CHAPTER: 01 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Services industry has emerged as the industry of the century, therefore, it is really a challenge for
the people in this industry to create customers, and to further convert them into the loyal ones.
The services sector has direct interaction with customers, therefore, their main focus is to
facilitate the customers by providing them with Pre-purchase, during purchase and post-purchase
services. Consumer centrism is the key to customer orientation and consumer centrism is
transforming the businesses in today’s world. It is increasing the efficiency within the
organizations and also of the call services (McGinn, 2011)

TCS, abbreviated for Tranzum Courier Service is a cargo service which is headquartered in
Pakistan. It was started in 1983 and now it is located in over 2,000 areas in Pakistan. In this
research, the main focus would be on Customer Orientation in the services industry and to
examine its impact as well as what factors have the strongest impact on customer orientation, a
survey would be conducted on TCS Peshawar.

1.2 Problem Statement

It is a challenge for services industries to cope up with the competition and to retain and create a
potential customer. For this purpose, the impact of those variables which have a strong influence
on customer orientation is to be studied.

1.3 Research Questions

i. What is the role of customer orientation in transforming service industry?
ii. What is the impact of customer orientation in TCS Peshawar?
iii. Which factors play an important role in customer orientation?
iv. Which factors led the customers not to avail the services of TCS Peshawar?

1.4 Research Objective

i. To study the role of customer orientation in transforming service industry.
ii. To study the impact of customer orientation in TCS Peshawar.
iii. To analyze the factors which play an important role in Customer Orientation.
 iv. To discuss the factors that led the customers not to avail the services of TCS
Peshawar.

1.5 Purpose of Research

In this study, the discussion would be on the importance of customer orientation and its role in
transforming and improving business strategies in the service sector in KPK. The main
discussion would be on The Customer Orientation of TCS Peshawar and the factors which have
a strong influence on Customer Orientation.

The service industry earns revenue through the provision of services which are intangible and
cannot be easily measured because they don’t have a quantitative background. Companies
involved in this sector are dealing with retailing, food services, network service providers,
transportation, logistics and many other industries

1.6 Scope of the study

The study will help the organizations in understanding the importance of customer orientation in
transforming businesses overall the world. It will also help those companies that are neglecting
customer orientation as a part of their sales strategies. It will help the business industries to find
out about the factors that will influence and enhance the customer orientation in Pakistan.

CHAPTER: 02 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Customer Orientation

Customer orientation is considered as the component of marketing orientation (Narver and
Slater, 1990) but it is defined by other researchers as well, like customer orientation is
considered as a process of distribution of information about the customers throughout an
organization which leads the management to form strategies and use different techniques to
satisfy its customers. (Shapiro, 1988).
2.2 Importance of Customer Orientation
Customer orientation has two main dimensions. First is to satisfy the needs of the customers,
(Clancy, 2004). And the second is how the salesperson likes doing so. If he is enjoying this
process, he would perform beyond the expectations of the customers and that would lead to high
level of retained and loyal customers. (Brown et al., 2002)

Customer’s need satisfaction has a great impact on the company as well. Because if the customer
is satisfied, that would lead to the fulfillment of company’s needs which can include a strong
brand image, retained and loyal customers, increased revenues, profit maximization etc.

2.3 Characteristics of Customer Orientation

2.3.1 Quality
Of course, every consumer wants a quality product and quality service. By providing the
customers with quality in the services and products, a company fulfills the needs. A company
needs to offer great quality as per requirements of the customer or consumer, to become
customer oriented.

2.3.2 Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the key to customer orientation. Everything in a company that wants to
become customer oriented is done for customer satisfaction. A customer is satisfied when the
desires, wants and needs are fulfilled. (Priyanka, 2012) In the case of customer orientation, it
includes an understanding of a customer about the consumer centrism and degree of customer
satisfaction. (Appiah – Adu and Singh, 1998)

2.3.3 Customer’s Loyalty

The customer becomes loyal when a company focuses on his needs. It is one of the goals of a
customer oriented company or brand to make sure that the customers they are dealing with, are
loyal to them. Customer’s loyalty is the key to profit generation and the key to attracting more
customers through viral marketing and word of mouth. (Priyanka, 2012)
2.4 Theoretical Framework of Research

2.4.1 SERVQUAL Model

The other or the alternate name for SERVQUAL model is Service Quality Model that was given
by the collective and joint effort of three American authors named as, Parasuraman, Valarie
Zeithaml and Len Berry in 1988. (Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1986, 1988).

This model basically determines the difference between the Customer’s expected value and the
actual perceived value. (Gronroos, 1982; Lewis and Booms, 1983; Parasuraman et al., 1985)

The SERVQUAL Model has mainly five building blocks which would be considered as the
variables for this research which would help in the construction of the questionnaire. (Van
Iwaarden et al., 2003)

2.4.1.1 Tangibles

This independent variable includes the availability of the equipment required to perform the task
or deliver the services. It also focuses the performance of the person delivering the service. This
also refers to the personality, behaviors, and attitudes of the person representing the firm or
delivering the services.

2.4.1.2 Reliability

This mainly refers to the fulfillment of the promises made by the brand to the final consumers.
Reliability is given with more importance as compared to tangibles because the customer doesn’t
mainly focus on the equipment used by the brand but the most important thing for them is that
the promises are fulfilled and accurate information is provided from the start before availing the
services. This leads to customer satisfaction which is the main goal.

2.4.1.3 Responsiveness

As the name suggests, this refers to providing information to the customers when they are in
need of help or when information is required by them. This also includes communicating the
value of the services to the customer plus, communicating with them in a reasonable time.
Brands should act positively when the customers file complaints or give suggestions. They
should be handled positively.
2.4.1.4 Assurance

This focuses on how the employees build a trustworthy relationship with the customers by
making sure that the customers are given the actual information. This also includes the level of
trust and credibility in the minds of the customers. The employees need to do positioning
properly. When it comes to assurance, the firm relies on the KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and
Abilities) of the employees.

2.4.1.5 Empathy

Every customer is to be dealt individually by the brand. This is the core idea of customer
orientation. Communication with every customer should be done individually and the brand
should be able to understand the needs, expectations and wants of every customer individually.
This would automatically lead to separate attention for each and every customer. (Gabbie and
O’neill, 1996)

2.4.2 Theoretical Framework

Tangibles

Reliability

Assurance Customer
Orientation

Responsivene
ss

Empathy

Figure 2.1: Theoretical Framework of Service Quality (Abukhalifeh, 2015)

2.5 Hypothesis of the Study

The alternative hypotheses of the study are:

H1: Tangibles have a significant impact on Customer Orientation in TCS Peshawar.

H2: Reliability has a significant impact on Customer Orientation in TCS Peshawar.

H3: Assurance has a significant impact on Customer Orientation in TCS Peshawar.

H4: Responsiveness has a significant impact on Customer Orientation in TCS Peshawar.

H5: Empathy has a significant impact on Customer Orientation in TCS Peshawar.

METHODOLOGY
The study was cross sectional and descriptive in nature. An overall TCS Peshawar was selected
for the study. A sample 200 plus respondents was determined on the basis of convenient
sampling criteria. The sample customers, belonging to different age groups, different occupations
etc. is selected for the research analysis.

Data was collected through a validated self – administered questionnaire. This included one
dependent (Y) variable which was customer orientation that included five items. On the other
hand, independent (X) variables which help in identifying the unit change in Y because of X,
were Tangibles, Reliability, Assurance, Responsiveness, and Empathy which included five items
each, respectively.

A structured questionnaire is constructed for primary data collection from the consumers in the
selected sample. Different questions are asked related to the service quality of TCS Couriers to
identify the factors that influence customer orientation of the brand.

The questionnaire is divided into two parts. First is the demographic section and the second
section is comprised of the questions based on the selected variables in the framework of the
research. The Likert scale selected for the questionnaire has five points which were given by
Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill in 2003.
The Likert scale selected for the questionnaire included five points which were, Strongly
Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree and Strongly Agree.

The statistical tool used for this research would be the Regression Model. This analysis helps in
analyzing the data and to depict the significant relationship between dependent and independent
variables.

RESULTS

This section of the research includes all the techniques that have been used to test the results. The
section includes all the tests’ analysis including, Reliability tests, Correlation, Cross Tabulation
of the important factors, Frequency Tables, Statistical analysis (Mean, Median, Skewness,
Kurtosis, SD etc.), Regression Model, ANOVA, And Coefficients. The results of the mentioned
tests helped in finding out the impacts of variables over customer orientation in the service
industry, specifically in the case of TCS, Peshawar. These tests helped in finding out the
significance and insignificance of different variables.

Table 1 below, the reliability analysis was done and it was concluded that the items of each
variable were according to the standardized criteria of acceptance.

Table: 1 Reliability Statistics

Variables Cronbach’s Alpha

Tangibles 0.795
Reliability 0.788
Responsiveness 0.655
Assurance 0.844
Empathy 0.864
Customer Orientation 0.783

The alpha coefficient for the 6 variables including, Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness,
Assurance, Empathy and Customer Orientation is 0.795, 0.788, 0.655, 0.844, 0.864 and 0.783
respectively. According to the standard, the reliability coefficient of more than .60 or above is
considered as worthy.
The range of Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient is between 0 and 1. If the value of the
coefficient is close to 1 that shows consistency among the questions included in the
questionnaire. This shows that whether the variables are worthy or not. The value of Cronbach’s
alpha increases with the increment in the number of variables selected.

Table 2 below demographic Profiles was discussed. A total number of 210 samples of which 119
were male and 91 were females. It includes the gender, age, education, location of your
residence, Number of times services availed, Why prefer TCS over other cargo services?

Table: 2 Demographic Profiles

2.1 Gender

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid Male 119 56.7 56.7 56.7
Female 91 43.3 43.3 100.0
Total 210 100.0 100.0

In the table the sample taken from the population is explained as among 210 samples, 119 are
male respondents i.e. 56.7 percent and 91 female respondents are there i.e. is 43.3 percent of the
total sample. The table shows that the male respondents are more in number than the female
respondents in the selected sample.
2.2 Age

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid 18-25 160 76.2 76.2 76.2
26-33 20 9.5 9.5 85.7
34-40 15 7.1 7.1 92.9
41-46 6 2.9 2.9 95.7
47 and above 9 4.3 4.3 100.0
Total 210 100.0 100.0

In this table, the age groups are discussed. As the first age group i.e. between 18-25 years, 160
respondents are considered which forms 76.2 percent of the total population. 20 respondents
were included in the second age group between 26- 33 years that comprises 9.5 percent of the
total sample. In the third, fourth and fifth group 15, 6 and 9 respondents were included that forms
7.1, 2.9 and 4.3 percent of the complete sample taken respectively. Most of the respondents are
included in the first age group i.e. between 18-25 years.

2.3 Education
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid Matriculation 2 1.0 1.0 1.0
Intermediate 9 4.3 4.3 5.2
Bachelors 152 72.4 72.4 77.6
Masters 43 20.5 20.5 98.1
Doctorate 4 1.9 1.9 100.0
Total 210 100.0 100.0

The above-mentioned table shows the education level of the respondents. Most of the
respondents belong to third level i.e. bachelor's as 152 respondents are included which forms
72.4 percent of the total population, however, Masters ranked second in the data set. 43
respondents out of 210 belonged to Masters Group, 9 respondents belonged to the intermediate
group, 4 belonged to Doctorate/ Ph.D. and 2 of the whole sample belonged to the matriculation
group.

2.4: Location of your residence

Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent
Valid City 89 42.4 42.4 42.4
Cantt 60 28.6 28.6 71.0
University Road/ Town 29 13.8 13.8 84.8
Hayatabad 32 15.2 15.2 100.0
Total 210 100.0 100.0

In the above-mentioned table, the frequency of the people with their locations is given. It is
concluded that 89 out of 210 respondents were the residents of the City area in Peshawar. They
ranked the highest due to convenient sampling. The second highest are the residents of Cantt area
which is 66 of the 210 that make 28% of the total sample. However, 32 respondents belonged to
the Hayatabad area and the remaining 29 belonged to University Road/ Town area.