CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

( With Special Reference To..)

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for.. in Management

By

Name.. Enrolment No- (In BBA)

Under the Supervision of Guide Name Department Of Management . Ip University

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project work has been a great experience SUMITThis work would not have been possible without the help, cooperation, constructive suggestion and well wishes of many people. I would like to thank all of them, as I mention a few here. I owe my profound respect to , my project guide ,, and express my deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness for Their inspirations, valuable and scholarly guidance, imperative suggestions and personal attention at each stage of the Work. Their gamut of knowledge, dedication towards research, exemplary devotion and trust towards me has been unique and is the prime key behind the success of this project. her personality has been instrumental in blending an exciting spirit and atmosphere for research. It has been a great opportunity and experience to work with her, as I will forever cherish the deep interaction I had with her. Finally, I am most grateful to my parents for their moral support and blessings and for being an immense source of inspiration for me all through my life.

DECLARATION
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree / diploma . Signed: .. Date: .. Statement 2 This project is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended.

Signed: .. Date:

Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction, 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 is part of the four perspectives of a Balanced Scorecard. In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy

Measuring customer satisfaction

Organizations are increasingly interested in retaining existing customers while targeting non-customers. Measuring customer satisfaction provides an indication of how successful the organization is at providing products and/or services to the marketplace. Customer satisfaction 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 may have and other products against which the customer can compare the organization's products. Because satisfaction is basically a psychological state, care should be taken in the effort of quantitative measurement, although a large quantity of research in this area has recently been developed. Work done by Berry, Brodeur between 1990 and 1998 defined ten 'Quality Values' which influence satisfaction behavior, further

expanded by Berry in 2002 and known as the ten domains of satisfaction. These ten domains of satisfaction include: Quality, Value, Timeliness, Efficiency, Ease of Access, Environment, Interdepartmental Teamwork, Front line Service Behaviors, Commitment to the Customer and Innovation. These factors are emphasized for continuous improvement and organizational change measurement and are most often utilized to develop the architecture for satisfaction measurement as an integrated model. Work done by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry between 1985 and 1988 provides the basis for the measurement of customer satisfaction with a service by using the gap between the customer's expectation of performance and their perceived experience of performance. This provides the measurer with a satisfaction "gap" which is objective and quantitative in nature. Work done by Cronin and Taylor propose the "confirmation/disconfirmation" theory of combining the "gap" described by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry as two different measures (perception and expectation of performance) into a single measurement of performance according to expectation. According to Garbrand, customer satisfaction equals perception of performance divided by expectation of performance.

Customer Satisfaction in 7 Steps

It's a well known fact that no business can exist without customers. In the business of Website design, it's important to work closely with your customers to make sure the site or system you create for them is as close to their requirements as you can manage. Because it's critical that you form a close working relationship with your client, customer service is of vital importance. What follows are a selection of tips that will make your clients feel valued, wanted and loved.

1. Encourage Face-to-Face Dealings

This is the most daunting and downright scary part of interacting with a customer. If you're not used to this sort of thing it can be a pretty nerve-wracking experience. Rest assured, though, it does get easier over time. It's important to meet your customers face to face at least once or even twice during the course of a project. My experience has shown that a client finds it easier to relate to and work with someone they've actually met in person, rather than a voice on the phone or someone typing into an email or messenger program. When you do meet them, be calm, confident and above all, take time to ask them what they need. I believe that if a potential client spends over half the meeting doing the talking, you're well on your way to a sale.

2. Respond to Messages Promptly & Keep Your Clients Informed

This goes without saying really. We all know how annoying it is to wait days for a response to an email or phone call. It might not always be practical to deal with all customers' queries within the space of a few hours, but at least email or call them back and let them know you've received their message and you'll contact them about it as soon as possible. Even if you're not able to solve a problem right away, let the customer know you're working on it. A good example of this is my Web host. They've had some trouble with server hardware which has caused a fair bit of downtime lately. At every step along the way I was emailed and told exactly what was going on, why things were going wrong, and how long it would be before they were working again. They also apologized repeatedly, which was nice. Now if they server had just gone down with no explanation I think I'd have been pretty annoyed and may have moved my business elsewhere. But because they took time to keep me informed, it didn't seem so bad, and I at least knew they were doing something about the problems. That to me is a prime example of customer service.

3. Be Friendly and Approachable

A polite and courteous fellow Site Pointer once told me that you can hear a smile through the phone. This is very true. It's very important to be friendly, courteous and to make your clients feel like you're their friend and you're there to help them out. There will be times when you want to beat your clients over the head repeatedly with a blunt object it happens to all of us. It's vital that you keep a clear head, respond to your clients' wishes as best you can, and at all times remain.

4. Have a Clearly-Defined Customer Service Policy

This may not be too important when you're just starting out, but a clearly defined customer service policy is going to save you a lot of time and effort in the long run. If a customer has a problem, what should they do? If the first option doesn't work, then what? Should they contact different people for billing and technical enquiries? If they're not satisfied with any aspect of your customer service, who should they tell? There's nothing more annoying for a client than being passed from person to person, or not knowing who to turn to. Making sure they know exactly what to do at each stage of their enquiry should be of utmost importance. So make sure your customer service policy is present on your site -and anywhere else it may be useful.

5. Attention to Detail (also known as 'The Little Niceties')

Have you ever received a Happy Birthday email or card from a company you were a client of? Have you ever had a personalized sign-up confirmation email for a service that you could tell was typed from scratch? These little niceties can be time consuming and aren't always cost effective, but remember to do them. Even if it's as small as sending a Happy Holidays email to all your customers, it's something. It shows you care; it shows there are real people on the other end of that screen or telephone; and most importantly, it makes the customer feel welcomed, wanted and valued.

6. Anticipate Your Client's Needs & Go Out Of Your Way to Help Them Out
Sometimes this is easier said than done! However, achieving this supreme level of understanding with your clients will do wonders for your working relationship. Take this as an example: you're working on the front-end for your client's exciting new ecommerce Endeavour. You have all the images, originals and files backed up on your desktop computer and the site is going really well. During a meeting with your client he/she happens to mention a hard-copy brochure their internal marketing people are developing. As if by magic, a couple of weeks later a CDROM arrives on their doorstep complete with high resolution versions of all the images you've used on the site. A note accompanies it which reads: "Hi, you mentioned a hard-copy brochure you were working on and I wanted to provide you with large-scale copies of the graphics I've used on the site. Hopefully you'll be able to make use of some in your brochure." Your client is heartily impressed, and remarks to his colleagues and friends how very helpful and considerate his Web designers are. Meanwhile, in your office, you lay back in your chair drinking your 7th cup of coffee that morning, safe in the knowledge this happy customer will send several referrals your way.

7. Honour Your Promises

It's possible this is the most important point in this article. The simple message: when you promise something, deliver. The most common example here is project delivery dates.

Clients don't like to be disappointed. Sometimes, something may not get done, or you might miss a deadline through no fault of your own. Projects can be late, technology can fail and sub-contractors don't always deliver on time. In this case a quick apology and assurance itll be ready ASAP wouldn't go amiss.

Conclusion
Customer service, like any aspect of business, is a practiced art that takes time and effort to master. All you 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? How would you want to be treated? Treat your customers like your friends and they'll always come back.

CONSUMER SATISFACTION PROCESS

The paramount goal of marketing is to understand the consumer and to influence buying behaviour. One of the main perspectives of the consumer behaviour research analyses buying Behaviour from the so-called information processing perspective" (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982). According to the model, customer decision-making process comprises a need-Satisfying behaviour and a wide range of motivating and influencing factors. The process can be depicted in the following steps (Engel, Blackwell et al. 1995):

1) Need recognition realization of the difference between desired

situation and the current situation that serves as a trigger for the entire consumption process.

2) Search for information - search for data relevant for the

purchasing decision, both from Internal sources (one's memory) and/or external sources.

3)Pre-purchase alternative evaluation - assessment of

available choices that can fulfill the Realized need by evaluating benefits they may deliver and reduction of the number of options to the one (or several) preferred.

4) Purchase - acquirement of the chosen option of product or service. 5) Consumption - utilization of the procured option. 6) Post-purchase alternative re-evaluation - assessment of
whether or not and to what degree the consumption of the alternative produced satisfaction.

7) Divestment - disposal of the unconsumed product or its remnants.

Besides the information processing perspective, marketing analyses consumer behaviour by employing a psychologically grounded concept of attitudes (Balderjahn 1988; Ronis, Yates ET al. 1989; Luzar and Cosse 1998). It is consumer attitudes that are usually named as the major factor in shaping consumer behaviour and a wealth of studies is available on the topic of how Attitudes can predict behaviour.

INTER-DISCIPLINARITY OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Different research disciplines diverge in their presuppositions about human nature, factors influencing consumer behaviour, market response, etc. Therefore, they naturally employ different research approaches. However, despite that seemingly insurmountable abyss between disciplines, we see that many research topics and methods overlap, and that there is no clear-cut line between different domains of consumer research. Many consumptionrelated issues are being increasingly addressed from interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary perspectives. Many interdisciplinary concepts and factors are of interest for research on consumer satisfaction with eco-efficient services and PSS. Contrary to the suggestions from many traditional neoclassical theories, consumption patterns are very flexible and prone to various influences. Today consumer behaviour is increasingly dynamic as the choice of alternatives increases with the growth of global markets. The complexity of the decision-making process and a large number of influencing factors suggest that changing consumer behaviour towards more sustainable consumption is a challenging process, which requires coordination at individual and societal level. The area of PSS and eco-efficient services is still developing. Further efforts are required in order to understand relations between the functional and emotional needs of customers.

DIFFERENT LEVELS OF COMPLEXITY

When evaluating satisfaction with a product, customers initially assess tangible features of the product. In the service context, the features, though observable, are considerably less tangible and are thus more difficult to assess. A product service system comprises four components (products, services, infrastructures, and networks), rendering the evaluation process of consumer satisfaction even more complex (Mont 2000). Here the part of the system, with which the customer comes into direct contact, is larger than in the case of a pure product or service, which has implications for customer evaluation process. In the case of PSS or eco-services, customers are exposed to both dimensions: product and service. In addition, due to closer relations with the service provider, customers can even become exposed to infrastructure and networks that support PSS delivery. Therefore, in the PSS context, an evaluation of all four PSS components becomes relevant: Product evaluation is conducted by assessment of products or technologies. Person-based or other types of services (technical, information and knowledge services) That are included into PSS may be evaluated. Infrastructure can be evaluated when the customer comes into contact with enabling Supporting technology, or by evaluation of ambient conditions, spatial layout or by evaluating signs and artifacts of the PSS. Networks, are not usually exposed to the customer, but in some cases may be evaluated When they come into contact with customers.

RESEARCH FRAMEWORKS AND METHODS

A great variety of methods and frameworks for understanding and evaluating consumer acceptance and satisfaction are used in different disciplines. The study has discussed the following frameworks: Kano model of customer satisfaction, the Innovation diffusion of Rogers, the service quality model of Grnsroos, and SERVQUAL model by Parasuraman. The study has also surveyed a range of tools used for evaluating and measuring consumer satisfaction. These included surveys, in-depth

interviews, focus group interviews, observations, mystery shopping, and psychographic portrait of customers. A number of drawbacks and benefits pertaining to the tools have been pointed out and discussed. Both the Research models and the tools, while diverse to a different extent, were found to be useful for application in the PSS research area.

CONCLUSIONS
The environmental impacts of ever increasing consumption throughout the world have been recently recognized. Many solutions have been proposed to combat the rising levels of consumption. One of the concepts suggested as a potential solution to reduce consumption levels is the concept of productservice systems (PSS). The concept proved to be viable in the business-to-business context. However, in the private Consumer markets, it has been less successful, both in terms of economic viability and environmental impact reduction. User behaviour has been named as the primary reason for this situation. To address this problem, either behavioural or service system design changes are needed. Changing human behaviour and existing lifestyles contribute to the vision of sustainable development, but it proves to be an insurmountable task over a short period of time. Alternatively, changing the design of product-service system to reduce the behavioural pitfalls could be a potentially easier way towards sustainable development. Changing system design requires understanding how consumer acceptance of more sustainable solutions is formed, influenced or changed, what are the influencing factors and what are the leverage Points for the best results with lowest costs. Understanding consumer perceptions and behaviour in this context is crucial. However, the consumer decision-making process is much more complex and intricate than just a simple decision about shifting from owning a product towards paying per use of it. Throughout this study we demonstrated that products are not seen purely for their functional features, but rather products are complex combinations of various attributes, which, together with functionality, also bring status, serve as a key to a certain social class, reinforce self-esteem, and much-much more.

Therefore, the goal of this study was to take a step towards a better understanding of the complexity of the phenomena we are aiming to change. We did that by looking at how different disciplines perceive the consumption process in general and the consumer decisionMaking process in particular. We saw the wealth of theories and frameworks being developed trying to solve this puzzle. We then looked closer at the potentially most promising models, which could prove useful in understanding the consumer decision-making process in the context of ownerless consumption. We also found some useful tools, which can be employed for collecting information about and from consumers. Identified frameworks and tools were then evaluated for suitability in the PSS context. We also provided some suggestions and examples for how several presented models could be operationalised in the PSS context. Some important lessons were learned from this study: The consumer is a moody creature swinging between rationality and emotional behaviour. All disciplines we looked at addressed consumption from some perspective.