A STUDY ON CUSTOMER RETENTION WITH REFERENCE TO RELIANCE

TRENDS, CHENNAI

ABSTRACT

The study is mainly conducted for the Reliance Trends. In present scenario, customer
retention is the important marketing strategy in global business competition. An organization
strategy that combines all of its marketing goals into one comprehensive plan, where a good
marketing strategy will be drawn from market research and focus on the right product mix in
order to achieve the maximum profit with a potential customer and sustain business. Today’s
customer is the king of the market so customer retention has great importance in business.
Customer Retention is the activity, that a selling organization undertakes in order to maintain
customers as their assets. The study is mainly to identify what the customer is expecting from
the Reliance Trends. And what are the measures need to take in order to retain the customers.
Since the population size is in….N number 100 samples have been chosen. The target
respondents would be the customers of Reliance Trends. So this study lies under descriptive
research with random sampling method. The data is framed and collected through primary
source with the above analysis a findings, suggestion will be engraved and conclusion will be
suggested to the Reliance Trends where improvements can be done for the growth of the
company.

Keywords: Customer Retention, Global, Product Mix, King, Assets

INTRODUCTION

Customer retention refers to the percentage of customer relationships that, once established, a
small business is able to maintain on a long-term basis. It is an important element of business
strategy in today’s increasingly competitive environment. In global business environment,
customer retention is playing important role for development of the business. The days are
gone where main emphasis was given on profit making only. In present scenario, business
organizations are giving main stress on its customers and their retention.
Marketing is societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and
want through creating offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with
others. Marketing management as the art and science of choosing target market and getting
keeping and growing customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior
customer value.
Customer means that the company is able to produce individually differentiated goods
whether ordered in person, on the phone or on-line. The combination of operational customer
and marketing has been called customer.

Today more companies are recognizing the importance of satisfying and retaining customer.
Satisfied customer constitutes the company’s relationship capital. If the company were to be
sold, the acquiring company would have to pay not only for the plant and equipment and the
brand name, but also for the delivered customer base, namely the number and value of the
customer who would do business with the new firm.
  A customer is not dependent on marketers.
 A customer is not someone to argue or match with. Nobody ever won an argument
with a customer.
 A customer is a person who brings us his needs and wants, it is our job to handle them
profitably to him and to ourselves.
The Review says,Modern business environment is famous for various new trends. An
environment where the businesses used to hire employees for the sake of monetary benefits
only is now changed in multi-dimensional and multi-pronged environment. Now business are
not run for the sake of money and short term financial benefits only but for a long time
sustainable growth and development. Now the only focus of all business is “customer” and
Customer Retention. This Customer Retention cannot be achieved without proper
involvement of internal customers i.e., employees. Companies start their business philosophy
from their main goals or objectives and make clear statements showing their mission and
values. All lateral developments are performed on the basis of these predetermined values.
Modern businesses focus only on customer satisfaction. Customer lifetime value might be
factored into business development strategies. But without adequate support across the
organization, it remains unfulfilled as core customers depart and new customers reject the
offer. Customer retention has direct impact on business development and business
competitiveness

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY FOLLOWS

 To find out the consumer real expectations in products available in Reliance Trends.
 To identify current consumer tastes & attitudes towards a Reliance Trends.
 To find out the competitive satisfying store other than from Reliance Trends by
consumers.
 To suggest feasible solution in retaining the consumers towards Reliance Trends.
NEED OF THE STUDY

 The research is conducted in order to find the satisfaction level and the retention of
the customer of Reliance Trends. The Reliance Trends is further interested to know
the major factors which can be used for attracting the customers.
 The study is conducted to find what the customers feel about Reliance Trends and
about the merchandise available in the store and the services provided by the
employees of Reliance Trends.
 Measuring competitors market share and consumer behaviour in a selected region and
understand various factors affecting the customer choice while shopping.
SCOPE FOR THE STUDY

The scope of the study is to retain the customers towards their purchase in Reliance Trends,
Chennai.

 The scope of the study is to cover all the chronic factors among the customers of
Reliance Trends. And finding the needs and wants of the customers to retain them.
 In businesses, today, have become more sensitive to the benefits of retaining and
cultivating the existing customers.
 On average, A 1% improvement in customer retention leads to a 5% increase in
profits per customer. It’s a well-known statistic that 80% of sales come from 20% of
 your existing customers. As a result, retaining customer loyalty is a vital component
of your business.
 Reliance Trends is a Textile retail outlet were consumer can buy all variety of
garments. This leading company has started analyzing few measures to retain the
customers.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research design - Descriptive research.

Statistical tool - Percentage Analysis, Chi Square, Weighted Average, IntervalAttribution
Data - Primary data.
Research instrument - Questionnaire.

SAMPLING METHOD
A sample design is a finite plan for obtaining a sample from a given population. Simple
random sampling is used for this study.
SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
The Researcher has selected the sample respondents based on the convenience of researcher
and the respondents. This means that random sampling was adopted for the study.
SAMPLE SIZE
Number of the sampling units selected from the population is called a size of the sample.
Sample of 100 respondents were obtained from the population.

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY

 It is found that twenty seven percentage of customers purchase every Month from
Reliance Trends, and twenty percentage of customers purchase every two-three &
four-six months from Reliance Trends, eighteen percentage of customers purchase
Once or twice in year and thirteen percentage of customer purchase every week.
 It is found that ninety one percentage of respondents are agreed with Reliance trends
meeting the expectations in materials associated with the store’s service are visually
appealing, six percentage of respondents are not agreed with Reliance trends meeting
the expectations in materials associated with the store’s service are visually appealing.
 It is found that forty five percentage of men’s wear merchandise are often purchased,
twenty three percentages of women’s related items are often purchased, five
percentage of accessories are often purchased and seven percentage of luggage’s are
often purchased from Reliance Trends.
 It is found that fifty one percentage of respondents are satisfied with merchandise and
twenty eight percentage of the customers are very much satisfied with the
merchandise, one percentage of respondents were disappointed & not satisfied with
merchandise.
 It is found that eighty four percentage of respondents have met expectation in right
service at first time and six percentage of respondents have not met expectation in
right service at first time.
 It is found that seventy seven percentage of respondents are expectation the customer
in store promises to do service in a particular time frame are met, and three percentage
of respondents are expectation the customer in store promises to do service in a
particular time frame are not met.
  It is found that ninety three percentage of respondents are convenient with the store
timing for shopping and seven percentage of respondents are not convenient with the
store timing for shopping.
 It is found that forty percentage of respondents are looking for low price in Reliance
Trends, thirty percentage of respondents are looking for Quality products, and ten
percentage of respondents are looking for all merchandise at one place.
 It is found that forty percentage of respondents are satisfied with the great offers at
Reliance Trends and thirty percentage of respondents are satisfied with recent trends
and seasonal merchandise at Reliance Trends.
 It is found that fifty two percentage of respondents are like to recommend Reliance
Trends to a Friend/Colleague and twenty seven percentage of respondents do not Very
much like to recommend Reliance Trends to a Friend/Colleague, and nineteen
percentage of customers are not willing to recommend Reliance Trends.

FINDINGE FROM CHI-SQUARE

 It is found that that thirty six percentage of people who belongs to fifteen- twenty five
age category purchase forty five percentage of men’s merchandise and thirty four
percentage of the women’s merchandise. Only two percentage of the people purchase
luggage items and no customers preferred to purchase accessories items.
 There is a no relationship between the age group of the customer and their choice of
purchase.

FINDINGS FROM WEIGHTED AVERAGE

 It is found that the customers are given a highest ranking for the service with
professionalism.

FINDINGS FROM INTERVAL ATTRIBUTION

 The customer’s convenience to shop between the store timing is lies between 0.865
and 0.994.

SUGGESTION FOR FINDINGS

 The Reliance Trends has to provide more offers and frequently according to all the
seasons to attract more customers. To make them to purchase every week form
Reliance Trends.
 Six percentage of the customer feel that their expectations are not met with the
merchandise available in store so the store has to provide more varieties and ranges of
the products.
 When compared to other sections accessories and luggage section shows the very low
percentage so it has to promote these two to make them as equal to other sections.
 Fifty one Customers are satisfied with the merchandise and Reliance trends have to
make it as hundred percentage.
 Majority of the customers feel that they are provided the right service at the first time
but some feel that they are not so employees should be given instructions to provide
right services to the customers.
 The shop timing is convenient for shopping for customer.
 Forty percentage of the customer are looking for low priced merchandise as they feel
the cost is high for the merchandise that they bought.
  Customers say that Reliance Trends is providing great offers to them and providing
seasonal goods too.
 Fifty two percentage of the customers are likely recommending Reliance Trends to
their friends and colleague it’s a form of promotion through word of mouth.
 Because of the time taken for making their merchandise to get billed customer get
irritated and they hesitate to come again to store so the billing counter has to be
increased.
 The service with professionalism is mostly expected by the customers so reliance
trends are good at giving professional services.
 During the time of exchanges and return customers has to undergone lots of
procedures and they have to wait for more than half an hour to clear their problems.
 Eighty seven percentage of the customers are satisfied with the service provided by
the reliance trends.
 Most of the customers have given rank no. 3 for reliance trends. And it is not a bad
thing.
 When compared to reliance trends the next choice is lifestyle is they are not willing to
shop at reliance trends.
 Customers of eighty three percentage feel that employees are showing sincere interest
towards solving their problems.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE STUDY

More promotion needs to be done. Reliance Trends should establish itself as a brand which
can be done only through heavy promotions because in today’s scenario to make consumer
aware about the store promotion plays an important role in it. Though Reliance Trends are
old unit of Reliance Retail but it has to promote their products, promotion is necessary to
stand up in market.
Improve quality of clothing, many customers do not get size they are looking for and are
disappointed. There should be proper and timely stock replenishment done at the store level.

CONCLUSION
 The customer is more interested in range and price of the products rather than the
price. Bringing customer into the store may be easy, but once they enter the store they
should get what they want, and retaining the customer is an toughest job for every
business.
 Consumers have high expectations from Reliance Trends regarding pricing they
expect good collection of clothes at much cheaper price.
 A lot of offers and promotion may help in getting better footfalls.

REFERENCES

 International Journal of Research in Finance & Marketing Volume 2, Issue 2

(February 2012) (ISSN 2231-5985)
 http://www.mairec.org.
 www.ril.com
 http://edissertations.nottingham.ac.uk/493/1/DISSERTATION.doc
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 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=853981&show=abstract
 http://www.scribd.com/doc/24110534/customer-retention