Car Market and Buying Behavior
The automobile industry today is the most lucrative industry. Due to the increase in disposable income in both rural and urban sector and easy finance being provided by all the financial institutes, the passenger car sales have increased at the rate of 38% per annum in June 2005-06 over the corresponding period in the pervious year. Further competition is heating up in the sector with a host of new players coming in and other like Porsche, Bentley, Audi, and BMW all set to venture in the Indian markets.
One factor that could help the companies in the marketing of their product is by knowing and creating a personality for their brands. This report attempts to answer some of the questions regarding brand personality of selected cars in India by conducting the market research. This report is categorized into parts, deals with introduction to brand personality, companies selected, product and the industry. The automobile industry today is the most lucrative industry.
Due to the increase in disposable income in both rural and urban sector and easy finance being provided by all the financial institutes, the passenger car sales have increased at the rate of 25% per annum in June 2005-06 over the corresponding period in the previous year. Further competition is heating up in the sector with a host of new players coming in and others like Porches, Bentley, Audi, and BMW all set to venture in Indian markets. One factor that could help the companies in the marketing of their products is buying Behavior of the consumers.
The Buying Behavior of the customers can be studied by knowing their perceptions about the cars in the market and about the possible entrants in the market. One such technique is by knowing and creating a personality for the brands. This personality sketching will help in knowing what a customer (or a potential customer) thinks about a given brand of car and what are the possible factors guiding a possible purchase. Similarly, the idea of measuring the customer satisfaction will serve the same purpose of determining the customer perception.
Thus, by measuring the” willingness of existing users of a car to recommend it to others” will help the car manufacturers to chalk out the entire Customer Buying Behavior. The reports shall attempt to answer some of the questions regarding brand personality of selected cars in India by conducting a market research. The market research will be helpful for the new car entrant companies in India to find out the possible gaps between the customer expectations and the present market offerings. This way these companies will be able to find their share in the ever-expanding Indian market pie.
It is true fact that if you are satisfied you recommended to others. Word of mouth and customer satisfaction play a very important role in determining market perception about an automobile. It is the market perception that determines the success of a company and so it is very important for the car manufacturers to measure the “willingness of existing users of a product to recommend it to others”. The same is a lot of interest to customers as well for it helps them make the purchase decision. Is an Indian consumer ready for more? Which is the driving motive behind the effective demand of the car?
How the coming of new models like swift does is going to effect the buying decision of consumer and especially the Tata 1 lakh car. In other words, from the spread of choices offered by various manufacturers under various segments, of which one the customer will finally turn the ignition on and drive. Customer satisfaction index: some of the most advance thinking in the business world recognizes that customer relationships are best treated as assets, and that methodical analysis of these relationships can provide a road map for improving them
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. ” – Lord William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907). “As one of the measurements of the performance of the quality management system, the organizations shall monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements. The method for obtaining and using this information shall be determined” The requirement has been there in the QS9000 standard clause 4. 1. 6 which says: “…
Trends in customer satisfaction and key indicators of customer dissatisfaction shall be documented and supported by objective information. These trends shall be compared to those of competitors, or appropriate benchmarks, and reviewed by senior management. ” There is obviously a strong link between customer satisfaction and customer retention. Customer’s perception of service and quality of product will determine the success of the product or service in the market. With better understanding of customer’s perceptions, companies can determine the actions required to meet the customer’s needs.
They can identify their own strengths and weaknesses, where they stand in comparison to their competitors, chart out the path future progress and improvement. Customer satisfaction measurement helps to promote an increased focus on customer outcomes and stimulate improvements in the work practices and processes used within the company. Customer expectations are the customer-defined attributes of your product or service. We cannot create satisfaction just by meeting customer’s requirements fully because these have to be met in any case. However falling short is certain to create dissatisfaction.
