at store staff and managers and are designed to encourage a stocking of lines promoting them to the public.
PROMOTIONS FOR THE INDUSTRIAL MARKET:-
It may seen as though sales promotion schemes are geared to the consumer and retailer markets. However, the industrial market uses a wide range of sales promotion tools to stimulate sales and build stronger relationship with its customers and clients
Technically oriented companies often make available design guides, ads such as special calculators, or specialized small pieces of equipment relevant to the industry, samples, business gifts, conference abroad, seminars and exhibitions for customers and prospects. All these are designed to encourage purchases, introduce new products or services and to cement to buyer-seller relationship.
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CONSUMER SATISFACTION
ABOUT THE PROJECT - CONSUMER SATISFACTION
The reason the topic is important is because it is a cornerstone to the success or failure of
a business. Any misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the topic can not only be
misleading, but it can also be fatal.
Perhaps the most common error in the discussion of customer satisfaction is the error of
omission. In particular, most authors and analysts do not have a working definition. This
article will attempt to provide a definition that will serve as an underlying theory as well
as working business criterion.
Rather than a single definition, I think it is appropriate to provide several definitions
because a single definition gives the impression that there can be only one, which is
certainly not true. Each of the following definitions can be applied to the high technology
service business:
Definition 1: Customer satisfaction is equivalent to making sure that product and service
performance meets customer expectations.
Definition 2: Customer satisfaction is the perception of the customer that the outcome of
a business transaction is equal to or greater than his/her expectation.
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Definition 3: Customer satisfaction occurs when the acquisition of products and /or
services provides a minimum negative departure from expectations when compared with
other acquisitions.
Definition 4: Customer satisfaction occurs when the marginal utility of a transaction is
equal to or greater than preceding acquisitions.
Definition 5: Customer satisfaction occurs when the perception of the reward from the
purchase of goods or services by the customer meets or exceeds his/her perceived
sacrifice. The perception is a consequence of matching past purchase and consumption
experience with the current purchase.
Here is a range of definitions form the simplest (Definition 1) to the most complex
(Definition 5). I prefer the last definition because I believe that customer satisfaction
really is a comparison of a current situation with past experiences. No matter which
definition you choose, several key concepts are present in each of the definitions and
should be present in any definition of customer satisfaction that you may want to create.
Each concept is discussed in the following paragraphs.
Sacrifice:
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The first concept is sacrifice. Each time customers purchase your goods or services they
make a sacrifice of some of the resources of their company. This sacrifice has a value and
the value is more perceptual than absolute. By that I mean an expenditure of $1,000 may
have great meaning to a manager of a small independent bank with a $ 25,000 budget for
service but have almost no meaning to a manager of a large multinational, multi-branch
bank with a $25,000,000 budget for service. Nevertheless your customers will perceive
that they have sacrificed a portion of their resources when they purchase service from
you.
Some people refer to this perceptual distortion of money as the utility function of money.
Daniel Bernoulli, a famous Swiss mathematician and philosopher treated this question in
1730 when he hypothesized that the utility of additional sums of money to an individual
must be inversely proportional to the amount of the money he already has. This
conclusion was based on the assumption that all people being rational would behave in
the same way under similar circumstances. This utility is based on Bernoulli’s belief that
the rational behavior could be approximated by using the logarithm of the number of
dollars as the measure of utility. It follows that the more money you have the less the
utility of a given amount of money. Thus, the sacrifice is perceived to be less when the
amount of money in the budget is greater.
Expectations:
This leads to the third and final concept of customer satisfaction – expectations. The
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sacrifice/reward relationship can only become apparent when the customer expectations
are known. I am reminded of a service organization that offered a 4-hour response time
contract to its customers. It scrupulously managed the response time of its field personnel
to meet this parameter. However, as we began to ask the customers questions about
response time, it was discovered that about 40% of the customers actually wanted 2-hour
response and were willing to pay extra to receive it.
The key point here is that the service organization thought it knew what its customers
expected and were diligently attempting to maintain the performance of the organizations
to that expectation. It had not continued to check with its customers to verify that the
expectation had not changed. The problem was that the expectation had changed, and it
did not know it.
As soon as a service organization establishes a new level of service performance, that
new level becomes the new standard by which the service organization is measured by its
customers and it simultaneously becomes a new expectation of the customer. As your
service organization strives to achieve new levels of service, beware that those new levels
may become the standard by which you are measured. The hidden message is to keep
your service operation performance at a level that you can afford to maintain.
Now it is time to take the next step into the uncharted area of customer dissatisfaction. I
am always amazed at the naivete of so many experts that preach or imply that
dissatisfaction is simply the opposite of satisfaction. Their obvious conclusion is that if
you identify the areas where satisfaction is low and then raise those levels, the customers
are then satisfied.
I believe that the process is just a little more sophisticated then they suggest. Let me first
state that within the published literature there does not appear to be a clear definition of
the exact relationship between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. This fact alone suggests
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that the relationship is not simple and may even be extremely complex. Experience tells
me that when I deal with a dissatisfaction customer, I can undo all the things that the
customer says caused the dissatisfaction without creating a satisfied customer. Some may
say that the customer was not entirely honest when he provided the list of causes for the
dissatisfaction. This has not been the case for those customers that I have dealt with
during my tenure in service management.
Consider as a simple example a situation we are all familiar with: car repair. Suppose that
you have taken your car in to the shop for repair and that the trip is somewhat
inconvenient for you. At the end of the day you return, pay your bill, and are assured that
your car has been repaired. At this point you are satisfied that your money is well spent
and you are now ready to resume full use of your car. You no sooner drive away than you
find that not only is the original symptom still there, but other unacceptable symptoms
have joined it. You are no longer satisfied.
As you turn your car around, your anger level increases, and it is not with calmness that
you relate your experience to the service manager. He calmly and assuredly hears your
story and reschedules your car for tomorrow and offers you a ride home. All the next day
you wonder whether or not they will really fix your car and whether or not it will ever
operate normally again. At the end of the day you pick up your car and, to your wonder
and amazement, it has been totally repaired.
The question: are you now a totally satisfied customer? I would suggest that you are
satisfied that your car is operational, but that you have some misgivings about the repair
service. A question that may be in your mind is, why didn’t they do this in the first place?
Another question might be, what kind of skill would perform that kind of work in the first
place? Finally, you might wonder management didn’t bother to institute some form of
quality control (such as a test drive) to make sure that this problem would never occur
with a customer.
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In this simple case, the cause for your dissatisfaction was totally corrected, yet you end
up not as satisfied as you would have been had the original repair been satisfactory. My
conclusion is: There is NOT a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of
satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
What can be said, however, is that satisfaction and dissatisfaction may lie on a continuum
at either extreme. Between these two extremes lies a zone of uncertainty that is most
often overlooked and is certainly the least understood of all the concepts of customer
satisfaction. The zone of uncertainty is the human aspect of customer satisfaction and
without some understanding of its operation, it is virtually impossible to manage the
customer relationship.
Visualize the zone of uncertainty as a cloud that separates the satisfaction and
dissatisfaction extremes of the continuum. Satisfied customers may have activities or
events occur to them by your service organization that tend to reduce their level of
satisfaction, yet they are not dissatisfied. During this time when events by your service
organization are not pleasing them, they slowly migrate from the satisfaction pole to the
zone of uncertainty. Now one day a minor event triggers your customer to blow.
Everything gets out of proportion, and it just doesn’t make sense how one minor mistake
could cause such a reaction in an otherwise satisfied customer. The old wives’ adage of
the straw that broke the camel’s back best describes the transition from the zone of
uncertainly to dissatisfaction.
What has been demonstrated is the fact that people are non-linear, that is, they can take
just so many events before only one event will cause a reaction that is more suitable to
the sum of the many events rather than the single event. Unfortunately neither the
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customer nor the service organization recognize this fact at the time of the event that
caused the reaction.
The principle works equally well in the reverse direction. As successes continue to occur
with dissatisfied customer, they slowly enter the zone of uncertainty. Finally, one day a
simple positive event will occur, you will see them smile and all of sudden you once
again have a satisfied customer. In both cases, what was not seen was the time and events
that led the customer into and through the zone of uncertainty.
Some questions that immediately come to mind are: how big is that zone of uncertainty;
is it always the same size; can anything be done by my personnel to change the size of the
zone; can the zone of uncertainty be eliminated? The answers to these questions are not
very encouraging.
The zone of uncertainty is pretty much out of control of the service organization. In fact,
the zone of uncertainly is primarily a reflection of the current mood of the customer.
Although there are principles that can be applied to modify the mood of the customer and
some organizations around with training programs to assist the service organization to
prepare the field technicians to defuse customers, little can actually be done to affect the
customer ’s zone of uncertainty.
To clarify this point, consider a customer that has called in for emergency on-site service.
Although a portion of his current mood may be attributable to the existing equipment
problem that he is facing, perhaps a larger portion is attributable to his current personal
situation, (home life, health, job situation, finances, etc.). If he has just spent the previous
night at the local jail bailing his teenage son out as the result of a DWI arrest, you can be
relatively sure that his current mood will not be strongly positive or upbeat. If, on the
other hand, he spent the previous evening out with his wife and family celebrating his
25th wedding anniversary with great joy, it is not difficult to conclude that his current
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mood may indeed be positive and upbeat. Neither of these situations are within the
control of the service organization and yet the current mood of the customer is most
heavily impacted as a result of them.
There is no doubt that examples noted above are extreme. They were generated to
demonstrate the obvious in a dramatic manner; namely, that there are influences to the
customer mood that are beyond the control of the service organization and which may
have significant impact on satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction. The fact is that it is not
possible to measure the size of the zone of uncertainty, particularly for the situations
noted above. Which of the two examples has the smaller zone? I believe it is impossible
to say with any certainty. I suspect that the man with the enjoyable evening will be the
more susceptible.
Can anything be done to reduce the size of the zone? As mentioned earlier, there are
programs that teach field technicians how to deal with a confrontation and how to deal
with customers that are irate. These will have a positive effect on the customer in most
instances, although the magnitude of the effect will be governed by the specific
circumstances that are influencing the zone of uncertainty.
As mentioned earlier, the poles of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are separated by a zone
of uncertainty and the parameters that define one pole will probably not define the other
pole. A recent study brought this point home when it was discovered that a dominant
factor of dissatisfaction is the promptness that the phone is answered by the service
organization. This was the second most important service parameter that affected
customer dissatisfaction. When the customers who were satisfied were examined, it was
discovered that phone promptness was not a statistically significant factor.
Thus, it may be concluded that phone promptness is a definite dissatisfier, but is just as
definitely not a satisfier.
It is important to state that it is difficult to find a published definition of dissatisfaction.
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Although there does not seem to be a single theme that relates satisfaction to
dissatisfaction for the purpose of definition, the first statement that can be made is that
dissatisfaction occurs when the customer perceives service at a level less than was
expected. Further, it can be stated that the group of elements that comprise dissatisfaction
probably do not correspond on a one-to-one basis with the group of elements comprise
satisfaction. Hence, the simplest statement that can be made regarding dissatisfaction is
that it is the state in which one or more of the elements of dissatisfaction are present to a
sufficient degree to affect the perception of the customer. I would be pleased if any reader
that has a definition of customer dissatisfaction and who is willing to share it would send
it to me along with any comments or clarifications that are appropriate for the subject. I
will provide an update to this column at a future time based on the responses that I
receive.
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CHAPTER - 2
RESEARCH LAYOUT AND DESIGN
43 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Objective :
To study the level of prospect customers of Electronic Security systems &
The Need of security in Public & Private sector.
To know about the popularity of electronic security equipment in the market. In
the project we worked out with different categories in Private and Public Sectors
Companies & Industries.
The project guide segmented the market accordingly. We were mainly focusing on
Currency Counting Machines and Electronic Safes with Alarm Systems &
Surveillance systems (details are confined in product profile).
We were supposed to work out with the Need & Requirement of Electronic
Security Systems in Public & Private Firms.
We have surveyed categories likewise Hotels, Financial Institutions, Industrial,
Educational institutions & Misc.
We have to check whether there is any requirement in the segmented firm and the
response of the client towards the changing scenario of Security systems in the
market, if the response is in favor the demonstration of the product can be given if
its is possible like in Alarm Systems the demonstration cannot be given although
the details of the System shall be given to the prospect client and if the
requirement gets positive the quotations have to be made according to the need
and site.
The Interview schedule was contained with around 11 questions the questions
given with the choices that were open-ended for respondent and researcher to
understand the questionnaire easily.
44 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
Research Design
Research Design is the basic framework, which provides the guidelines the study; it is the
arrangement of conditions & analysis in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the
research purpose with economy in procedure. It was a descriptive research, which
has been done by making an in-depth study to get knowledge about the subject.
Data Collection Method
There are two types of data:
Primary
Secondary
The secondary data refers to those data, which have been gathered, from the agency &
Company itself. On the other hand primary data gathered by the researcher afresh for the
specific study undertaken by him. Primary data can be collected by three methods:
Observation
Survey
Personal Interview
The researcher has chosen the survey method with the help of Questionnaire for the data
collection method.
Research Instruments
Research Instrument calls by the name of tool of collecting the data. As above said there
searcher has chosen questionnaire as research instrument, which gives most satisfactory
results.
Sample Plan
In sample plan the researcher has to decide about the sample unit, sample size,
sampling procedure and contact method.
45 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
Universe: 120 respondents of Patna.
Sample unit: This part of the sample plan involve the decision about the respondents
whether Financial institutions, Hotels, Manufacturing units & Industrial sectors,
Construction houses or a combination of all of them. The researcher has chosen
combination of these as his sample unit.
Sample size: It involves researcher’s sample size decision about how many units to be
surveyed. The sample size include 120 respondents which is combination of different
types of respondents.
Contact method: The last issue to be decided in sampling plan is to determine the
contact method i.e. how the selected unit be approached. Various methods available are
mail survey, telephonic survey and personal interviews. The researcher has used personal
interviews and telephonic survey as methods to get the information and questionnaire
filled.
Field Work
At the end after finishing up the problem definition and research design,
researcher conducted the actual data collection procedure. This is called fieldwork. The
researcher has encountered with an average number of problems during his fieldwork,
respondents refuse to cooperate sometimes, unable to give proper time, not interested to
meet & the bargaining nature of the businessmen etc.
46 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
Limitation of the Research
The researcher tried to make the research work as accurate & authentic
as possible. However the following constraints were still unavoidable:
The information provided by the respondents on which all the results were drawn
cannot be denied that here was always a possibility of response error.
The respondent’s were in segments so the time taken to interview with them was
too much.
The study was conducted within a time frame work of two months duration only.
The respondents feel reluctant about the survey conducted.
Secondary data could not be fully utilized because of difficulty in assessing it.
47 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
CHAPTER - 3
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
48 KCC INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT 2B-2C,Knowledge Park-iii Greater Noida UP201306
Data Analysis and Interpretation
(according to the questionnaire)
The questionnaire consists of total 120 respondents. The respondents of different sites