CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, PERCEPTION AND SATISFACTION OF SERVICES OFFERED BY E-LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS IN CHENNAI

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1 SAMZODHANA Journal of Management Research Vol, Issue 1 March 014 CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, PERCEPTION AND SATISFACTION OF SERVICES OFFERED BY E-LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS IN CHENNAI P.Suganthi, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Management, SRM University, Kattankulathur Abstract This article is about Consumer Behavior, Perception and Satisfaction of Services offered by E- Learning Organizations in Chennai. The primary objectives are to study on buyer behavior of E- learning organizations services and to find out the needs of customer while buying E-learning organizations services. The Secondary objectives are to find the status of E-learning organizations in offering services to schools and colleges, to study on awareness of E-learning organizations services among the customers and to find out the customer expectations to improve the quality of services. A sample of 100 respondents was taken for survey. Data were collected to through difference source to proceed further in the project. The primary source of data was collected through questionnaire and secondary source of data collected through personal interview, organizations, websites and books. Statistical tools were used percentage analysis, chi-square test. After the analysis of data found that majority of customer is fully satisfied with the quality of the services is good. Hence it was found that buyer relationship is excellent with the organizations. Majority of the respondents (80%) looked in for guarantee while buying the services. 90% of the respondents looked in for freebies while buying the services. However, few suggestions are provided for further development of the organization with their service to the customer. This in turn will contribute to the development of the organizations. Introduction Buyer behavior is a complex mental process as it differs from person-person involves both simple and complex mental processes. Marketers cannot capture human nature in its entirety but we can learn a lot about customers through research, observation and thinking. The aim of marketing is to meet and satisfy target customers needs and wants. the field of consumer behavior studies how individuals, groups, and organizations select, buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and desires. 37

2 The starting point for understanding buyer behavior is the stimulus response model. Marketing and environmental stimuli enter the buyer s consciousness. The buyer s characteristics and decision processes lead to certain purchase decisions. Understanding consumer behavior and knowing customers is never simple. Customers may say one thing but do another. They may not be in touch with their deeper motivations. They may respond to influences that change their minds at the last minute. The marketer s task is to understand what happens in the buyer s consciousness between the arrival of outside stimuli and the purchase decision. Consumer s buyer behavior is influenced by cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors. In today s environment not understanding the customer s motivation, needs and preferences can hurt. Studying customers provides clues for developing new services, features, prices, channels, messages, and other marketing elements. This study explores individual consumers buying nature and creating awareness to the customers and understanding the customer expectations, which in turn increase the sales volume of E-learning organizations services. Objectives of the study Primary objectives: To study on buyer behavior of E-learning organizations services To find out the needs of customer while buying E-learning organizations services. Secondary objectives: To find the status of E-learning organizations in offering services and service to schools and colleges. To study on awareness of E-learning organizations services among the customers. To find out the customer expectations to improve the quality services. Review of literature The topic of consumer behavior is one of the massively studied topics by the researchers and marketers in the past and still being studied. Perception of customers is important for successful business. Because the success of the firm bases on its ability to attract and maintain customers to buy goods or services at prices and give profits to the organization. Many studies 38

3 have pointed out that one of the key elements of perceptions is price cue (Jin and Stern Quist, 003, Zhou and Nakamoto,001). Perception is a special interpretation that one gives to objects or searches or otherwise brought to the attention of the consumer through the senses (Walters, 1989). In other words, consumer perception is the way of consumers and potential consumers view a firm and its services or services. Therefore, it is obvious that consumer behavior is influenced by consumer perception. Consequently, consumer perception directly affects profits to a firm. Thus, many firms invest large amount of resources in order to influence consumer perceptions. Perception is defined as the special interpretation that individual pays attention to objects or ideas searched or brought to the consumer s sensory (Walters, 1989). Other authors defined that perception is a kind of explanation how individuals choose and organize various information they are going to expose and perception is a set of attitude, motivations, experience and learning, particularly correlated with a previous purchase (Middleton & Clarke, 001). Perception is a series of progress of people choose, form, and interpret information to gain an understandable picture of the world (Kotler, 004). Perception is identified as the progress of an individual chooses, arranges, and interprets stimuli to be meaningful and logical frame of the world (Schiffman & Kanuk, 004). Solomon and Stuart (005) defined that three basic aspects of consumer s perception are exposure, perceptive selection and interpretation. It means that firstly, consumers perceived about services to their sensory from some stimuli, at the same time consumers pay attentions to a particular stimuli more than others and after that consumers make a consistent or significant reaction to a particular stimuli based on their memory picture (interpretation). Perception means that harvesting process, perception is the understanding about occurrence in an environment. Although unconfirmed but reliable non perceived "reality" is considered generally human guide. 39

4 Indeed customer perception means that: how the customer sees the service (how to). Even if the perfect service organization to provide each customer still wouldn t be different vision. Zeithmal (1988) pointed out that perceived value is very subjective and distinct and it is different from one customer to another. After consolidating four consumers' expressions of value, she defined perceived value as a customer s overall assessment of the utility of a services based on the perception of what is received and what is given. A customer might evaluate the value dimension of the same services differently at different occasions. To illustrate; a customer may regard price as the most important criteria at the time of making decision to purchase a services. Subsequently, when he/she is faced with any problem with regards to the services, he/she might consider that customer service is the most important factor that will affect his/her satisfaction/dissatisfaction. In service marketing, the value concept appears quite frequently, but any clear definition cannot be found until we turn to the literature on pricing. Monroe (1991) defined customer -perceived value as the ratio between perceived benefits and perceived sacrifice. The perceived sacrifice was not solely referred to the purchase price but also includes all other possible costs that the customer might face in the purchasing process. Consider an example in which a customer intends to obtain a telephone service. Besides having to pay for the first month rental plus a deposit, he must also consider the cost of transportation, internal wiring, waiting time, repairs and Maintenance, risk of failure and/or poor performance. The perceived benefits are a combination of physical attributes, service attributes and technical support available in relation to the particular use of the services, as well as the purchase price and other indicators of perceived quality. Thus, perceived value is the results or benefits customers receive in relation to total costs (which include the price paid plus other costs associated with the purchase). In simple terms, value is the difference between perceived benefits and costs. However, what constitutes value appears to be highly personal, idiosyncratic, and may vary widely from one customer to another 330

5 (Holbrook, 1994; zenithal, 1988). research evidence suggests that customer who perceive that they received value for money are more satisfied than customer who do not perceive they received "value for Money" (Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value is the results or benefits customers receive in relation to total costs (which include the price paid plus other costs associated with the purchase). In simple terms, value is the difference between perceived benefits and costs. However, what constitutes value appears to be highly personal, idiosyncratic, and may vary widely from one customer to another (Holbrook, 1994; Zeithmal, 1988). Research evidence suggests that customers who perceive that they received "value for money" are more satisfied than customers who do not perceive they received value for money" (Zeithmal, 1988). Based on this review and with regards to perceived price and perceived value constructs. However, Anderson, Fornell & Lehman (1996), while studying the relationship between customer satisfaction, market share and profitability, proposed that value will has a direct impact on how satisfied customers are with suppliers. Similarly, Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha & Bryant (1996) have used the construct perceived value as the perceived level of service quality relative to the price paid. They also suggested that perceived value is one of the customer satisfaction determinants and the antecedents of perceived value are perceived quality and customer satisfaction. To provide competitive service value to customers, a organization m us have a thorough understanding on the customer s need and the activities that constitute the customer s value chain. The customer value chain represents the sequence of activities performed by the individual customer with various members in which the services or service is appropriate. For example, a telephone service may be considered as a basic input for the customer s value chain for local and long-distance communication device. Perhaps, some of the customer regards the telephone service as a facsimile medium or an alternative to internet access. Therefore, if a organization knows the actual customer needs, they will be able to deliver the correct value plus the benefits that would be comprehended with its initial services offering. 331

6 Research methodology Primary data was collected by the method of survey by using questionnaire. A structured questionnaire are been framed which contains close ended question. Sampling unit was E- learning organizations customers in Chennai schools and educational institutions. 100 consumers were selected for the survey. The sampling procedure that was adopted in the research was non-probability sampling, in specific convenience sampling was chosen. Percentage method and chi-square test were the two statistical tools used for analysis. Data Analysis and Interpretation Chi-square test 1 Test of independence between respondent of buying services and awareness of E-learning organizations services through media Null Hypothesis H 0 : Respondent of Buying services and awareness of services through media are independent. Alternative Hypothesis H 1 : Respondent of Buying services and awareness of services through media are not independent espondent of Awareness of services through Media Total buying services T.V Radio Internet Newspaper & Magazine Management Staff Member Parents Students Total Computational for ψ Totalψ ( O E) = E is

7 At 5% Level at significance Degree of Freedom = (R-1)(C-1) = (4-1) (4-1) = 9 Tabulated value at 9df = Ψ 0.05 = Calculated value = Ψ = = Ψ > Ψ 0.05 Result Since the calculated value of Ψ = is greater than the tabulated value at Ψ 0.05 = , the null hypothesis (H 0 ) is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted, (i.e.) Respondent of Buying services and awareness of services through media are not independent. Chi square test Test of independence between quality of E-learning organizations services and respondents of buying Services Null Hypothesis H 0 : Respondent of Buying services and Quality of services are independent. Alternative Hypothesis H 1 : Respondent of Buying services and Quality of services are not independent. Respondent of buying services Quality of services Very Good Good Average Poor Total Management Staff Member Parents Students Total COMPUTATIONAL FOR Ψ Totalψ ( O E) = E is

8 At 5% Level at significance Degree of Freedom = (R-1)(C-1) = (4-1) (4-1) = 9 Tabulated value at 9df = Ψ 0.05 = Calculated value = Ψ = = Ψ < Ψ 0.05 Result Since the calculated value of Ψ = is less than the tabulated value at Ψ 0.05 = , the null hypothesis (H 0 ) is accepted, (i.e.) Respondent of Buying services and Quality of services are independent. Chi square test 3 Test of independence between category of E-learning organizations services and opinion regarding price factor of E-learning organizations services Null Hypothesis H 0 : Category of services and opinion regarding price factor of services are independent. Alternative Hypothesis H 1 : Category of services and opinion regarding price factor of services are not independent. Category of services Price Factor Total Very High High Moderate Low Note Book Stationary Item Computer Scientific Equipment Total COMPUTATIONAL FOR Ψ Totalψ ( O E) = E is

9 At 5% Level at significance Degree of Freedom = (R-1)(C-1) = (4-1) (4-1) = 9 Tabulated value at 9df = Ψ 0.05 = Calculated value = Ψ = = Ψ >Ψ 0.05 Result Since the calculated value of Ψ = is greater than the tabulated value at Ψ 0.05 = , the null hypothesis (H 0 ) is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted, (i.e.) Category of services and opinion regarding price factor of services are not independent. Findings Respondent of buying services and quality of services are independent. Category of services and opinion regarding price factor of services are not independent. Respondent of buying services and awareness of services through media are not independent. Suggestions Organizations can improve its quality and service. News papers and internet is effective media to advertise E-learning organizations services. Give preference to guarantee it creates more customers. Organization can give more importance to cold call customers can help to maximize profit. The organization sales manager can follow up the customers Give more training to marketing executives it helps to promote the services easily. Conclusion Marketing play a major role in an organization s activities and it should be done with utmost care and after studying the market thoroughly. The study on buyer behavior points out the 335

10 actions to be taken to understand the behaviors of the buyer which will help the organization to supply the goods as per their needs. It s an open fact that behavior of the buyer changes from person-person based on the scenario and a good organization should capture human nature in its entirety through research, observation and thinking so that the organization is always one step ahead of customer. India has a very good market for stationeries as the literacy rate in India is growing gradually and today everyone knows the value of education as MNC s are flooding into education field and E-learning organizations can grasp these opportunities. References 1. Dr.C.B. Gupta & Dr.N.Rajan Nair, 00, Marketing Management, Sultan Chand & Sons, Seventh edition.. The 013 IBEA, International Conference on Business, Economics, and Accounting 0 3 March 013, Bangkok - Thailand 3. RENU VIJ, June 01, Asian Journal of Multidimensional Research,Vol.1 Issue 1, ISSN