Summer Training Report

On
A Study on Consumer Satisfaction of Outlook Magazine
Subscribers

Submitted In PartialFulfillmentOf the Requirement

Of Master of Business Administration

Training Supervisor

Submitted By:

Anuj Chhabra

Ashish kumar

Team Leader

02314803915

Batch: 2015-2017

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this Project Report titled A Study On Consumer Satisfaction Of
Outlook Magazine Subscriber submitted by me to maharaja agrasen institute of
technology is a bonafide work undertaken during the period from may june 2016 by me and
has not been submitted to any other University or Institution for the award of and degree
diploma / certificate or published any time before.

Ashish kumar
02314803915

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that as per best of my belief the project work done on Study On
Consumer Satisfaction Of Outlook Magazine Subscriber is a bonafide research work
carried out by Ashish kumar student of MBA, MAIT, Rohini, New Delhi June-July 2013 in
partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Summer Training Project of the Degree of
degree of Master Of Business Administration.
He has worked under my guidance.

Mr. Anoop kumar gupta

(Assistant professor )
Date:

Counter signed by:

Director
Date:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

With profound sense of gratitude and regard, I express my sincere thanks to my guide and
mentor, for her valuable guidance and the confidence she instilled in me, that helped me in
the successful completion of this project report. Without her help, this project would have
been a distant affair.
Her thorough understanding of the subject and professional guidance was indeed of immense
help to me.
I am also greatly thankful to the faculty members of our institute who co-operated with me
and gave me their valuable time. Acknowledgement
Ashish kumar

Table of Contents
4

CHAPTERS

TOPIC

PG.NO

Plan of the Research

1. Introduction
2. Objective of the study
3. Literature Review

Company Profile (with its SWOT Analysis)

Research Methodology

Universe & Sources of data

Sample size

Methods of data collection- testing of questionnaire

Tools and techniques of analysis

Instrument used

Data collection and Analysis

Findings and Conclusion

Suggestions/ Recommendation

Bibliography, Glossary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketing is very necessary for every organization. It helps organizations in determining
what product and services may interest customers and also strategies for use in product
5

development, sales and promotions.

The Project Study On consumer satisfaction of Outlook magazine subscriber is an attempt
to find out the factors and causes which affect the degree of satisfaction among the customers
of Outlook Magazines. In this tough time of competition magazines industry is going a long
way in developing, formulating and implementing promotional strategies to cope up with this
tough competition. Though there are many aspects which can be improvised in the services
of Outlook magazine. Strategies are formulated not only keep up with cut throat competition
but also to meet the highly volatile consumer preferences.
There are several factors which influences the purchase. These factors may be internal and
external as well. Internal factors include perception towards the thing, knowledge about
product, purchasers attitude, lifestyle, motivational status etc. Motivation is the driving force
which comes into play when customer has better experience with the product. This leads to
the repurchase decision of the customer. Whereas external factors include culture, group or
peer influence, the situation in which purchase is made etc.
Questionnaires were prepared and market survey was conducted and then evaluation of
primary data is done.
The analysis revealed that there are some factors e.g. the customer perceived value and value
preposition when meets leads to customer satisfaction .If that is consistent then leads to
customer loyalty. That is the key factor of customer retention etc. which affect the purchase
of magazines of Outlook group.

It also revealed the fact that there is a small opportunity of improvement in the area of quality
of content and promotional schemes. The customers agreed upon the fact that gifts are good
in quality but they added that these promotional schemes can be more attractive.
6

INTRODUCTION
There are the two main sources of obtaining data to determine readership of any publication:
National Readership Survey NRS

The NRS is a survey on all media, but especially the print medium, conducted by the
National Readership Survey Council. This body consists of members from the INS (Indian
Newspaper Society), AAAI (Advertising Associations of India) and ABC (Audit Bureau of
Circulation).
Here we have some surveys on the basis of market segmentation on all media include
newspapers buyers.
National Readership Survey is a survey on all media, but especially the print medium,
conducted by the National Readership Studies Council (NRSC) -Supported by Audit Bureau
of Circulation (ABC), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) & Indian
Newspapers Society.
It investigates the readership of about 80 major Indian publications-dailies, weeklies, biweeklies and monthlies-in over 475 towns of 57 regions across the length and breadth of the
country. The towns, selected, however are publication centers of dailies by process of
systematic sampling.
It claimed to be the most thorough readership survey in the country. It provides exhaustive
data (available to its clients on computer disks) readership, radio listener ship profile-the
socio economic characteristics of the readers of various publications, of cinema and TV
viewers, and of listeners to radio, as well as the degree of duplication among publications and
between media. Research agencies involved are: IMRB, TNS Software Mode, AC Nielsen in
collaboration with ORG.
ABC conducts a six-monthly audit of a publication's sales. But each copy of a publication
may be read by more than one person, depending on the frequency and popularity of the
publication. This is what is captured in readership surveys like the NRS.
The survey is done on an all-India basis, urban as well as rural, amongst individuals who are
12 years and older. All town classes are covered in the urban area. However, only towns with
a population higher than two lakh are reported on an individual basis, smaller towns are
reported on the basis of socio-cultural regions defined by language homogeneity, geographic
homogeneity, financial and economic administration, regionalization of culture and lifestyle,
caste and class homogeneity.

NRS gives information on the macro parameters like the reach of each medium among
various audiences defined demographically. It also gives information on the duplication
between media, as well as between vehicles within the same medium. For publications, one
gets the number of readers, type of readers in demographic terms (NRS defines readers by
sex, age, income, socio-economic class, occupation, education, geographical location),
spread of these readers, and lifestyle parameters such as product ownership and consumption
patterns.
Since advertisers who relied on plain circulation (paid sales) data for the allocation of their
media budgets did not have access to data on the quality of readership each publication has,
they did not know whether money was being used effectively or wasted. Studies like the
NRS give details not only about the number of readers, but also quality of readers, and the
duplication of readers with other competitive publications.

Indian Readership Survey IRS

IRS (Indian Readership Survey) is the largest continuous study of the world with a sample
size of more than 250,000 households across India. It has been providing invaluable
information to the media and marketing fraternity since 1997.
IRS is the single source survey for media and product ownership/usage. The prime objective
of the study is to collect readership information from a cross-section of individuals, in great
detail, so as to present a true and unbiased picture of their readership habits. On the media
9

front, it also captures information on television and cinema viewing habits, radio listening
habits and Internet usage. In addition to this, IRS captures information on various FMCG
(Fast Moving Consumer Goods) products, usage and consumption and durable ownership
amongst households. Since media and product ownership/ consumption information is
captured from the same household, it enables linkages between the media and product data.
IRS equips you with information that is truly reflective of the Indian population for making
informed decisions.
IRS covers information on over 100 product categories. IRS information is available in
user-friendly software and is the essential tool for category, brand and media understanding.
IRS is conducted by MRUC (Media Research Users Council) and Hansa Research. MRUC
is a not for profit organization constituted by advertisers, ad agencies and media owners.
Hansa Research is the fastest growing market research agency with successful track record of
media studies.
To ensure that the research findings give you the whole picture, MRUCs technical
committee reviews the questionnaire from the users perspective, conducts back-checks and
validates the data so that users get unbiased and representative information'. All this is done,
from start to finish, in seamless partnership with Hansa Research.
Hansa Research along with MRUC is responsible for providing you innovations like IRS
Sampling Districts, Household Premiumness Index (HPI), sub-metro reporting, SEC A reestimation through telephonic interviews, IRS Local Area Potential (iLAP) tool, Guide to
Indian Market, the new-improved IRS Analyzer etc.

10

Objective of the study

11

To study the satisfaction of subscribers of Outlook magazine.

To study delivery service of outlook magazine.

Literature Review
12

Customer Satisfaction
Over the last four decades, the marketing literature has defined and measured customer
satisfaction in many different ways. Oliver (1997) specifies customer satisfaction as
pleasurable fulfillment; as such, the consumer views consumption as satisfying some need,
desire, goal, etc., in which its fulfillment is pleasurable. In spite of many definitions of
customer satisfaction in the literature, a common way to define customer satisfaction is to
follow the approach of the expectancy-confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm (Anderson
1994; Anderson and Sullivan 1993;Kotler 1991; Oliver 1980; Oliver and DeSarbo 1988;
Oliver and Swan 1989; Yi 1991).
In this perspective, customer satisfaction is delineated as the consumers evaluation that
products or services meet or fall to meet the customers expectations (Oliver and Swan1989;
Yi 1991). Out differently, customer satisfaction consists of post-consumption judgment
concerning product or service quality, given pre-consumption expectations (Kotler 1991).
From this expectancy-confirmation/disconfirmation point-of-view, customer satisfaction
happens in the case of a buyers post-evaluation of a specific purchase experience (or
experiences), contingent upon the buyers quality perceptions and expectations, and
confirmation/disconfirmation the discrepancy between actual and expected quality (Yi,
1991).Customer satisfaction has generally been suggested to contain two such different
dimensions as a transaction-specific evaluation approach and an overall, cumulative
valuation approach. That is, there exist two general conceptualizations of customer
satisfaction in the literature (Anderson and Fornell 1993; Boulding et al. 1993; Yi, 1991).
Prior research has portrayed customer satisfaction as transaction-specific. Using this
framework, customer satisfaction is seen as a post-consumption evaluative judgment of a
particular purchase experience or activity (Bearden and Teel 1983; Cronin and Taylor 1992;
Oliver 1980, 1993; Oliver and DeSarbo 1988). The theoretical rationale behind this
framework is a variation of the expectancy-confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm
(Prakash1984; Oliver and Swan 1989).Another formulation to measure customer satisfaction,
widely used in recent studies, including studies utilizing the satisfaction metric in the ACSI
13

data, is overall or cumulative satisfaction, which is, in other words, relationship-specific.

With this formulation, overall satisfaction can be viewed as a customers overall satisfaction
experiences (Olsen 2002), and is gauged as the cumulative post-purchase evaluative
judgment of a group of discrete purchase activities or transactions for a particular brandor
firm over duration of time (Fornell et al. 1996; Johnson and Fornell 1991; Oliver1997; Rust
and Oliver 1994).Of these two formulations of customer satisfaction, overall or cumulative
satisfaction has been widely used with regard to the association between customer
satisfaction and customer loyalty. On one hand, transaction-specific satisfaction
conceptualizes customer satisfaction as the outcome of a single transaction. Thus, this
transaction-specific satisfaction formulation may be too restrictive i.e., the transactionspecific satisfaction approach has a very limited predictive power (Anderson and Narus1990;
Fornell et al. 1996; Ganesan 1994). Oliver (1999) maintains that overall satisfaction is more
appropriate for ananalysisis of the satisfaction-loyalty relationship, inasmuch as the
cumulative satisfaction, construct is capable of aggregating or blending individual
satisfaction episodes. Likewise, the overall satisfaction formulation is better at predicting
consequent behaviors and economic outcomes (Johnson et al. 2001).One of the most
important recent aspects of this customer satisfaction metric isthat academics (Anderson
1994; Anderson and Sullivan 1993; Bryant and Cha 1996;Fornell 1992; Fornell and Johnson
1993; Fornell et al. 1996; Homburg and Giering 2001;Johnson and Fornell 1991; Mittal and
Kamakura 2001) identify differences in customer, satisfaction across individual customers
and competitive settings (product or service categories and firms). For example, Bryant and
Cha (1996) highlight the effects of such customer characteristics as age, gender, income, and
education on levels of customer satisfaction. In addition to customer characteristics, industry
characteristics (industry or category concentration and industry type) are shown to affect
customer satisfaction levels. Customer satisfaction is one of the most important metrics in
marketing, since firms regard customer satisfaction as one of the key business goals for
evaluating the effectiveness of their business operations. In addition, customer satisfaction is
a starting metric of the value chain between customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, firm
product -marketplace performance and financial performance, and shareholder wealth, as
demonstrated by recent studies. Marketing academics and managers have been increasingly
interested in the effects of an increase in customer satisfaction levels on firm, financial
14

performance since the 1990s. For instance, customer satisfaction has been shown to
positively impact operating margins (Bolton 1998; Rust et al. 1996), accounting returns
(Ittner and Larcker 1998), returns on investment (Anderson et al. 1994), and cash flow and
shareholder value (Anderson et al. 2004; Gruca and Rego 2005).Indeed, firms have invested
a great amount of money on this metric, as customer satisfaction investments represent the
number one marketing research expenditure item for most firms. Customer satisfaction can
be seen as an essential measure used to oversee business outcomes, decide on limited
resource allocation, and provide rewards to management (Anderson 1994). For the majority
of firms, the pursuit of customer satisfaction is illustrated in their communications, including
advertisements, public relations releases, and mission statements (Peterson and Wilson
1992). With regard to this importance, a variety of marketing academics and practitioners
have studied customer satisfaction for the past forty years

Company Profile

15

HISTORY
Outlook is an Indian weekly and monthly newsmagazine in publication since October 1995.
MrVinod Mehta has been the founding editor-in-chief. Since its inception, investigative
reporting has been the forte of the magazine. Outlook has also spawned the specialized
magazines Outlook Traveler, Outlook Money, Mand the Hindi Outlook .
Outlook has been famous for many of its sensational stories like the "Kargil Bungle" and the
"Match Fixing controversy" but many view its editorial tilt as being against the right like the
RSS , often highlighting opposing sections in negative light.
Headquarter Address: AB-10, S.J. Enclave, New Delhi - 110029, India Branches : Mumbai,
Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Achievements

The company is a proud recipient of National Tourism Award in 2001-2002, given by

the Department of Tourism, Government of India.

The Government of India has also recognized Outlook Traveler Getaways as the Best
Travel Publication in the year 2002-2003.

MANAGEMENT TEAM

16

NAME

DESIGNATION

Suresh Selvaraj

Vice President

Indranil Roy

Vice President

AlokMathur

Assistant Vice President

AnupDwivedi

General Manager, Production & Systems

VidyaMenon

General Manager, Advertising

GauravVashisht

Deputy General Manager

HimanshuPandey

National Head, Business Development

Alex Joseph

National Head, Retail

Gitanjali Singh

National Head, Marketing

Bhasker Sharma

Sales Manager Delhi Head Office

Pankaj Singh

Trainee Relationship Executive (under BhaskerSharma )

MAGAZINES NAMES

17

18

MEDIA SERVICES

Print Media

Web Media

Outlook is part of the Rajan Raheja Group which made its beginning in the construction
business and after building a huge presence in the realty market, the Group diversified
laterally into manufacturing, financial services and media. The magazine division of Outlook
consists of Outlook, Outlook Money, Outlook Traveler, Outlook Business.
Outlook, a weekly newsmagazine has been instrumental in providing wide range of news and
information. It also has magazines including Outlook Money and Outlook Traveller under its
umbrella. As a part of web media, it has launched websites like outlookindia.com,
outlooktraveller.com and outlookmoney.com. It caters to a base of 1.5 million readers in
India and sells more than 11.2 million copies annually.
The observations of the Markets studied for the sale of Newsweek was that Time and
Newsweek have a similar sales pattern and the POP display was maximum from the Outlook
Group.
The major segments identified for the market segmentation of Outlook buyers

Hotels

Coaching institutes

Corporate offices

PVR Cinemas

Premium Clubs

For the coaching Institutions which prepare students for MBA, the idea proposed by Outlook
was that the copies of Outlook English ,and Outlook Business as their Interest happens only
with these two magazines, with the advertisement of the institution with the cover-on-cover
option would be distributed to prospective students who are aspiring to clear CAT and other
MBA entrances in various DU and Engineering colleges in Delhi and NCRs. This idea
appealed as in this way the institution would be able to communicate with its prospective
students.
19

For the premium clubs, the proposed selling strategy was similar to that adopted for golf
courses with the monthly bill being sent with the magazine by Outlook .
The idea proposed to corporate offices that their Interest only towards Outlook Money ,
Outlook Profit because it resembles with their Business.
Hotels keep magazines in the following places : Rooms, Business Centers Lounges, Public
Places and cars. Their more focus towards Outlook Traveler Magazines, and Fashion
magazine like Marie Claire, this type of Interest bys hotels shows their psychographic
segmentation.
The concept given was that initially Outlook was as follows: Outlook would distribute free
copies of the magazine on a weekend when the business is high. And take the details of the
customers. In the next step, the PVR Cinemas to these cinemagoers who had come to watch a
movie on weekend would send the magazine with a flap containing the discount coupon for a
weekday. Hence, on receiving a discount coupon, there is a high probability that the cinemagoers will come to watch the movie.

20

THE OUTLOOK UMBRELLA

PRINT MEDIA
OUTLOOK: In October 1995,group company hath way investment private limited entered in
the print media. Outlook, a weekly newsmagazine headed by Vinod Mehta, galvanised a
sluggish market reeling under the impact of satellite TV. Outlook quickly carved a significant
niche for itself among discerning readers who value its in-depth, investigative reporting as
well as its stylish visual format. Known to be fiercely independent, Outlook has shaken the
establishment on events ranging from Kargil to Kashmir to cricket, sensitised the reading
public to important issues like big dams, education and gender, and provided an unremitting
focus on South Asian geopolitics. Today, Outlook is the preferred magazine of 1.5 million
readers in India, and sells more than 11.2 million copies over the year.
OUTLOOKMONEY: In July 1998, the Group launched "Intelligent Investor" re-christened
as "OUTLOOK MONEY" as of 30-Nov-2002, India's first personal finance magazine, which
offers sound strategies for the lay investor, especially the growing segment of salaried middle
and upper middle-class and self-employed professionals. Its message is clear and simple:
'Invest well, borrow wisely, spend smartly'. Evidently, that message has gone down well: the
magazine sold upwards of 1,00,000 copies a fortnight within a year. One of its distinguishing
characteristics is that about 93 per cent of readers retain all past issues of Outlook Money.
OUTLOOK TRAVELER: Outlook Traveler is a monthly magazine from the stable of
Outlook Publishing India Pvt. Limited and the only significant magazine aimed at the travel
reader. Every month since June 2001 OT has introduced readers to the wonders of unknown
destinations while also encouraging travelers to take a fresh look at familiar places. Whether
people are planning a holiday, or simply dreaming of one, Outlook Traveler continues to take
them closer.

21

WEBMEDIA
OUTLOOKINDIA.COM: In 1998, Outlook went online as outlookindia.com, drawing
Into its fold the vast, nascent readership of expatriate Indians. outlookindia.com is both
Outlook magazine's home on the Internet and an online publication. Apart from Outlook's
print edition in its entirety - supplemented with links to related articles on its own site and
elsewhere on the Web - outlookindia.com also offers an array of original Web-only columns
and news updates every day with a very lively interactive section.
Outlooktraveller.Com: Inaugurated as a web resource in 2000, this travel Website has since
come a long way. Outlook traveller began by opening up new vistas in web-driven vacation
planning, with its highly focused editorial features on an array of destinations. Still a
highlight of the website, these are supported by tools and resources that make putting
together your holiday a breeze from selecting your destination, to choosing your mode of
transport, finding your way around the map, selecting a place to stay to catching the local
festivities, plus ferreting out the nearest ATM, fuel stop or cyber cafe. Here there is
something for everyone; themed vacation ideas from 'A for adventure' to 'W for wildlife',
honeymooners dream destinations, foodies delights, first-person travelogues, a message room
where you can exchange notes or ask us for more info that you want? And don't forget to
book your copies of our international award-winning bestsellers from Outlook Traveler
Getaways, available at a special price when you order on the website. If you want a sneak
preview, there're excerpts from the guidebooks by renowned authors, including the likes of
PrabhuGhate, Ruskin Bond and Jug Suraiya.
Outlook Money.Com: outlookmoney.com takes forward the philosophy and beliefs ushered
in by Intelligent Investor (the personal finance magazine that was launched in mid-1998, now
known as Outlook Money). The site has six channels -- Stocks, Mutual Funds, Loans,
Retirement Planning, Taxation and Insurance -- that address broad areas of the personal
finance spectrum. Outlookmoney.com comes with many interactive tools. The Loans channel
alone sports calculators that do all the number crunching a visitor may want on home, car,
personal or equity loans. Outlookmoney.com seeks to provide total solutions to personal
finance issues -- from disseminating information to providing avenues for e-commerce
transactions.

22

COMPETITORS
HOME MAGAZINE

COMPETITORS

OUTLOOK MONEY

MONEY TODAY

OUTLOOK BUSINESS

BUSINESS ECONOMY,BUSINESS

TODAY
OUTLOOK TRAVELLER

TRAVEL TODAY

OUTLOOK HINDI

SAPTAHIK

OUTLOOK PROFIT

NO COMPETITORS

MARIE CLAIRE

COSMO,FEMINA,NEW

WOMAN,VOGUE
NEWS WEEK

TIMES (Worlds leading international

Newsmagazine)
OUTLOOK (ENGLISH)

INDIA TODAY

WORK PROFILE
23

As a management trainee I joined OUTLOOK MAGAZINESNew Delhi and I was

given the profile of a RELATIONSHIP EXECUTIVE.
I worked in the company as a RELATIONSHIP EXECUTIVE and my primary work in the
company was to face individual to facilitate and participate in the planning and execution of
field of marketing activities. I worked with my team, I met many customers and received
their feedback and I was involved in business development activity.
My profile was to do cold calling and to promote the magazines so that the numbers of
readership will increase.

KEY LEARNING
1. I got to know about the atmosphere of the organization.
2. The working condition of the company.
3. Code of conduct in a company and its rules and regulations.
4. Process and procedure of working.
5. Learned to take orders by superiors.
6. Way of communicating right thing at right time to subordinates and to superiors.
7. Coordination at work.
8. Creating strategy on daily basis to achieve my daily target and make the job easier

9. Coordinate with everyone to achieve the target.

10. Creating hygienic atmosphere to work.
11. Learned how to work in stress.

24

CHALLENGES TO THE ORGANISATION

Consumer buying behavior with focus on market segmentation in companies has
traditionally been a local affair. Subsidiary managers, primarily brand managers, have
enjoyed great latitude in the formulation and implementation of consumer behavior close
to their markets. Although global marketing is influencing traditional decision making in
areas such as product line, branding, pricing, and advertising, it has had little influence on
consumer behavior. But for some companies that may be about to change.
Outlook experiences with laissez-faire in market segmentation are typical of the problems
faced by many. In the early 1980s, management delegated to the local organizations many
decisions that had traditionally been made or strongly influenced by the headquarters. Of
all marketing decisions, only branding and packaging were kept at the centre. The rest,
including consumer and trade promotions, became the domain of the company's country
operations around the world.
Although decentralization has helped enhance outlooks performance internationally, it
has been less than satisfactory in consumer. The problem has to do with two
developments over time: a worldwide shift in emphasis and budget allocation in favor of
consumer behavior and away from media advertising, and increasing reliance on price
promotion to boost short-term local sales results, particularly in countries with a powerful
trade and/or limited electronic media advertising. The outcome: reduced brand
profitability, contradictory brand communication, and a serious potential for dilution of
brand franchises with consumers.
Today Outlook is trying to put some central direction back into its whole country
communication practices, including sales promotion. Management is painfully aware of
the damage "brand management by calculators" and "commodity promotion" can do to its
international brands and their long-term profitability. Laissez-faire in sales promotion is
no longer considered a virtue at Outlook.
For some global brands, the importance of consumer behavior in the marketing mix
varies dramatically from one country to another. Illustrates the divergent marketing
strategies applied to one consumer packaged goods brand in five countries during 1987.

Research Methodology
25

TYPE OF RESEARCH DESIGN

This research is an attempt to describe the satisfaction level of Outlook subscribers. So, here
I have adopted Descriptive Research Design in order to come to a conclusion, by survey and
observation with help of a structured Questionnaire.
In that case also, Crosssectional designs have been adopted for the collection of information
from any given sample of population elements only once.

Sources of Data collection

The marketing research was a field survey personally done through questionnaire.
The research is based on both primary data as well as secondary data.
Primary data
o

For collecting the primary data the survey was done through questionnaire, which
was personally given to customers and was filled through interacting with
different age groups, sex, monthly income and occupation.

Studying the degree of customer satisfaction on objective needed to be work on.

Finally analyzing the data of various areas and trying to study about various
influence factors.

Secondary data
For theoretical overview, secondary data was collected from magazines, newspaper and
different website.
The source of data collection for the observation is Primary data which is collected from
the Questionnaire .Primary data are originated by a researcher for the specific purpose of
addressing the problem at hand.

Sampling Techniques
There are two methods of selecting samples from the population:
26

1.Non-random or judgmental sampling

2. Random sampling
In this research, I have adopted the first method, i.e. Non random sampling, because0 of the
time constraints and also to gather as much information as possible or that matter I chosen all
those subscribers of Outlook magazines who subscribed the magazines in 2015 till the month
of May.
Sampling Technique:
Initially, a rough draft was prepared keeping in mind the objective of the research. A pilot
study was done in order to know the accuracy of the Questionnaire. The final Questionnaire
was arrived only after certain important changes were done. Thus my sampling came out to
be judgmental and convenient.
Sampling Unit:
The respondents who were asked to fill out questionnaires are the sampling units. These
comprise of Magazine readers in Delhi /NCR region etc.
Sample size:
The sample size was restricted to only 50, which comprised of mainly peoples from different
regions of Delhi due to time constraints.
Sampling Area :
The area of the research was Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad.

Data Collection & Data Analysis

1. Which of the following magazines have you read?
27

India Today

Outlook

The Week

Business World

Others
Table showing the percentage of readers of different magazines
PERCENTAGE OF

MAGAZINES

READERS

INDIA TODAY

28

OUTLOOK

25

THE WEEK

22

BUSINESS WORLD

16

OTHERS

TOTAL

100

Chart

showing the percentage of readers of different magazines.

PERCENTAGE OF READERS

INTERPRETATION
From the table we can interpret that India Today is capturing the major share followed
by the Week. Outlook, Business World and the remaining part is tapped by local
magazines.
28

2. Which magazine are you currently reading of Outlook?

Outlook

Money

Profit

Business

Outlook Hindi

People
Table showing percentage of readers.
PERCENTAGE OF

PREFERANCE

READERS

Outlook

33

Money

32

Profit

15

Business

13

Outlook Hindi

People

Total

100

Chart showing percentage of readers.

29

Outlook
Money
Profit
Business
Outlook Hindi
People

INTERPRETATION
From the table we can interpret that outlook is the magazine which is being read by most of the
readers.

3. What is the means of purchase for the magazine of your interest?

Newspaper Vendor
30

Bookshop

Subscription
Table showing percentage of customers.

PERCENTAGE

INFLUENCES

OF CUSTOMERS

Newspaper vendor

31

Book Shop

29

Subscription

21

Total

100

Chart showing percentage of customers.

Newspaper vendor
Book Shop
Subscription

INTERPRETATIONS
From the table we can interpret that majority of the customers purchase magazines from the
newspaper vendor.
4. Have you ever subscribed any of the outlook magazines?

Yes
31

No
Table showing percentage of customers
PERCENTAGE

Preferences

OF CUSTOMERS

Yes

63

No

37

Total

100

Chart showing percentage of customers.

INTERPRETATION
From the table it is being interpreted that 63% of the customers have subscribed for the
outlook magazine.

5. Have you ever used the customer care service of outlook?

Yes

No
32

Table showing percentage of customers.

PERCENTAGE

Preferences

OF CUSTOMERS

Yes

75

No

25

Total

100

Chart showing percentage of customers.

INTERPRETATION
From the table we can interpret that 75% of the people have used the customer care service
of outlook and the rest have not used ever.

6. If the answer of question no 5 is yes, then how would you rate your experience of query
solution of customer care service of outlook magazine?

Excellent

Good
33

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor
Table showing ratings.
PREFERANCE

Ratings

Excellent

33

Good

32

Satisfactory

15

Poor

13

Very poor

Total

100

Chart showing ratings.

INTERPRETATION
From the table it is clear that majority of the customers think that customer care service of
outlook is excellent & very few customers think that there customer care service is very poor.
34

7. How would you rate the delivery of the outlook magazine to your address which you
have ever subscribed?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory
35

Poor

Very poor
Table showing ratings.
PREFERANCE

Ratings

Excellent

14

Good

26

Satisfactory

10

Poor

34

Very poor

16

Total

100

Chart showing ratings

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

INTERPRETATION
From the table we can interpret that majority of the customers were not satisfied with the
delivering service of the outlook magazine as they rate it as poor.
8. How would you rate the quality of content of any of the outlook magazine which you
have ever subscribed?

Excellent
36

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor
Table showing ratings.
PREFERANCE

Ratings

Excellent

40

Good

30

Satisfactory

10

Poor

15

Very poor

Total

100

Chart showing ratings.

Excellent
Good
Satisfactory
Poor
Very poor

INTERPRETATION
From the table we can interpret that 40% of the people think that the content of the magazine
37

is excellent, 30% think that the content is good, 10% think that the content is satisfactory,
15% think that the content is poor and only 5% think that the content is very poor.

9. How would you rate the competitiveness of our outlook magazines with other magazines,
in the sense do they represent the best value for the total cost of your subscription
ownership?
38

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor
Table showing ratings.
PREFERANCE

Ratings

Excellent

25

Good

35

Satisfactory

15

Poor

Very poor

20

Total

100

Chart showing ratings.

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

INTERPRETATION
39

Poor

Very poor

From the table we can interpret that majority of the customers think that outlook magazines
represent the best value for the total cost of your subscription ownership.

10. How would you rate outlooks total Quality & service management to ensure complete
customer satisfaction?
40

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor
Table showing ratings.
PREFERANCE

Ratings

Excellent

35

Good

25

Satisfactory

30

Poor

Very poor

Total

100

Chart showing ratings.

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

41

Very poor

INTERPRETATION
From the table we can interpret that majority of the customers have rated excellent quality
and service of outlook magazines.
11. How would you rate overall outlook magazines?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

Table showing ratings.

PREFERANCE

Ratings

Excellent

10

Good

39

Satisfactory

25

Poor

11

Very poor

15

Total

100

Chart showing ratings.

42

Ratings
Excellent
Good
Satisfactory
Poor
Very poor

INTERPRETATIONS
From the table we can interpret that overall the outlook magazines are found good as 30% of
the customers have rated it as good.

Findings
This data provides the conclusion that still there is a lot of scope to improvise for Outlook
though the company is performing well in the market and penetrating very rapidly. Company
can be a market leader if it concentrates few aspects of customer satisfaction. Still 39% of the
customers say that outlook is a good company.

43

44

RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Effective promotional scheme.
It is important to motivate the consumer to subscribe for the magazine for boosting the sales
and its obvious that most of the consumers will not get motivated unless and until they get
what they want. From the market survey it was able to identify that the motivating factors are
the gifts provided along with the subscriptions and according to most of the consumers a
good gifts are one which have good brand value associated with it and those which offer
better utility.
2. Offline referral marketing.
Referral marketing can be effectively used to improve the subscription sales. The existing
customer can be motivated to refer to their friends, relatives etc. to subscribe for the
magazine by means of exciting and attractive gifts as incentives. The magazine should
provide Business reply cards exclusive for existing subscriber along with subscribers copies
during the magazine delivery so that they can refer their friends and relatives for magazine
subscription. The business reply card should offer the facility to be filled with at least ten
references. Subscribers should be able to send them free of cost. Now these subscribers can
be provided with attractive gifts.
3. Customer retention.
It is a normal saying that customer acquisition is good, retention is better. This is because a
customer retained is equal to five new customers as the money spent for acquiring a customer
is calculated to be five times the money spent to retain a customer. From the information
obtained from Outlook, if was identified that Outlook does nothing for customer retention.
Outlook needs to formulate and implement customer retention and loyalty programs to retain
the customers.

Greet the customers with exciting gifts during special occasions.

45

 Sell the subscription renewal at discount.

Auto renewal of subscription.
Allow grace period for subscription expiry.
Send loyalty gifts.
Organize entertainment events for subscribers.
Organize get together.
Offer free Medical claim/Insurance Policy.
4. Improved magazine for customer satisfaction.
From the market survey it was revealed that the strengths of Outlook Magazine are
Promotional Schemes and unbiased reporting. Its weaknesses are its Content quality, Paper
quality and Print quality so it should work on it to increase the customers satisfaction. If the
product is able to satisfy customers in its core product attributes, then the customer will be
tend to be loyal as their expectations are fulfilled.
So to improve customer loyalty and thereby increase voluntary sales outlook magazine
has to work on its weaknesses as expected by the customers of the magazine Since the
quality of content and coverage are subjective in nature, Outlook needs to identify what
are weaknesses of the current contents and coverage of the magazine as well as the
customers expectations about them. For thisOutlook should go for detailed survey and
customers feedback so that it can understand the customers expectations as far as
content and coverage of the magazine are concerned. Once the customer expectation is
identified Outlook need to restructure the magazine by implementing the customer
requirements and demands in order to improve their satisfaction level which will in
turn boost the magazine as well as subscription sales.

CONCLUSION
From the study it is been concluded that delivering service of outlook magazine is poor as
46

34% of the customers rate the delivering service of outlook as poor. Only 26% of the
customers rate the delivering service of outlook as good.
Overall the outlooks magazines have been rated as good as majority of the customers rated it
as good.
The quality and content of the outlook magazine is rated as excellent but somehow the
company is facing stiff competition from the India today as delivering services of India today
is very good as compared to Outlook.
Customer service, like any aspect of business, is a practiced art that takes time and effort to
master. All you need to do to achieve this is to stop and switch roles with the customer. What
would you want from your business if you were the client? How would you want to be
treated? Treat your customers like your friends and they'll always come back.

47

MAGAZINES
Customer Name: .. Date:..
Sex: .

Customer contact:

Age: ..
Profession: .
Qualification:..
We would be grateful if you could spare a few minutes to complete this Customer
Satisfaction Questionnaire to help us ensure that our standard of customer care
exceeds expectations wherever possible.
NOTE: This test is taken for the purpose of research and the information given by
you will be kept confidential. Hence give your answer without hesitation

48

Questionnaire
1. Which of the following magazines have you read?

India Today

Outlook

The Week

Business World

Others

2. Which magazine are you currently reading of Outlook?

Outlook

Money

Profit

Business

Outlook Hindi

People

3. What is the means of purchase for the magazine of your interest?

Newspaper Vendor

Bookshop

Subscription

4. Have you ever subscribed any of the outlook magazines?

Yes

No

5. Have you ever used the customer care service of outlook?

Yes

No
49

6. If the answer of question no 5 is yes, then how would you rate your experience of query
solution of customer care service of outlook magazine?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

7. How would you rate the delivery of the outlook magazine to your address which you
have ever subscribed?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

8. How would you rate the quality of content of any of the outlook magazine which you
have ever subscribed?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

50

9. How would you rate the competitiveness of our outlook magazines with other magazines,
in the sense do they represent the best value for the total cost of your subscription
ownership?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

10. How would you rate outlooks total Quality & service management to ensure complete
customer satisfaction?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

11. How would you rate overall outlook magazines?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Very poor

51

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Referred Books:
Kotler Phillip, Marketing Management (14th Edition)
Web Site:
1. http://www.exchange4media.com/50334_irs-2012-q4-nine-out-of-10-english-magazineslose-readership.html
2. http://www.outlool.com
3.http://epubl.ltu.se/1653-0187/2006/58/LTU-PB-EX-0658-SE.pdf

52

Work experience
Most business owners would like to focus all their energy on daily business operations and
serving existing client demands. It's critical to companys success, however, to focus on
gaining new business from current and potential customers in order to grow and sustain your
company.
The selling process has six key steps. Virtually every sales interaction follows these steps,
whether it lasts several minutes or several months:

Prospecting.

Initial Contact.

Sales Presentation.

Handling Objections.

Closing the Sale.

Follow-Up and Service after the Sale.

PROSPECTING:
Finding qualified prospects for our products or services is a necessary first step in the sales
process. Making certain that there is a good possibility that customers will buy is what makes
them "qualified prospects."
Once identified prospects, we should try to learn all we can before approaching them.
Contacting each prospect takes a lot of time and energy so look at each potential prospect
carefully to:

determine the sales approach and plan sales calls

determine which products and services best suit particular prospects

Uncover reasons why one should not pursue some prospects, saving our
valuable time and resources.

INITIAL SALES CONTACT:

53

When the prospect initiates the contact.

I visited during normal business hours to any business location. Contacted by phone, mail,
email, to request information, ask questions and/or to make a purchase. I also called at odd
hours to find out where their office is located and when they can meet.
When you initiate the contact.
One of the most common initial contacts is a "cold call" conducted by phone or in person.
Make an appointment and meeting time fix:
SALES PRESENTATION
Many sales people feel the most exciting part of the sales process is presenting products or
services to prospects. Finally, the vast amount of knowledge you have about your products,
services and your company comes into play.
HANDLING OBJECTION
During the sales process,anyone will most likely meet objections. Objections are prospects'
comments about the reasons why they don't plan to buy your product or service. It may be
something like "I already have subscription from any other and I am happy with their
product."
In fact, objections sometimes are a signal that the sale is progressing and you're getting closer
to a positive response. When a prospect voices an objection, they may simply be asking for
more information about your product - and their objection tells you in what area they need
more information. For instance, if they say they are happy with a product from other
competitors that is an opening to explain how your product differs from your competitor's
product.

CLOSING OF SALE
54

FOLLOW UP AND AFTER SALES SERVICE

Some sales people believe that follow-up after the sale is just as important as making the
sale. That's when our relationship with a customer can mature and develop into loyalty to
your product.
Building long-term relationships with customers allows you to leverage or make additional
use of our initial investment of time and money spent selling to that customer. In other words,
we don't have to spend time prospecting, qualifying and conducting other pre-sales activities
for that particular customer again.
There is no better advertising than a satisfied customer.
Good follow-up and service after the sale will:
Establish and maintain your good reputation,
Build goodwill between you customers and your business, and generate repeat and
referral business.

55