FALL SEMESTER 2011

Course Title: INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING Course Code & No.: MKTG 201 Faculty Member: Mrs. ATIYA PARVEEN

Project Topic: Customer Satisfaction

Prepared and submitted by Mona Hatata

Table of contents

1. Executive summery 2. Introduction to the topic 3. Research Methodology 4. Finding and Analysis 5. Conclusion 6. References

Executive summary
This work is based on four general characteristics of customer satisfaction involving features or qualities related to customer satisfaction serving to identify this phenomenon. Customer satisfaction is a highly variable personal assessment that is greatly influenced by individual expectations based on his/her own information, expectations, direct contact and interaction, and circumstances (time, location and environment). Customer satisfaction involves the sum of personal (product and service) experiences driven by its antecedents. Customer satisfaction is most often related to purchase, loyalty and retention behavior with a effect on an organizations profitability. Customer satisfaction characterizes itself by a high degree of word-of-mouth where satisfied customers are most likely to share their experiences with other people to the order of perhaps five or six people. Equally well, dissatisfied customers are more likely to tell another ten people of their unfortunate experience. This report is a comprehensive analysis of annual study on customer satisfaction. The report highlights specific innovation in the product, solving problems, solutions, and implementation factors that drive success and satisfaction in four broad satisfaction areas. The executive summary contains an overview of key findings from the full report

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Whether the buyer is satisfied after purchase depends on the offers performance in relation to the buyer expectation. In general satisfaction are a persons feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a products perceived performance relation to his/her expectations. If the performance falls short of expectation, the customer is dissatisfied. If the performance matches the expectation customer is satisfied. If the performance exceeds the expectation the customer is highly satisfied. Customer satisfaction cannot be very difficult. After all you either satisfied with the services you receive or you are not. If you dont you are not. If it is that easy, then obtaining people's opinion about how satisfied they are with relatively straight forward matter- or is it? Customer satisfaction is a marketing tool and a definite value added benefit. It is often perceived by customers as important as the primary product or service your organization offers

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC

(Continued..) It looks at what is involved from 3 different angles, the first is from the view of an organization wishing to understand, and measures, how satisfied its customer are with the products and services they receive from it. The second is from the perspective of a research agency that has been asked to obtain feedback from customers and about their experiences when dealing with companies. Finally it considers the issue from the perspective of consumers who participate in surveys, including both business customers and members of general public Customer satisfaction is a business term, is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. It is seen as a key performance indicator within business and part of the four prospective of balanced score card. IN a competitive market place were businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy customer satisfaction drives successful private sector business. High performing businesses have developed principles and strategies for achieving customer satisfaction.

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC

(Continued..)
This paper presents a framework or set of ideas for using customer satisfaction principles and strategies to improve the quality responsiveness, and possibility of public sector privately provided services in vulnerable communities. The framework suggested that resident who live in tough neighborhoods can be supported through customer satisfaction strategies to become empowered individuals who informed perspectives influence decisions about what, how, when, and where services are available to them. Customer satisfaction is the customers response to the evaluation of the perceived discrepancy between prior expectation and the actual performance of the product as perceived after its consumption. DEFINITION Codotte, Woodruff and Jenkins (1987) define customer satisfaction as "conceptualized as a feeling developed from an evaluation of the experience." HERE, the timing of satisfaction response is driving consumption. BUT there is general agreement with kotler (2003) that "customer satisfaction is a person's feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a products perceived performance in relation to his or her expectation."

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC (Continued..)

In short customer satisfaction is "The provision of goods or services which fulfill the customer expectation in terms of quality and service, in relation to price paid."

IMPORTANCE OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

IT costs at least 7 times more to source a new customer than it does to retain existing one A 'satisfied' customer tells 5-7 people in a year whilst a 'dissatisfied' customer will tell 14-15 people. Companies can boost profits anywhere from 25% to 125% by retaining a mere 5% more of their exciting customers. Totally satisfied customers were 6 times more likely to use that services and commend it than ' satisfied' customers. Customers who have a bad experience with you and do not complain are only 37% likely to still do business with you. Customers who have an opportunity to complain and the complaint is achieved are 95% likely to still do business with you.

Factors of customer satisfaction

Service quality Reliability Quality of service of the staff Reliability of service Knowledge of the staff Being kept informed of progress The way service kept its promises The way the service handled any problem Friendliness of staff How sympathetic staff were to your needs Speed of enquiries Number of time had to contact the service.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Continue

Customer Satisfaction Methodology: Introduction Organizations are increasingly interested in retaining existing customers while targeting non-customers; measuring customer satisfaction provides an indication how successful is the organization at providing products and/or services to the market place. Customer satisfied is an ambiguous and abstract concept and the actual manifestation of the state of satisfaction will vary from person to person and product/service to product/service. The state of satisfaction depends on a number of both psychological and physical variables which correlate with satisfaction behaviors such as return and recommend rate. The level of satisfaction can also vary depending on other options the customer can compare the organizations products. Any methodology for researching customer satisfaction cannot be meaningfully evaluated without first articulating exactly what it is one wants it to accomplish. In a competitive environment, customer satisfaction is crucial to long-term profitability. Given the opportunity to choose, customers whose needs or desires are not met will not continue to support the companies from whom they have been buying.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Continue

The ideal firm, from the perspective of both customer and shareholder, is one which allocates its resources to continually improve those processes and quality aspects that drive customer satisfaction, and converts increased customer satisfaction into improved financial performance. The primary goal of any corporation is to maximize long-term profits. The objective of customer satisfaction management is to harness customer satisfaction in order to achieve that larger corporate goal. Methods of measuring and diagnosing customer satisfaction should be evaluated according to this criterion: How well do these methods help corporations understand and optimize the economic value of the customer relationship? Given the nature of modern competition, hoping to retain a competitive advantage is seldom realistic. Competitive advantage is most often achieved by continually monitoring the customer base, and continually improving aspects of quality which have high rates of return. The problem is to find out where improvements in quality will bring a better return-on-investment, and how those improvements should be achieved.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Continue

The traditional approaches to market research, on which many firms rely, simply ask customers what they consider important. There are more and less sophisticated ways of asking this, but none of them will gather information relevant to the objective: increasing customer satisfaction in ways that will maximize long-term profits. Most firms also make the mistake of treating satisfaction as a simple binary concept. Simple in the sense that only one question is used; binary in the sense that customers are categorized as either satisfied or dissatisfied (a so-called Top Box approach) often in percentage terms. This approach is crude and rarely provides reliable and valid information over time. This is also why many firms fail to find any relationships between quality and satisfaction and between satisfaction and profit. Perhaps the best way to get the point across is to compare satisfaction, as a concept, to intelligence. Both are multidimensional and not directly observable. Any attempt to measure intelligence by a simple question (Are you dumb or smart?) is not likely to yield useful information. It is not reasonable to think that one can assess a persons intelligence by a single question (or by a single survey question). Likewise, it is not reasonable to assume that one can capture the concept of satisfaction by a single overall question.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Continue

Aside from the necessity to use multiple questions, satisfaction, like intelligence, is a matter of degree. It will not be possible to relate satisfaction to profits if satisfaction is expressed in broad categories. Accordingly, one can treats satisfaction as a matter of degree, indicated by the responses to several continuous (10-point scales) variables, which are transformed to 100-point scales. Furthermore, even when a good scale is used, the analysis of the data can be fraught with difficulties. For example, some firms use relative weights from a factor analysis of a number of questions on quality. Their resulting index is simply a consequence of the shared aspects (correlation) of the questions. (If there are more questions on a particular attribute, that attribute will have a disproportionate representation in the index.) The fact that quality aspects correlate among themselves has little to do with customers repurchase behavior or their reservation prices. In other words, because economic variables and/or repurchase and price tolerance variables are not included as criteria for the factor analysis, this type of index is constructed on the basis of an irrelevant criterion. To be useful, a satisfaction index must be based on a more relevant criterion (such as repurchase or willingness to pay, for example)..

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Continue

This system relies on a weighting scheme such that the resulting index is optimal. It is optimal because the relationship between satisfaction and economic returns is maximized. This is a critical part of this approach. It assures that a given increase in the Customer Satisfaction Index has a maximal impact on that which is typically the ultimate objective of the firm economic returns. The implication of an optimal satisfaction index is that we avoid the common problem that an increase in the index does not lead to economic results. It also points to the fact that it is not satisfaction, but economic returns, that should be maximized. There will always be a point beyond which increases in satisfaction cost more than the additional revenue they bring in. Most traditional approaches to market research either confuse comparison of levels (where we are today vs. last year/the competition/other aspects of quality and levels of importance as provided by customers) with marginal contributions (what should be changed), or fail to make the connections to economic returns, or both. This system quantifies the impact of quality components on satisfaction and, in turn, the impact of satisfaction on economic returns. Clients can then use this information for efficient resource allocation.

FINDINGS & ANALYSIS

Type of the research The type of the research could be of descriptive in nature. The data is collected and presented as it is by means of survey collected. Objective of the study Primary objective: To analyze the customers degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction for a particular product. Secondary objective: To make assessment of the consumers acceptance and the determinants of their purchase decision (survey of customer through questionnaire) To study the attitude of customers towards the facilities provided at the centre. Scope of the study The study is to encompass and helps in understanding how satisfied the customers are with particular product. The study should also helps in knowing which of the product type are preferred. The other scopes being it enables us to know the quality of product and service provided.

FINDINGS & ANALYSIS

Sample size: To determine a numerical figure i.e. the study is be done by collecting data from a sample size of 50 customers. Sampling method: The study is to be carried out on random sampling method Sources of data collection method: The study is done by collecting primary data as well as secondary data. A primary data: It is to be collected by supplying questionnaire to the customers. B. secondary data: Can be collected from various other sources such as websites, books related to customer satisfaction and officials of the different outlets. Limitations of the study Confinement of the study only to the customers of a particular area / city. The study is limited only to 50 customers only. The conclusion arrive at are limited to the data that was available was amongst the limited random sampled customers

CONCLUSIONS
Customers needs are always changing and to meet the same is really tough. Hence the Corporate bodied should constantly innovate its design to improve the customer satisfaction. And try and build up brand loyalty with its customers. The bottom-line of Customer satisfaction is a practiced art that takes time and effort to master. All we need to do to achieve this is to stop and switch roles with the customer. What would you want from your business if you were the client in terms of the following? Value-price relationship Product quality Product benefits Product features Product design Product reliability and consistency Range of products or services offered by your company Courtesy Communication Ease or convenience of acquisition (either buying the product or using the service) Company reputation Company competence How would you want to be treated? Fulfill customers expectations and treat the customers like your friends and theyll always come back.

REFERENCES: Books: Research Methodology Kothari The Loyalty Guide report series - Peter Clark Marketing Management 12 e Philip Kotler Websites: www.google.com www.wikipedia.com www.dhl.com www.scribd.com http://www.van-haaften.nl/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=135:conclusion&catid=54 &Itemid=53