A STUDY ON IMPACT OF PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES AND

CONSUMER SATISFACTION
[AMONG AUTOMOBILES]

Submitted by
Saumya Parmarthi
Division B; Roll No. 3; PRN: 11010224063
Manu Gupta
Division C; Roll No. 39; PRN: 11010224161
Rohit Nema
Division C; Roll No. 52; PRN: 11010224063
Batch: 2011-16; BBA.LLB

Of
Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA
Symbiosis International University, PUNE
In
March, 2014
Under the guidance of
Dr. Sunita Dwivedi
Faculty-in-Charge
Customer Relationship Management
Email id: sunita.dwivedi@scms.edu.in

CERTIFICATE

The Project entitled A Study on Impact of Promotional Activities
and Consumer Satisfaction- among Automobiles submitted to the
Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA for Customer Relationship Management as
part of internal assessment is based on our original work carried out
under the guidance of Prof. Sunita Dwivedi from December2013 to
April2014. The research work has not been submitted elsewhere for
award of any degree.
The material borrowed from other sources and incorporated in the thesis
has been duly acknowledged.
I understand that I myself could be held responsible and accountable for
plagiarism, if any, detected later on.




Signature of the candidates
Date: 3
rd
April2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT


Foremost, we would like to express my sincere gratitude to our advisor
Prof. Sunita Dwivedi the continuous support, patience, motivation,
enthusiasm, and immense knowledge which she has provided.
Finally, we take this opportunity to extend our deep appreciation to our
family and friends, for all that they meant to us during the decisive times
of the completion of our project.





INDEX





S. No. Particulars Page No.
1. Introduction
2. Object of the Study
3. Literature Review
4.
5. Research Methodology
6. Data Analysis
7.
8. Conclusion
9. References

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. Page No.
For Manufacturers:
1. Are there any promotional activities being
conducted presently by your company?

2. What kinds of activities are being conducted?
3. What was the date of commencement of such
offer/s?

4. If more than one, which one of such offers has
enhanced the customer satisfaction the most?

5. How are the sales figures of your company
affected after such an offer?

For Customers:
6. What car do you drive?
7. What offers did you get on such purchase, if any?
8. Did these offers incline you towards making such
purchase?

9. Did you compare the offers by other car
manufacturers too while purchasing this car?


10. Are you satisfied with the offers you got?


OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
To know about the impact of promotional activities done by the
organisation and their customers response/ satisfaction level with respect
to automobile sector.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The group will be conducting a quantitative primary empirical research as
a part of the research thesis of Customer Relationship Management. And
also will be referring to Secondary data provided in:
Books
Journals
Articles
Cyber space

HYPOTHESIS
Assuming


INTRODUCTION

Customer Relationship Management:
In the mid-twentieth century, mass production techniques and mass
marketing changed the competitive landscape by increasing product
availability for consumers. However, the purchasing process that allowed
the shopkeeper and customer to spend quality time interacting with each
other was also fundamentally changed. As a result, customers lost their
uniqueness becoming an account number. Shopkeepers lost track of
their customers individual needs as the market became full of product
and service options. Many companies today are striving to re-establish
their connections to new as well as existing customers to boost long-term
customer loyalty (Chen and Popovich, 2003).
Most companies engage in some form of customer relationship
management. When a company builds a customer list, assigns
opportunities to sales representatives, or handles customer support
cases, they are undertaking CRM-related activities.
CRM applications standardize, automate, and share these activities across
organizations to improve how companies interact with their customers.
An integrated approach to identifying, acquiring and maintaining
customers.
Allows companies to coordinate their approach across channels,
departments and also geographically.

Pre-CRM Practices:
Before adopting a CRM application, companies should understand how
they interact with customers in order to understand the benefits they can
derive from CRM applications.
Customer satisfaction: The degree of satisfaction by the goods and
services of the company as measured by the number of repeat customers.

Importance of promotional activities

LITERATURE REVIEW

Modern marketers are rediscovering the ancient mantras for success in
corporate world and blending them with contemporary marketing
practices. Long term survival and competitive advantage can only be
attained by establishing an emotional bond with the customers. A shift is
taking place from marketing to anonymous masses of customers to
developing and managing relationships with more or less well known or at
least some identified customers (Gronroos, 1994).
CRM refers to all business activities directed towards initiating,
establishing, maintaining, and developing successful long-term relational
exchanges (Heide, 1994; Reinartz & Kumar, 2003). One of the results
of CRM is the promotion of customer loyalty (Evans & Laskin, 1994),
which is considered to be a relational phenomenon, (Chow & Holden,
1997; Jacoby & Kyner, 1973; Sheth & Parvatiyar, 1995; cited by
Macintosh & Lockshin, 1997). The benefits of customer loyalty to a
provider of either services or products are numerous, and thus
organizations are eager to secure as significant a loyal customer base as
possible (Gefen, 2002; Reinartz & Kumar, 2003; Rowley & Dawes,
2000). Recent developments in Internet technology have given the
Internet a new role to facilitate the link between CRM and customer
loyalty (Body and Limayem, 2004). It is common knowledge that a
dissatisfied and unhappy customer will share his unfortunate experience
more than a satisfied customer. It is also observed that a fraction of
unhappy customers choose to complain while others simply switch their
loyalty to others service providers. Loss of customer is loss of business
along with the opportunity for business growth and profitability. Feedback
collection from the customer is essential for the supplier to ascertain
customer satisfaction and scope for improvisation (Sugandhi, 2002).

QUESTIONNAIRE
We are students of Symbiosis University and conducting a research study to examine the
customer satisfaction. Your participation in this research project is entirely voluntary and
your responses will be kept completely CONFIDENTIAL.
FOR THE MANUFACTURERS:
1. Are there any promotional activities being conducted presently by your
company?
Yes No

2. What kinds of activities are being conducted?
O Cash discount/ Corporate discount
O Exchange bonus
O Loyalty bonus
O Limited editions/ special editions
O Free goodies
O Introductory Price
O Any other ______________________________
3. What was the date of commencement of such offer/s?
___________________________________________________________
4. If more than one, which one of such offers has enhanced the customer
satisfaction the most?
___________________________________________________________
5. How are the sales figures of your company affected after such an offer?
___________________________________________________________
FOR THE CUSTOMERS:
1. What brands car(s) do you drive?
O Hyundai O Maruti-Suzuki O Honda O Toyota
O Volkswagen O Ford O Chevrolet O Tata
O Skoda O Renault O Any Other ___________
2. What offers did you get on such purchase, if any?
O Cash discount/ Corporate discount
O Exchange bonus
O Loyalty bonus
O Limited editions/ special editions
O Free goodies
O Introductory Price
O Any other ______________________________

3. Did these offers incline you towards making such purchase?
Yes No
4. Did you compare the offers by other car manufacturers too while
purchasing this car?
Yes No
5. Are you satisfied with the offers you got?
Yes No
DATA ANALYSIS

Manufacturers:
1. Promotional activities in companies


2. Kinds of promotional offers in companies
80%
20%
Yes No
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Cash discount Exchange bonus Loyalty Bonus Special/ Ltd
editions
Free Goodies Intro price
3. Age of such offers



Customers:
4. Car owned




0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
01-01-13 to 31-06-13 01-07-13 to 31-12-13 After 01-01-14
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Hyundai Honda Volkswagen Chevrolet Skoda
5. Offers Received


6. Inclination towards making purchase due to offers





7. Comparisons of offers by other car manufacturers
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Cash discount Exchange bonus Loyalty Bonus Special/ Ltd
editions
Free Goodies Intro price
70%
30%
Yes No



8. Customer Satisfaction



90%
10%
Yes No
80%
20%
Yes No
RESULTS
As we can see from Graph 1, from all the manufacturers we
approached to, 100% of the manufacturers were continuing with
promotional activities in their companies as a tool for increasing the
sales figures and enhancing the customer satisfaction and experience
levels.
The manufacturing concerns concentrate on indulging in the
promotional activities like Cash discount, Exchange bonus and Loyalty
bonus with bonuses like free goodies coming at the last as seen in
Graph 2.
From Graph 3 we can see that these offers do not continue till a long
time and the frequency of the commencement of ongoing offers in the
last six months is significantly more than the preceding six months or
before that.
Graph 4 shows the ownership of cars among the customers of different
brands.
We can see from Graph 5 that the customers received the Loyalty
bonus and Cash discount more as compared to promotional activities
like free goodies and introductory price.
70% of the customers incline towards the purchase as a result of such
offers as shown by Graph 6
90% of the customers compare the offers by different car
manufacturers before making the decision of buying an automobile as
shown in Graph 7.
Lastly, 80% of the respondent customers are reportedly satisfied with
all the promotional offers they got with their purchase of the
automobile as seen in Graph 8 but still, 20% of the customers are not
satisfied with the available offers in the market.
CONCLUSION

This project report was to analyze the satisfaction among customers
resulting out of the promotional activities carried out by the
manufacturing concerns in the automobile industry. At the end of this
research thesis, we have learnt that promotional activities form a major
component in enhancing the customer satisfaction and can affect the
buying decision of a customer.
From the empirical research we found out that almost every automobile
manufacturing company uses promotional activities to lure more and
more customers. And the customer's decision to buy a product or not can
be affected by the offers he is getting on different products and their
alternates in the market. As a matter of fact, in our study, 90% people
admitted that they compare the offers given by different manufacturing
companies before buying an automobile.
We also found out that the companies, from their previous experiences,
have learnt that the customers want something new in the offers
department so they do not run these offers for a long time and terminate
and initiate new promotional offers within 6 months or an year of the
commencement of such offer.
Considering the fact that our study showed that 80% of the people are
satisfied with their purchase of an automobile as a result of the ongoing
promotional offers going on them, what we have derived from this
empirical research thesis is that the customer satisfaction is affected to a
large extent by promotional activities in the automobile industry and the
companies need to focus more towards satisfying the needs of the
customers in this regard and make an attempt to cater to that remaining
20% of the people as well so as to increase their sales volume and in turn
their market presence, productivity and brand value.
REFERENCES

JOURNALS:
Macintosh, G., & Lockshin, L. S. (1997). Retail relationships and loyalty:
A multi-level perspective, International Journal of Research in Marketing,
14(5), 487-497.
McDonald, L. (2002), Customer Relationship Management - An
Overview, Available at:
http://www.brillianceweb.com/betterwebdesign/tips_48.aspx, Accessed
on July 30, 2006
Gronroos, C. (1983), Strategic Management and Marketing in the Service
Sector, Report No. 83-104, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA.
Buttle, F. (2004), Customer Relationship Management: concepts and
tools, Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann
Anonymous, Research variables: Reliability and Validity of
Measurement, available on:
http://cbdd.wsu.edu/edev/NetTOM_ToT/Resources/Other/TOM614/page6
8.htm, [last accessed on September 3, 2006]

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