1

ANALYSIS OF CONSUMER SEGMENT AND BEHAVIOUR TO REDUCE CHURN

RATE AND GENERATE SALES OF MAGAZINE

A Thesis Presented to

The Department of PGDM at

K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the PGDM-Retail Management

by

Harsh Rajani

Under the Supervision of

Prof. Dr. Vibha Bhilawadikar.

 2

Student’s Declaration
I, Harsh Rajani, Roll No. 43 declare that the Master’s Thesis Titled Analysis of consumer segment
and Behavior to reduce churn rate and generate sales of Magazines, submitted by me in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the award of PGDM (Retail Management) at K J Somaiya
Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai, is the record of the work carried out by
me during the period from July, 2018 to March, 2019, under the guidance of Professor Dr. Vibha
Bhilawadikar.
To the best of my knowledge the thesis is a record of authentic work carried out by me during the
said period and has not been submitted to any other University or Institute for the award of any
degree/diploma.
I further declare that the material obtained from other sources have been duly acknowledged in the
thesis.
 3

Certificate of Faculty Guide

Certified that the work incorporated in the master’s thesis titled, Analysis of consumer segment
and Behavior to reduce churn rate and generate sales of Magazines Brand submitted by HARSH
RAJANI was carried out under my supervision.
This is his original work and any such materials that have been obtained from other sources have
been duly acknowledged in the thesis.

Signature of the Faculty Guide

Date:

Place:
 4

Table of Content

Contents
Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………………….vi

Executive Summary………………………………………………………………………. vii

Chapter No. 1: Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 7

1.1 Industry Overview ................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.2 Company’s Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 11
1.3 Product Detail ....................................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter No. 2: Process Flow ...................................................................................................................... 18
2.1 Marketing Strategy ............................................................................................................................. 18
2.2 Customer Relationship Management .................................................................................................... 22
2.3 SWOT analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 24
Chapter No. 3: Understanding Subscriber Base ..................................................................................... 25
3.1 Backdrop ............................................................................................................................................... 25
3.2 Sampling Technique .......................................................................................................................... 26
3.3 Analysis and Finding ............................................................................................................................ 27
Chapter No. 4: Observations ....................................................................................................................... 36
4.1 Implications........................................................................................................................................... 37
 5

Acknowledgment

I express my gratitude and thanks to Prof. Dr. Vibha Bhilawadikar who has been my mentor and
took out time from her busy schedule to supervise me, which helped me in the completion of this
master thesis. I would like to thank her for the advice, encouragement and foresight that gave the
right direction to the project. She inspired me greatly through the project and her willingness to
motivate contributed tremendously to the performance.

Harsh Rajani
PGDM (Retail Management)
 6

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is detailing about analyzing the consumer segment of Print Media, mainly magazines
provided by Outlook between two cities Delhi and. This will help in generating key insights about
customers and also compare how regional customers have few different. This thesis will also bring
out the particular literature preference of the two cities consumers when it comes to reading
magazines and demonstrate the market position of Outlook magazines.
Determining the demographics of consumers of Outlook magazines and doing a comparative
analysis of the same on demographics and behavioral aspects of customers will help give
management the profile details and will in turn highlight the key factors for building relationship
between particular product and customer profile.
Following are the Objectives of the thesis:
PRIMARY:

• To compare customer segment of two geographies.

• To determine which factors trigger customer of particular geography to buy this product.
• To find out which content of outlook magazine is dominant in each of the areas.
SECONDARY:-

• To provide suggestions to target customers respective by geography basis profile.

In the first part of thesis, industry overview is given where the print media have been explained in
detail and how Indians consume this media and the growth rate is shown of this industry which
stands at 12% CAGR. This part also talks in detail about the company’s profile and in depth
description of the products offered to Indian market.

Second part talks about marketing strategy and business process flow; here in this thesis we will
work on B-2-C subscribers only i.e. the retail customers. Customer retention strategy and SWOT
analysis of company is also discussed which was used to build up the questionnaire to conduct the
primary research for this thesis.

Last part of the report is about the findings on the primary research that was conducted among the
customer base of outlook magazine and analysis and comparison of 2 different geographic
customers. Analysis will help us to complete the above mentioned primary objective and also help
us to glean the strategy as is mentioned in the secondary objective. Finally conclusion and,
suggestions will be made in the context of findings and qualitative conversations with the
customers to help the customer retention and reduce the churn rate.
 7

Chapter 1: Literature review

The traditional magazine market is going through major crises because of 3 main reasons:
1) Reduced circulation of traditional magazines and the rise of digital distribution of print
media.
2) The uplift of social channels.
3) The economic crisis and reduced traditional promotional spending.
Source: “Business Models for Newspapers in a Digital World by Alexander Barclay”. This paper helped
in formulating the questionnaire for our thesis which led to the comparison between two
geographic customers and helped in findings and analysis which will be further discussed in the
later chapters of this thesis.

We undertook this research because it was found that, there were not many notable research about
consumer magazines despite the fact that these were creating great impression on marketing
managers. “Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010”.
In the scholarly publications, traditional magazines were stated as “magazines, which are created
by advertisers and in which the boundaries between advertising messages and editorial content
have disappeared”. Traditional magazines or so called “in-house magazines” are observed to be
the best mode of maintaining how a brand is perceived in the market and maintaining brand’s
“identity” by proper amalgamation of pleasure, entertainment and information “Dyson, 2007”.
Given this identity it is important to protect this genre of literature in the world is the deeper
thought for this master thesis. This research is based on a multi - method approach. Different
approaches used are official pages of the website for visual and content analysis, further
discussions with cyber –generation for ways and means for using
the concepts of cultural interface, and possible remediation, of cyber-generation to draw them
back into the traditional journalism. As a theoretical background the paper used the theories of
online communication, telephonic communication and new media and existing research in online
press and magazine genres too to understand the audience. Examining the online magazines
revealed that the reading online is very immersive and need not be limited to one genre but can
dabble into different genres using hyperlinks/back links which is a biggest limitation for traditional
journalism or traditional magazines. This thought was highlighted in: “CONCEPT OF
REMEDIATION: FROM PRINT TO WEB. THE CASE STUDY OF 'SPIEGEL ONLINE' By
Evgeniya Boklage”. And this is probably the biggest threat to the existence of traditional
journalism which needs to be addressed.
 8

1.1 Industry Overview

Print media is the most important attribute in knowhow of nations’ work, as anyone can understa
nd. Newspapers, magazines, books, etc. are read by many people and are one of National and Int
ernational News ' most trusted media.

India, with its impressive display of print media network have thousands of newspaper and
magazine in circulation. Excellent reportage, the press unity and a firm webbing makes print
media a great triumph even in this digital age. This goes without saying that traditional media
have contributed a lot to literacy and a persons’ general and current affairs’ knowledge in India.

Dainik Jagran, with nearly two million readers, is the newspaper with the largest circulation in In
dia. Next comes an English newspaper, Times of India and then the 3rd largest circulated
newspaper is Dainik Bhaskar. There is something for everyone in India as the nation has so many
local and national language newspaper and magazines to read.

Print media:

Present Market size: Rs 35,300 Crore

Estimated size by 2020: Rs 95,740 Crore

Compounded Annual Growth Rate: 12%

What driving the print media growth in India is the growing economy, progressive need for
government initiative and the need for content that opened the FDI in print media sector.
Today, with literate population rising, more people are reading newspapers and magazines in rur
al and urban areas. Foreign media, because of the above reasons, are indicating interests in
investments in Indian journalism.

The Indian E&M industry is set to grow at 12% CAGR from the current market size of 35,300 cr
to 95,740 cr by the end of 2020, according to “Annual edition of FICCI – pricewaterhousecoopers
report Indian Entertainment and Media industry – Unravelling the potential”.

The key drivers for entertainment and media industries will be growing income, higher spending
capacity, consumerism, technological changes and FDI changes by government to encourage
investment inflows.

This industry outperformed the economic growth till 2010 each year and will continue to do so till
2020 because of 2 main reasons. The reasons are low penetration of traditional media in lower
 9

socio-economic class and low promotional spends in traditional spends. Success of this industry
is absolute because even if the penetration is low in lower socio-economic society, slightest of
efforts will yield great results because of the total number being so high. But there are challenges
that need to be dealt with by having stronger FDI policies and consistent media journalism norms.

Dr. Amit Mitra- Secretary General, FICCI said “ the on-going threat of piracy, which continues to
hinder investments in all sectors, needs efforts not just by industry bodies but by government, with
empowered enforcing anti-piracy law”.

Print Media: Industry Profile

To know the readership of any publication in India, local or national, there are two main sources
that give detail information about consumption habits and ownership of media product. Lifestyle
indicator info on macro demographics and geographic parameter are also displayed. SO, the two
sources are:
1. National Readership Survey –NRS
2. Indian Readership Survey -IRS

“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”.

NRS deals with about 80 main Indian publication from in around 475 towns across the entire
country. These publications are daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly. These 475 towns that are
 10

selected are publication and circulation centres for the dailies but a systematic survey is been
carried out with total of 55,000 households, distributed respective to proportion of total population
of that town. Patrons of age above 15 years are questioned for about ½ hour with a structured
survey form.

In collaboration to this organization are IMRB, TNS sofres Mode and Neilson that claims to give
the most through survey result in country about the overall detailed data readership, radio listener
profile, the demographics of readers of respective publications, of big screen and small screen
viewers and the extent to which the content is same between publications and different media. All
this data is being given to the client in a portable device; computer disk.

IRS is conducted by MRUC-Media Research User Council. Indian Readerhip council 2002 was
the largest media survey ever conducted in the country with the sample of 2,29,000 people that
resulted in single source for demographics, media consumption habits and product consumption
across 2858 villages from 985 towns across India. Entire survey was done in 2 parts between
Nov 2001 to Nov 2002.
 11

1.2 Company’s Introduction

Outlook India Group

Outlook India group was incepted in 1995 by a Mumbai based group, Raheja Group. Mr Vinod
Mehta was the first Editor-in-Chief. This was the time when print media was losing its poise
because of television broadcast but within 4 years from group’s inception, Outlook’s weekly
became 4th most read magazine in terms of readership and expanded its variant in Money, Business
and Travel section of magazine industry.
As per the Indian Readership survey 2014, India today group is the most subscribed Indian English
magazine, followed by Outlook English with a total of 4,25,000 readership. In all, Outlook India
Pvt. Ltd. Have 1.5 million readership.
Outlook India head office is in New Delhi and it features contents from Politics, Sports, Cinema
and stories of broad interests.
Below is the List of Outlook Group’s continued and discontinued Magazines.

As per the table, it is visible that most of the magazines were discontinued by outlook. Even
though they were market leader in that segment, revenues garnered from those magazine
circulations were not sufficient enough to run operations for those magazines. Story for print
media in home country or foreign country is the same , more or less.
 12

Outlook Portfolio

Outlook group earns money from 4 parts of its business. All those 4 parts are displayed in the
above picture also divisions’ sub parts are also displayed in brief. Outlook Group functioning
depends upon these divisions.
 13

1.3 Product Details

Outlook Weekly(English)

Started in October 1995, when Hathway Investments Private limited Group wanted to enter in print
media by the name of Outlook India Pvt. Ltd. They started with a weekly magazine named Outlook
weekly, which is an English magazine for current affairs ranging from Kargil to Kashmir to
Cricket. Headed by Mr. Vinod Mehta during the time when Indian print media was seen to have a
sluggish growth rate resulting from the impacts of DTH services of television broad cast. Outlook
quickly carved a mark for itself and was known to be fiercely independent and for in-depth
investigative reporting. Outlook currently sells something around north of 11.2 million copies a
year.

Outlook Money

In July 1998, the Group launched "Intelligent Investor" re-christened as "OUTLOOK MONEY"
as of 31-March-2019, India’s first DIY investment magazine for financial products. It offered
solutions for growing demographic of salaried middle and upper middle class personals to invest
in financial products. This magazine’s message is clear and quite simple, “Invest well, borrow
wisely and spend smartly”. As per the alibi, the message seemed successful as this magazine sold
somewhere around north of 1,00,000 subscriptions a fortnight within a year. Main distinguishing
characteristic is that 93% of its customers save all of its past issues.
 14

Outlook Traveller

This is the only significant magazines in India that targets travel readers and provides information
about travel destinations of foreign as-well-as domestic places. This magazine is divided in ratio
of 70:30, with 70% of content being domestic location and 30% of content being international
location. It was started in June 2001 and ever since, OT has introduced readers with mesmerizing
and obscure destination all around the globe.

Outlook (Hindi)

Outlook Saptahik(Hindi), Comes once a week is a Hindi language news magazine. Outlook Hindi
was launched in October 2001 and have created a space for itself among huge hindi reading
audience. The main thing is that this is not just a mere copy of English to Hindi from its weekly
magazine, Outlook is empathetic to its Hindi users and creates its own image through strong
parallel reporting and investigative journalism. It also retains its original image with strong
objective and fiercely independent editorials.
 15

OUTLOOK GEO

This one here is Outlook’s International magazine; Outlook GEO. It is one of the best selling
magazine in its one segment and comes MRP of RS 75/- per edition and is monthly magazine. It
contains information about wildlife, geography, etc.; just like “National Geography Magazine”
but with more profound reporting and luxurious images.
OUTLOOK PEOPLE

One for fashion oriented people, is the Outlook People, a celebrity based magazine. It’s a
fortnightly magazine and is preferred by millennial, salons, boutiques, etc.. There is a similar
magazine by outlook named Maria Claire but is discontinued now. These two magazines are one
of the bestselling magazine in fashion industry which covers celebrities’ interviews, etc..
 16

MARIE CLAIRE

A monthly fashion magazine by Outlook Group India Pvt. Ltd.. Most of its patrons are young
people or in the show business.

OUTLOOK BUSINESS

Another product in its pipeline is Outlook Business which is a fortnightly magazine that contains
information about new job offerings in a business segment, business tycoons’ interviews and
mainly preferred by B-schools and MBAs.

OUTLOOK PROFIT
 17

“This magazine gives you the insight of the share market and is most preferred by Chartered
Accountants and others in the same business”.
 18

Chapter 2: Process flow

2.1 Marketing Strategy

Sales team was provided with data of existing subscribers whose subscription was about to
expire. This team will contact these users and will tell them that their subscription is about to end
and will inform them about new offers and current tariffs for new subscription plans. Than if
they agree they will be asked to pre pay the subscription charges via online payment or by
sending a cheque to office.
From the observation, the deduced churn rate was around 15% and rate at which new
subscription were coming was at around 12%. So there is a proper gap of 3% negative. Also
loyal patrons were seen leaving and all those new customers seemed to subscribe for 1 year only,
which says that these are not so loyal type customers. This is the pattern in all of print media
industry.
 19

Outlook launched a different version of Paid Advertisement known as “Cover-on-cover”.

COC-cover on cover scheme of advertising was different from traditional page advertising like
traditional page advertising would display a restaurant, pub, car dealer or hotels or any other
business’ product or service on all the publication during that time but COC would give only
limited no. of displays as per ordered by the client. It can also target specific geography or local
area of multiple states.

For COC, minimum no. of ordered copies were set to be 1000. So a client needs cover on cover
promotion, they need to atleast order 1000 copies and this will be promoted to specific customers
as per the clients’ business needs.
 20

Cover-on-cover Proposal.
Outlook$group$has$launched$a$revolutionary$Promotion$program$on$the$20th year of its
inception known as “Cover-on-cover”. Here, brand promotion will be done on two sides of the
magazine and this will increase the brand’s awareness at many customer touch points. Brand can
choose the position of their advertisement from any part of the magazine; like front or centerfold
or last page of the magazine. This will be promoted to specific customer segment as per the brand
audience or as per the client’s need and specification. This& scheme& will& substantially&
increase& brand&visibility&and&act&as&a&differentiator among competitors.

Past 10 years has seen a shift in the way how generation Y consumes data and how they like to
stay updated about current events like “Business, sports, page3, movies and food”. Any political
news or share-market news are easily available on digital channels and this has changed the
reading pattern of millennial at large. It can easily be said that print medium has lost its value
proposition to the customers.

And “this is why All the Major Magazine Publisher are facing high churning rate of customers be
it The Economist in UK, Forbes and TIMES in US or India Today and Outlook in India, Such is
the impact of this Customer attrition that Outlook has to discontinue its Eight Premier Magazines
out of Twelve.”
 21

However@with@every@Problem@there@comes@an@opportunity,@Outlook Group@and so
does@ther “Established@Print Media@Groups has@realise@that which content@people at
Present@times Like or@Interested in Reading@and they are Information@on Business Market,
Savings and@Travel and that is@why most of the Media houses are@launching or
improving@the Magazines which”@focuses on Money,@Business and Travel, “the@Diagram
shown@in the above figure@depicts the Customer Value@for different@categories of
magazines,@Nearer to the@Customer@value more is the Value@proposition@of the
Magazine@for@the@customer.”

“In Product Cycle Terms we can say the Print Media in in the decline stage, whereas Digital and
Online in the Growth stage”.

Digital Subscription“(E-Magazine and App Based)”

Everybody needs to change with time, even businesses too. That’s what Outlook did when it
realized that the market of traditional consumer magazine is reducing at a drastic rate. They also
jumped the band wagon and launched its e-channel, i.e. E-Magazine and application of an
Outlook group. As of May 2018, app has 4.1 rating and all of its traditional content is available
on that application but limited to Hindi and English language only.

The&App&based&Marketing&is&yielding&positive&results&in&terms&of&subscription,
since&three&months&subscription&is&free&from&the&day&of&App&installation.However,
&Other&Major&Competitors&are also&doing aggressive&App&based&Marketing&and it is
the better&comprehension&of news contentsa&vailable&on Apps&which&will make the
whole&difference.

Gift Offer on Subscription.

There“is a part of customer segment of outlook that are highly loyal to the brand because of its
content and other segment that are not so loyal to brand just for content.”The customer segment
that needs a bit of co-promotion scheme to as content is not the only motivating factor for
customers from north.“The other segment that we were talking about, that are loyal and only
motivating factor is content are from east and west.”
 22

2.2 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Flowchart:

Now, the main reason why the CRM and retention programs need to be introduced is because
years ago the sales ratio to call ratio was 1:25, i.e. for every 25 calls there was 1 convert which
have fallen down to 1 or 2 converts in every 200 calls.

So the sales team contacts customer via telephonic connection and not by e-mail or post as part of
their customer retention program and try to convince customer for renewal of their subscription
and also tries to up-sell a product and cross sell the product. There could be atleast 5 call to less
convincible customer as they right now consist&of&60% of its customer base.
 23

2.3 SWOT Analysis

 24

Chapter3: Understanding Subscriber Base

3.1 Back drop:

Customer databases were shared with summer interns for tele-contacting the subscribers and
obtain feedback from them about the magazine.

Retail customers:
800 retail customer contacts who were a mix of active and lapsed customers’ details were provided.
The productivity of the database was 80% wherein we could contact the subscriber through
telephone and explain them about the new offers from outlook magazine.

If he wished to continue then a email contact was done for subsequent action. This database to
whom the mails were sent were then handled by the sales team at Outlook

Corporate Customers:
This set of customers were contacted on the phone and an email was sent to them for renewal of
the magazine. For a period of two months 20 such contacts were made.

For the retail customers to objective was to understand the profile of the readers with respect to
their reading habits and their opinion about Outlook magazine.

Following few paragraphs will highlight the findings of the survey:

This feedback is an outcome of telephonic data collection process. 100 productive interviews
were got highlighting the rich and updated proprietary customer database that Outlook magazine
is owning.

These 100 respondents were from DELHI, and good areas like &Green-Park,&Basant-Lok
Complex, Vasant&Vihar C-Block,&Hauz-Khas,&IIT. It appears that these areas are positively
disposed towards reading magazines.
 25

3.2 Sampling Technique:

Data Base sampling.

DATA FINDING AND ANALYSIS

The data analysis is presented through only univariate analysis i.e. % analysis and central
tendencies of the data..

• PIE – CHARTS

• COLOUMN CHARTS

• BAR GRAPHS
 26

3.3 Analysis & Finding

Q 1: “DO YOU HAVE ANY OUTLOOK SUBSCRIPTION CURRENTLY?”

Outlook Subscribers Delhi Yes No Outlook Subscriber

Mumbai
Series1, Series1,
No, 48, Yes, 52,
yes
48% 52% no 43%
57%

Q 2: “WHICH TYPE OF MAGAZINE DO YOU READ?”

 27

Finding: Mumbai customers as per the survey subscribes majorly to business

magazine whereas Delhi customers mainly had general magazines. It is also visible
that they have a huge inclination towards fashion magazine which was comparatively
quite less for Mumbai customers.
 28

Q3: HOW DID YOU COME TO KNOW ABOUT OUTLOOK?

Hording Mumbai
1%
NewsPaper
21%
Internet
34%

Advertizing Friends
on Tv and
6% relative
38%
Finding:- Source of knowledge about Outlook is a lot different in both the cities. Delhi mainly is
aware about outlook because of stalls and Newspapers whereas Mumbai is mainly aware because
of Friends and relatives. A large chunk of customers of Mumbai (34%) knew about Outlook
through Internet and Online promotions too which in Delhi is quite less (about 8% only).

Q 4: “DO YOU THINK OUTLOOK NEWSWEEK COVERS ALL THE CURRENT AFFAIRS
AS A WEEKLY MAGAZINE?”

Chart Mumbai
Strongly Agree

Agree
20% 13%
Neutral

28% Disagree
30%
9% Strongly
Disagree
 29

Finding: - This was the question about Outlook general magazine and as per our findings, majorly,
Mumbai customers doesn’t consider it enough for all the topics it covers. They seems to find it
lacking in some manner.
Q 5: “DO YOU THINK THAT OUTLOOK BUSINESS IS A BETTER BUSINESS MAGAZINE
THAN OTHER IN THE SAME BUSINESS?”

20
30%

Mumbai Responses
18
16
25% 14
12
20% 10
8
6
15% 4
2 Series1
10% 0

agree
Strongly agree

neutral

Can't say
disagree
strongly disagree
5%

0%
Agree Strongly Disagree Strongly Can't Say
Agree Disagree

Finding: - Delhi customers were much bold with their answers. They have specific answer,
whereas, Mumbai customers were just sure that this magazine is not bad but did not say that it’s
better than magazines in same business. Maximum Mumbai customers were neutral about its
competitive stance in market.

Q 7: “IF YOU DECIDE TO SUBSCRIBE AN OUTLOOK MAGAZINE THEN WHICH

MAGAZINE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE?”
 30

70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

eo
r

le
ey
ele

ek
s

ofi
re

es

op
G
ish

Pr

on

we
lai
av

Pe
sin
gl

M
C

ws
Tr
En

Bu
e

Ne
ari
k
oo

M
utl
O

Mumbai Response
70
60
50
40
30
20 Series1
10
0

Finding:- Consistent to our findings, Mumbai customers would love to subscribe

business magazines and Delhi customers would love to subscribe general magazine
(Outlook English). This was the question for the lapsed customers.

Q8 : FOR HOW MANY YEARS YOU HAVE SUBSCRIBED FOR OUTLOOK MAGAZINE?
 31

Mumbai
Subscription years

3% 1 yr
17%
1- 3 yr
55% 3- 5 yr
25%
5+ yr

Finding: - Not a single customer was found to have 5+ years of subscription in Delhi. Also
the number of customers for subscription of just a year is more in Delhi compared to Mumbai.
Mumbai customers tend to have subscription for more number of years because they seems
to be more satisfied with Outlook services comparatively.

Q9: “PLEASE TICK MARK THE PREFERENCE WHICH PERSUADED YOU TO

SUBSCRIBE FOR THE MAGAZINE”.

Mumbai Response
other offer
Content & article
Popularity
Gifts
Price

0 5 10 15 20 25

Series1

Finding: - What persuaded Mumbai customers to buy outlook magazine is a lot different
compared to what triggers Delhi customers to buy it. Like Delhi customers first priority is
content and articles whereas Mumbai customers are more price sensitive.

Q10 : ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE DELIVERY OF THE MAGAZINES?

 32

Mumbai satisfaction
chart
6%

Satisfied
25%
Not satisfied
69% Sometimes

Finding: - Service seems to be better in this part of country. Satisfied customers are quite in
good numbers but there is also chance for improvement as almost 1/4th of its surveyed
customers were either unhappy or had no particular idea.

Q11 : “WHAT ABOUT YOU’RE EXPERIENCE WITH THE CUSTOMER CARE SERVICE”?

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
Satisfied Not satisfied Haven't called
 33

Finding: - Both cities have large percentage of “haven’t called” customers; and that is
mainly because of the original service being up to mark in these cities. But comparatively
no. of dissatisfied customers through customer care are more in Mumbai compared to
Delhi. This means that there is a chance to improve CRM in Mumbai department.

Q 12: WOULD YOU RECOMMEND OTHERS FOR OUTLOOK MAGAZINES?

Mumbai

satisfied not satisfied

27%

73%

Finding:- Number of customers that would recommend outlook magazines are more in
Mumbai than Delhi by 6% but the major reason is not for the content but for the service of
outlook in Mumbai compared to Delhi.

Profile of the Subscriber:

Q 13: YOUR OCCUPATION
1) Business
2) Service
3) Student
4) Any other
 34

occupation Delhi
60

50

40

30

20

10

0
business service student any other

Occupation Mumbai
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Student Business Service anyother

Series1

Findings: largest customer base of both the location seems to be of business class people but the
second largest customer base in Delhi is of students and in Mumbai is of service people i.e.
around 28% of customers of Mumbai are of service class.
 35

Chapter 4: Observations

• Main USP of Outlook magazines are its price as they are quite affordable and provide value
for money and have great many offers clubbed with longer period subscription. Second
best USP is its newsweek, which is its international news magazine and a weekly one.
• Magazines “are not a critical&product for any&organization. Hence, magazines have to be
pushed for sales. This is because a client will&usually use a magazine&for communicating
with its client and&advertising. However, there are&numerous other&channels&available
for this&purpose. Therefore, a salesman&selling&magazines can only be&successful only
if he is&proactive.”
• The “client will&only be&interested in placing&an order for&the magazine&if it adds
value to the service being&provided by it to its&customers without&adding to its cost.”
The options&offered by&Outlook i.e. “Cover-on-Cover, Flap and Strip were very&useful
as they enhanced&the service being&provided by the&clients to its&customers.”
• People with financial sector background gave good response to money magazine and
business background people showed interest in business magazine.
• The$delivery$is$not$up$to$mark.
• Most of the commoners wanted and desired news weekly only and nothing else, targating
them with other content was actually upsetting them.
• Outlook promotional material were absent from all the shops as they don’t receive them in
proper condition and are never regular. “One of the retailer complained that outlook has
never sent any promotional material to them”.
• Few of the retailers complained about the circulations of Newsweek and magazines.
 36

4.1 Implications

• Customers seems to be engaging in digital media but print media is also co-existing. From
the research it was clear that people are buying and consuming specific magazine based on
the fact of no distraction from content and the tangibility benefit of the product.
• The two target segment from survey after business class people in both the cities are
students and service class people for Delhi and Mumbai respectively.
• Recommendation for outlook magazines is more by Mumbai customers because of services
offered by outlook, which they could improve in Delhi as around 30% of Delhi customers
don’t recommend this magazines because of late or no delivery of magazines.
• There is a good scope for improving customer relationships through referral routes in both
the cities as per the research but much efforts are needed for in for Delhi customers.
• Clearly, price sensitive customers of Mumbai needs value for money as second major
customer base of Mumbai are service class people. Whereas, to promote Outlook magazine
in Delhi needs different approach. They tend to be more attracted to popularity and content
wise advertising.
• Outlook need a strong loyalty program as both the cities have maximum 1 year subscribers
and not many 3-5 years and 5+ years’ subscribers.
• Outlook promote differently in both the cities for customers. People in Delhi have
awareness due to newspapers and stalls, whereas, people in Mumbai know about outlook
because of internet promotion and thus which digital promotions, cookies used for
targeting, it will be easy for them to target Mumbai customers but much efforts will be
needed to target customers and build loyalty.