A Study on Customers Satisfaction towards Nokia Mobile Handsets

N.S.Padmanabhan

Abstract
The modern age can be called as the Age of Consumers. In todays cut-throat competition the consumer is considered as the king. Many policies of various organizations are aimed at keeping the consumer happy and satisfied. It is very important for each and every organization to keep its consumers satisfied in order to maintain its competitiveness in the market. Not only does this help the organization to maintain the share in the market, it might even help it to its share. It might also be instrumental in increasing the overall market size. This helps in increasing the overall profitability of the organization. It also helps the long-term survival prospects of the organization. Consumers when viewed on the macro level exhibit similar traits. However when we take a closer look and come down to the micro level, we find that the consumers vary one another on some aspect or the other based on a variety of attributes (Kotler, 2003)1.

Statement of the Problem

Mobile handset industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India. In a competitive market like India, where a bunch of foreign and indigenous handset companies are fighting each other for a share in the market, satisfaction of customers holds the key to success. Amidst all the competition Nokia retains its first position in India. This has prompted the researcher to study the level of satisfaction of customers of Nokia handsets.

Objective of the study

1. To study the satisfaction of customers of Nokia Mobile Handets. 2. To identify the most important factor that makes the customer to continue with Nokia.

N.S.Padmanabhan, Assistant Professor, Department of Management Studies, Institute of Management & Technology, Westfort Higher Education Trust, Pottore, Thrissur

Theoretical Background
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. In a competitive market place where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a pivot element of business strategy. Oliver (1980) defined customer satisfaction as the function of expectations met and perceptions of discrepancies, suggesting a discrepancy paradigm. Westbrook & Reilly (1983) referred to customer satisfaction as a psychological response caused by experience associated with the purchase of products or services.

Literature Survey
Customer satisfaction is a growing concern among businesses throughout the world. Today, Manufacturing and service companies, large and small, use satisfaction research to determine the critical product and service attributes that provide customer satisfaction. Raja K G, Uma Sharma and Shashikala R (2007)2 in their study identifies product quality, service support, product distribution, service personnel, information services and corporate brand equity as the underlying factors of customer satisfaction. According to the Cyber Media Research (CMR) report 20113, easy availability and a promise of efficient after-sales support became the other key motivators for end users to show increasing preference for new and emerging brands.

Methodology
Measuring satisfaction4 Although the customer oriented companies seek to create high customer satisfaction, this is not the main goal. If the company increases customer satisfaction by lowering its price or increasing its services, the result may be lower profits. The company might be able to increase its profitability by means other than increased satisfaction. Also, company has many stakeholders, including employees, dealers, suppliers, and stockholders. Spending more to increase customer satisfaction might diverts funds from increasing the satisfaction of other partners. Ultimately,

the company must operate on the philosophy that it is trying to deliver a high level of customer satisfaction subject to delivering acceptable levels of satisfaction to the other stakeholders, given its total resources. The methods commonly used by companies for measuring customer satisfaction includes Complaint & Suggestion system, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Ghost shopping and Lost Customer analysis( Kotler 2000). Out of these methods the customer satisfaction surveys are found to be effective. The research design applied for the study is descriptive. The total population is infinite. Population includes all the Nokia handset users in Thrissur. The sample frame consists of the Nokia mobile handset users in Thrissur city. The sample taken for this study is 100. Sample survey has been conducted to collect primary data. The technique used for selection is purposive sampling. Data collection was done with the help of a questionnaire and the collected data were tabulated. The secondary data was collected from journals and websites. Variables used for the study This study uses the following variables such as distribution5, availability of choice, pricing, voice clarity, brand image, ease of operation, battery life, advertisement, value added services, product quality, appearance, after sale services, complaints faced, service support and durability. For analysis the researcher has used simple percentage analysis, rating method to know the level of satisfaction and for identifying the most influencing factor Ranking method. Ranking Method In order to do the ranking, ranking scores are calculated. For this purpose the scales are given the values as 5 for highly satisfied, 4 for satisfied, 3 for neutral, 2 for dissatisfied and 1 for highly dissatisfied. By adding the scores of factors for 100 respondents and taking the percentage, we get the percentage scores for each factor. Then we rank the factors based upon this score.

Analysis and Findings

Demographic Profile of Respondents Age: A vast majority (60%) of the respondents was in the age group 20 40. 20% belong to below 20 category and 20% belong to above 40 category. Gender: 73% of the respondents are males and the rest 27% are females. Most important Factor The score obtained by each variable and the corresponding ranks are shown in the table below Table 1: Table showing the ranking of factors that influence the customer to continue with Nokia Handsets
Sl. no 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Variable Brand Image Product Variety Ease of operation Battery Life Advertisement Value Added Services Product Quality Appearance After Sale Service Score (%) 11.86 10.27 11.57 11.28 10.99 9.4 12.3 12.01 10.27 Rank III VII IV V VI VIII I II VII

(Source: survey data) From the table it is clear that all the factors discussed in the study are more or less equal in influencing the customer to continue with Nokia handsets. The low score obtained for Value added services indicates that Nokia in the present scenario are not good in product innovation. This explains why Nokia lost its market share quite recently with the advent of dual sim mobile handsets, QWERTY pad mobile handsets etc. from Indian Companies. The CMR research report 2011 also justifies this6. Other Findings These are the findings based on the opinion of the customers for the various aspects given in the questionnaire. 1. The level of satisfaction of customers of Nokia Mobile handsets is 81% that is good.

2. 81% of the respondents were using Nokia handsets for more than 3 years while 19% of the users are using it for 1 2 years. 3. 71% of the respondents strongly agree that Nokia handsets are easy to operate. 4. 85% of the respondents agree that they get the model they look for. 5. 57.1% of the respondents agree that pricing address to all segments, while 23.8% are neutral about it. 6. 71.4% of respondents strongly agree that the voice clarity of handset is excellent. 7. 81% of the respondents strongly agree that they get enough service support. 8. 76.2% of the respondents strongly agree that the durability of the handset is excellent. 9. 61.9%of the respondents agree that they will recommend Nokia to their friends and relatives.

Conclusion
In the present business scenario of cut throat competition, customer satisfaction has become the prime concern of each and every kind of industry. Companies are increasingly becoming customer focused. Companies can win customers and surge ahead of competitors by meeting and satisfying the needs of the customers. The present study shows that almost all the customers are satisfied with all the factors, the best being product quality and the last being value added services. This low level of satisfaction in value added services even had an impact in the market share of Nokia handsets. So from the study it may be concluded level of customers satisfaction of Nokia handsets is good.

Bibliography 1. Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, Prentice Hall of India(P) Ltd., 2003, pp 64 2. Raja K G, Uma Sharma and Shasikala R, Measuring Customer Satisfaction among mobile handset end users An empirical study, The ICFAI Journal of Services Marketing, Vol.VI, No.1 3. http://www.cmrindia.com/press_releases/23march2011.asp

4. Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, Prentice Hall of India(P) Ltd., 2003, pp 64 5. Parvinder Arora, Ajay Garg and Amrita Singh (2007), Service Quality in Punjab Telecom circle, The ICFAI Journal of Services Marketing, Vol.V, No.2, pp. 19-33. 6. http://www.cmrindia.com/press_releases/23march2011.asp