INTRODUCTION:

It is very important to understand customer‘s needs to serve them better, and to understand needs management should understand key buying factors so that management could prepare themselves accordingly. Satisfying our customers is an essential element to staying in business in this modern world of global competition. We must satisfy and even delight our customers with the value of our products and services to gain their loyalty and repeat business. Customer satisfaction is therefore a primary goal of process improvement programs. So how satisfied are our customers? One of the best ways to find out is to ask them using Customer Satisfaction Surveys. These surveys can provide management with the information they need to determine their customer's level of satisfaction with their products and with the services associated with those products. Employees and the management of the store can use the survey information to identify opportunities for on-going process improvements and to monitor the impact of those improvements.

This paper includes details on designing your own customer satisfaction questionnaire, tracking survey results and example reports that turn survey data into useful information.

OBJECTIVES:

The goal of the Customer Service Standard is to enhance the level of contact between Customers and the Organizational Employees. The main of customer service is to provide the best possible service.

The objectives of the project study are:

· To understand the Card Category of Pantaloons store visitors.

· Effectiveness of promotional measures as perceived by Loyalty Card uses.

· Reasons for visiting Pantaloons –viz. purchase, loyalty card usage, good quality and collection

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Good customer satisfaction has an effect on the profitability of nearly every business. For example, when customers perceive good service, each will typically tell nine to ten people. It is estimated that nearly one half of American business is built upon this informal, “word-of-mouth” communication (Gitomer, 1998). Improvement in customer retention by even a few percentage points can increase profits by 25percent or more (Griffin, 1995). The University of Michigan found that for every percentage increase in customer satisfaction, there is an average increase of 2.37% of return on investment (Keiningham and Vavra, 2001). Most people prize the businesses that treat them the way they like to be treated; they’ll even pay more for this service. However, a lack of customer satisfaction has an even larger effect on the bottom line. Customers who receive poor service will typically relate their dissatisfaction to between fifteen and twenty others. The average American company typically loses between 15 and 20percent of its customers each year (Griffin, 1995). The cost of gaining a new customer is ten times greater than the cost of keeping a satisfied customer (Gitomer, 1998). In addition, if the service is particularly poor, 91% of retail customers will not return to the store (Gitomer, 1998). In fact, if the service incident is so negative, the negative effects can last years through repeated recollection and recounting of the negative experience (Gitomer, 1998; Reck, 1991). The message is obvious - satisfied customers improve business and dissatisfied customers impair business (Anderson andZemke, 1998; Leland and Bailey, 1995). Customer satisfaction is an asset that should be monitored and managed just like any physical asset. Therefore, businesses that hope to prosper will realize the importance of this concept, putting together a functional and appropriate operational definition (McColl-Kennedy and Schneider, 2000). This is true for both service-oriented and product-oriented organizations (Sureshchander, Rajendran, and Kamalanabhan, 2001). The primary issue with developing an operational definition with the specific components of customer satisfaction is to clearly identify the nature of the organization’s business. This further extends into the effective collection, analysis, and application of customer satisfaction information. Services and products are the two major orientations of business. Products – also referred to as goods, are the physical output of a business. These are tangible objects that exist in time and space. These are first created, then inventoried and sold. It is after purchase that these are actually consumed (Suresh chander, Rajendran, and Kamalanabhan, 2001; Berry, 1980). Products might include computers, automobiles, or food at a restaurant. Services, on the other hand, are less materially based. In fact, Bateson (cited in Sureshchander, Rajendran, and Kamalanabhan, 2001) noted that there is one major distinction between a service and a product. This differentiation is the intangible nature of a service – it cannot be touched, held, and so on. Another difference is the issue that consist primarily of social interactions or actions (Berry, 1980). The consumption of a service involves the interaction between the producer and the consumer. Also, services are produced and consumed simultaneously (Carman and Langeard, 1980). Services might include computer repair, automobile sales, or the attendance of a server at a restaurant. Delivering quality service is a business necessity (Cullen, 2001).

Components and Requirements of Customer Satisfaction: The concept of customer satisfaction is composed of several components from distinct sources (McColl-Kennedy and Schneider, 2006). Customer satisfaction begins with clear, operational definitions from both the customer and the organization. Understanding the motivations, expectations, and desires of both gives a foundation in how to best serve the customer. It may even provide information on making improvements in the nature of business. This is the heart of research into customer satisfaction (Naylor and Greco, 2002). The importance of clearly defining the key concepts and elements of satisfaction provide a template by which information can be gathered about what is, and what is not, working. This includes both the hard measures – those that are more tangible and observable (i.e., number of complaints, average wait time, product returns, etc.) and the soft measures – those less tangible aspects (i.e., friendliness, helpfulness, politeness, etc.) (Hayes, 1998). These definitions often start with the most vague and general, and become more to the highly specified and precise examples. The bottom line is that in order to know about customer satisfaction, one needs to know what to look for (Mitchell, 1999). The organization needs to seek this information from both within and without. The organizational requirements of customer satisfaction are the internally based processes, components, standards, and criteria that a business strives to achieve. These are the performance goals and benchmarks set forth by the business, for the business. These are the elements of corporate culture (Hayes, 1998). Meeting or exceeding these is often an indicator of success or failure. At times, these indigenous components of customer satisfaction may overlap with those set forth by the customer; at others they may be divergent.

Those processes, components, and standards that are deemed important by the customer are another important source of information. In order for a business to meet the needs and desires of the customer, the business must know the needs and desires of the customer. This information is vital not only for successful business, but also for understanding and improving customer satisfaction. This important component helps to set the standards and components of satisfaction from the perspective of the consumer (Hayes, 1998). Satisfaction dimensions are developed from the previously identified requirements. These are the specific components that make up the requirements. For example, if a customer and organizational requirement is for customer service, the satisfaction dimensions may include interactions, timeliness, and responsiveness. These are the clusters that define the requirements (Hayes, 1998). Critical incidents are the specific operations that relate to the satisfaction dimensions. These are often the concrete and measurable behaviours and actions of employees, groups, or organization. This may also include policies, procedures, and protocols in place within an organization (Hayes, 2008).

From this continued definition and distillation of various sources of data, the actual development of a customer satisfaction instrument or tool can begin in earnest. As always, the planning of the research is the most important component in a successful information-gathering process. It is further helpful that a model of customer satisfaction that incorporates the organizational and customer requirements exists and is applicable in practice.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

Research clearly describes crucial issues like the study’s purpose and objectives, the type of data needed, the technique to be used for selecting samples, data collecting method, analysing it, managing costs and other aspects that are essential for conducting business research.

Sampling Design:

Sampling is an essential part of the business research process. Sampling is the technique of selecting a representative part of a population for the purpose of determining the characteristics of the whole population. During the research, Simple Random Sampling is used to collect data from the shoppers because the target population is small, homogeneous, and the sampling frame is clearly defined.

Sample size:

Random sampling method has been used and a sample size of 200 has been collected. This research uses a judicious mix of primary and secondary data to optimize the quality of research findings within the allotted time and money.

Survey Research:

The method of collecting information by asking a set of pre-formulated questions in a predetermined sequence in a structured questionnaire to a sample of individuals drawn so as to be representative of a defined population is known as survey research. Survey method used in research is descriptive in nature. Although it is quantitative in nature, it also covers some qualitative aspects like research concerning customer‘s satisfaction levels

Observation Study:

Unlike the methods discussed earlier, observation methods do not involve any verbal communication with the respondents. It involved following customer‘s movement and listening discussion with the co-partner regarding store related issues.

Research findings and its discussions:

Factor analysis is primarily a data reduction and summarization technique. While, doing research, a large amount of variables are usually present. These variables have to be correlated and they have to be reduced to manageable level for convenience and better analysis. Thus factor analysis is used to establish relationships among sets of many interrelated variables in terms of few factors.

Factor analysis is an interdependence technique in which all variables are simultaneously considered and each related to all others. With factor analysis the researcher can first identify the separate dimension of the structure and then determine the extent to which each variable is explained by each dimension. Once, these dimensions and the explanation of each variable are determined, the two primary uses of factor analysis- summarization and data reduction can be achieved. In summarizing the data, actor analysis derives underlying dimensions that describe the data in a much smaller number of concepts than the original individual variables. Data reduction can be achieved by calculating scores for each underlying dimensions and substituting them for original variables.

Objective of factor analysis in this study:

In this study factor analysis is used for identifying the underlying factors or variables that influence the customers to hold loyalty card in Pantaloons.

Kaiser recommended accepting values greater than 0.5 as acceptable (KMO Test). Bartlett’s measure tests the null hypothesis that the original correlation matrix is an identity matrix. For factor analysis to work we need some relationships between variables and if the R-matrix were an identity matrix then all correlation coefficients would be zero. Therefore, we want this test to be significant (i.e. have a significance value less than 0.05). A significant test tells us that the R-matrix is not an identity matrix; therefore, there are some relationships between the variables we hope to include in the analysis. For these data, Bartlett’s test is highly significant (p<0.001) and therefore, factor analysis is appropriate. Here, KMO measure is .539 i.e. the model is assumed to be appropriate at least 53.9%.

KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.539
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	19.820
	df	15
	Sig.	.179

Factor extraction:

Total variance explained lists the eigenvalues associated with linear component (factor) before extraction, after extraction and after rotation. Before extraction SPSS has identified linear components with in a data set. The eigenvalues associated with each factor represent the variance explained by that particular linear component and SPSS also displays the eigenvalue in terms of the percentage of variance explained (so, factor 1 explains 23.216% of total variance) It should be clear that the first few factors explain relatively large amount of variance (especially factor 1) whereas subsequent factors explain only small amounts of variance. SPSS then extracts all factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, which leaves us two factors. The eigenvalues associated with these factors are again displayed in the columns labelled Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings. The values in this part of the table are the same as the values before extraction, except that the values for the discarded factors are ignored (hence, the table is blank after the second factor. In the final part of the table (labelled Rotation Sum of Squared loadings), the eigenvalues of the factors after rotation are displayed. Rotation has the effect of optimizing the factor structure and one consequence for these data is that the relative importance of the two factor is equalized. Before rotation factor 1 accounted for considerably more variance than the factor 2, however after extraction it accounts for only 22.585% of variance (compared to 22.424%)

Communalities:

Communalities
	Initial	Extraction
Discount Facility	1.000	0.647
Payback point Facility	1.000	0.486
Exclusive billing counter Facility	1.000	0.617
Exchange Facility	1.000	0.342
Complimentary parking Facility	1.000	0.483
Home delivery facility	1.000	0.125
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

SPSS shows the table of communalities before and after extraction. Principal component analysis works on the initial assumption that all variance is common; therefore, before extraction the communalities are all 1. The communalities in the column labelled Extraction reflect the common variance in the data structure. So, for example, we can say that 63.7% of the variance associated with Discounts is common, or shared variance. Another way to look at these communalities is in terms of the proportion of variance explained by the underlying factors. The amount of variance in each variable that can be explained by the retained factors is represented by the communalities after extraction.

Suggestions given by Customers:

As a feedback customers were asked to give their words. With all the quantitative analysis of the project, there is a provision for customers to share their views as in how to improve customer service standards in Pantaloons. From the feedback the below mentioned points came out repeatedly.

The basic feedbacks that they delivered were:

· More number of trail rooms should be there.

· Billing process needs to be faster.

· Clarification and simplification of green card discounts procedure.

· Stock varieties in terms of size.

· More attractive offers.

· Reduction of the product prices.

· Need to improve the ambience.

· Quality of the products should be improved.

· Improvement of the service of the sales person.

· As per brands, stocks are not updated regularly.

· Exchange procedure should be simplified.

· More sitting arrangement required.

· Inclusion of some international brands is required.

· Proper direction (what to find where) inside the store is required.

· Payback green card discounts should be upgraded.

· There should be separate counter for senior citizen for cashiering.

CONCLUSION:

The data gathered through the questionnaire suggests that the maximum number of customers fall between the age group of 18-25 and that Indian customers have different mind-sets. They also have the tendency to spend little and get more. Moreover, they always expect Value for every penny and in this respect Pantaloons fulfill all of their expectations. 13% of the total customers are over the age of 46. Therefore the information suggests that the customers mainly fall between 18-25 year age group which constitute 38% of the total sample size. If we see on the basis of occupation, maximum no. of students and professionals like to visit Pantaloons during special offers.

Talking about the factors that motivate customers to come to the Pantaloons store mainly focus on their own in house brand availability and value for money. Many of the customers believe that Pantaloons has their own branded products to offer to the customers within a good percentage.

Considering the fact that this project is focusing on customer experience while shopping led us to study whether they are satisfied with the variety and the product range available and 80% of the total sample size believe that they get good variety and product range. Pricing also becomes an important factor for customer to take in to consideration for evaluating their shopping experience. Many of the sample size believe pricing is good enough to come again.

Providing a good billing experience to the customers is a must for every retailer. This is a point where customer can really get frustrated if they spend lot of time to get billing done. 25% of the students and 42% of the professionals sample sizes have said that their billing experience has been excellent. 8% of the students sample size and 7% of the professional sample size responded that their billing experience had bad experience.

More or less both students and professionals are satisfied with the C.S.D performance. But if we compare occupation wise professionals are more satisfied than students. In card category both professionals and students holds maximum no. of 1star card. If we compare in respect of 7star card professionals holds 18% whereas students holds only 9%.

From the survey it is concluded that the most important factor that attracts the customers to the store is the service provided by the store itself. Apart from that, promotional offers and discounts during various occasions are the vital tools to increase the sales. Tastes and preferences of the customers change in regular basis. Survival would be difficult if not stand by the customer’s taste and preferences. So Pantaloons should take necessary steps to keep on updating themselves.

Recommendations:

In an era where many domestic players are coming up in retail and international players are also eyeing India as an emerging retail market. The main concern for the Pantaloons would to provide good customer services and their by retain the customers. Pantaloons also understand the fact that to gain a competitive edge over others, they need to provide something extra to their customers. There are few recommendations that Pantaloons, C.C.2 should take into consideration for developing a niche for itself in the market and enjoy a large chunk of loyal customers:

· Trained customer care associates:

It is very important for any retailer to have a good team of trained customer care service associates. Training in terms of how to handle the customers, how to provide solution etc. should be provided. At the customer service desk (green service desk) lots of problems is being faced by customers as many complaints come over to them like a.) Scheme is not updated. b.) Sometimes wrong billing is done. c.) Many time Customer want to change the product due to liking or improper size.

· Fast billing process:

People at the cash till should be trained enough to get the billing done in a least possible time. According to S.O.P if the Systems are not in proper condition or Have some problem it should be checked before store opening, so that it may not affect the customers and there time. Some times on Week Ends due to high rush Billing procedure gets slow and it humiliates the Customer.

· Delegation of authority:

Proper delegation of authority should be made at the CCA‘s level to handle customer’s queries and provide immediate solution to the customers without consulting seniors because the extra time taken could frustrate the customers.

· Out of the way solution:

It is said that if something extra is required to please the customers then there should be no hesitation of retailer. And to retain one customer one should go to any end. As in retail world Customer is always right.

· Proper shopping ambience:

To provide good customer service, it is imperative that a good ambience is created in the store. Like the First thing which attracts the customer is the store outlook which we in retail World call it Visual Merchandise, which includes Look and feel of store like the fragrance, Music, Lightning, Display of merchandise. Also the customer service the employees provide to the customers.

· CRM programme is implemented:

To keep the track on the customer demographics, income, lifestyle, shopping pattern etc. helps in customizing the services and providing the good customer experience. Maintaining proper database of the customers so that we can offer them with better schemes and retain them as our loyal customers. The following 10 steps should be followed by the store according to the customer recommendation:

· Maintain Flexibility

· Speak with Authority.

· Make the Shopping experience enjoyable.

· Make the shopping experience convenient.

· Showcase new items and new ideas.

· Maximize product affordance.

· Minimize the clutter.

· Simplify the product display.

· Provide effective navigation aids. It should not be confusing.

· Show the merchandise

· Miscellaneous:

· Small size plastic packs should be introduced for carrying small products like lipstick, Deo, or other wellness department products.

· Tags are not removed from the product after billing properly that leads to irritation for the customer as they had to come back from the exit gate once again.

· Issuing gate-pass, approving exchange and issuing credit note should be done from 1counter. Customers feel very bad when they had to go back to exchange counter once again to get the credit note. Either it should be handed over to CSD entirely of cash Dept.

· At least two trial rooms should be introduced in the floor. And that can be done by extending the existing trial rooms which are in the corner of the store.

REFERENCES:

1. Berry, J. W. (1980). Acculturation as varieties of adaptation. In A. Padilla (Ed.), Acculturation: Theory, models and findings Boulder: Westview

2. Carmen, James M. and Eric Langeard (1980), ‘Growth Strategies for Service Firms’, Strategic Management Journal

3. Cullen, R., (2001) Perspectives on user satisfaction surveys, “Library Trends”

4. Gitomer, Jeffrey (May 5, 1998). Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless. Austin, Texas: Bard Press. ISBN 1-885167-30-X.

5. Griffin, Jill., 1995. Customer Loyalty : How to Earn It, How to Keep It. New York, USA : Lexington Books.

6. Hayes, S. C. (2008, Dec.). Interview with Steven C. Hayes, by Sokratens Njordur Viborg

7. Keiningham TL and Vavra TG (2001) : The Customer Delight Principle : Exceeding Customers' Expectations for Bottom-line Success, American of Marketing Association, Chicago

8. Keith Bailey and Karen Leland (1995,): Customer Service for Dummies

9. Mary Naylor, Susan Greco (Hardcover, 2002) : Customer Chemistry

10. McColl-Kennedy, J., and Schneider, U., (2000) : Measuring customer satisfaction: why, what and how , “Total Quality Management”,

11. McColl-Kennedy J.R., Smith A.K., 2006. Consumer emotions in service failure and recovery encounters

12. Reck, R.R., (1991): Turn your customers into your sales force. New York, Prentice Hall Press. Ron Zemke and Kristin Anderson, softcover, 1998, : Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service,

13. Sureshchander, G.S., Rajendran, C., and Kamalanabhan, T.J., (2001): Customer perceptions of service quality: A critique, “Total Quality Management”,

Received on 02.12.2013 Modified on 20.12.2013

Asian J. Management 5(1): January–March, 2014 page 35-40