MKT 631 (Marketing Research)

Research Proposal

Submitted To
Prof. A. K. Fazlul H. Shah
Faculty Member
School of Business
North South University

Submitted by
Name NSU ID

Farhana Sharmin 1621636060 (21)

Nurhan Jaigirdar 1531186660 (9)

Humayra Sharif 1759185461 (5)

Date of Submission: 10 July 2017

 Identifying the key components that reduces the customer satisfaction at
Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh (Pvt.) Limited

1. Introduction:

In today's rapidly changing global economy, doing business has become more difficult than the
past. Today's smart firms need to redesign and reshape their businesses and marketing strategies
to withstand competition. Customers in almost every product category have plenty of choices;
and due to such vast array of choices, customers will favor only those firms that best meet their
expectations. As such, today's winning firms are those that succeed best in satisfying their target
customers. Customer satisfaction indicates an organization's past, present, and future
performance; and as such, it has long been a critical focus among the marketing scholars as well
as the practitioners. Customer satisfaction is the main factor that can help a company to gain
profitability and stability in the competitive market.

2. Background Of the Company

Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh (Pvt.) Limited is a multinational company and is a subsidiary of

MWM/ Deutz Gas Generators which are primarily being focused and used in large industries
such as Spinning Mills, Paper Mills, Steel Mills etc. After their inception in 2000, there has been
a steady rise in sales due to MWMs higher electrical efficiency. However, in 2016, Kaltimex
Energy has seen a drastic decline in sales revenue compared to its competitors albeit Sales force
approaching with strong strategy to increase new/potential client base. The management was in a
dilemma as to what might be the primary cause of the decline in sales revenue despite strongly
focusing on retaining customers via financial benefits. In our paper, we would target the
management problem of the decline in sales and interpret it into research problem customer
satisfaction to analyze the root cause.
 3. Problem Statement
The Research problem is to identify the key component that lead to customer dissatisfaction at
Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh (Pvt.) limited and to identify the factors that affect customer
satisfaction and customer loyalty as profitability of a power generation company depends on
customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Management Decision Problem

To increase the customer satisfaction of Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh (Pvt.) Limited and thereby
increase sales
Broad Marketing Research Problem
To identify key components in the decline customer satisfaction in Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh
(Pvt.) Limited
Specific Research problem:

The specific research problems are outlined below:-

To identify the factors that influence consumer to choose a power generation Company
To identify the relevance importance of each factor that contributes to customer
satisfaction

The problem statement is generated from the consideration that the customers will favour those
firms which have more options available. For that purpose the service quality should be
improved to an optimum level to retain a loyal customer base. The companies should be careful
about customers point of views and evaluate own position accordingly. This type of strategic
approach for measuring and managing customer needs and expectations can provide directions
for optimizing resources to build and maintain customer loyalty and commitment. As our main
concern is to find out the core reasons behind the declined customers expectation towards
Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh (Pvt.) Limited company, we are going to emphasis on customer
satisfaction. So the research questions for this study are:

What are the factors on which customers emphasizes when selecting a power generation
company?
 What are the customers most preferred criteria for selecting a power generation
company?
What criteria is crucial for maintaining customer loyalty?

4. Literature Review

The Industry

Electricity is the major source of power for most of the country's economic activities.
Bangladesh's total installed electricity generation capacity (including captive power) was 15,351
MW as of January 2017. As of 2015 92% urban population and 67% rural population have the
access to the electricity for their source of light . Average 77.9% population have the access to
the electricity in Bangladesh. Problems in the Bangladesh's electric power sector include , high
system losses, delays in completion of new plants, low plant efficiency, erratic power supply,
electricity theft, blackouts, and shortages of funds for power plant maintenance. Hence, many
industries such as textile companies, Spinning Mills, Paper mills and Steel mills have to depend
on Captive Power for Power generation of their utility. With the rise of infrastructure and the
increasing demand worldwide for garments and textile from Bangladesh, the competition is even
higher for efficient supply of energy. Hence, Energy and Power - playing a dominant role for
production in such industries, the clients or industrialists are strongly focusing on suppliers
where they are receiving maximum customer satisfaction. Such clients are having lower zone of
tolerance when dealing with suppliers such as Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh, as the main source
of energy to drive the industries is power - which depends upon the support from suppliers.
Hence customer satisfaction in these industries is more crucial than ever.

Customer Satisfaction Analysis

In this complex business world, increasing competition (whether for-profit or nonprofit) is

forcing businesses to pay much more attention to satisfying customers. Usually, Customer
Satisfaction is the consumers fulfillment response. It is a judgment that a product or service
feature, or the product or service itself, provides a pleasurable level of consumption- related
fulfillment. In other words, Customer Satisfaction is a business term and is a measure of how
products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation.
Organizations are increasingly interested in retaining existing customers while targeting non-
customers; measuring customer satisfaction provides an indication of how successful the
organization is at providing products and/or services to the marketplace. Measuring customer
satisfaction is subjective it tells the firms what customers say they like and dont like about a
particular product or service. But it will tell whether they are happy or not, when they used the
product or service, how likely they are to return, whether theyll recommend it to others, and
much more. Many agencies use online customer satisfaction surveys, focus groups, and email
feedback forms to gauge customer satisfaction and expectations. Some agencies have developed
their own surveys, sometimes using a contractor to compile and analyze the data. Others
purchase commercial satisfaction surveys that use a standard methodology across multiple
websites. Customer satisfaction is an ambiguous and abstract concept and the actual
manifestation of the state of satisfaction will vary from person to person and product/service to
product/service. The state of satisfaction depends on a number of both psychological and
physical variables which correlate with satisfaction behaviors such as return and recommend
rate. The level of satisfaction can also vary depending on other options the customer may have
and other products against which the customer can compare the organization's products. Because
Satisfaction is basically a psychological state, care should be taken in the effort of quantitative
measurement, although a large quantity of research in this area has recently been developed.

5. Objectives of the Study

The analysis has been conducted to discover the expectations that the customers have when
choosing a service organization like power generation company in order to solve the declining
customer satisfaction. Our study has been conducted to focus on various tangible and intangible
factors of customer expectation and satisfaction. The objectives of this study are:
To focus on the factors of Quality Value Analysis on which customers emphasizes when
selecting a power generation company.
And, finally, to assess customers most preferred criteria for selecting a power generation
company
 6. Framework of the Factors
For this purpose, the Dependent Variable is Customers Satisfaction in power generation
companies like Kaltimex Energy Bangladesh (Pvt.) Limited.
And the Independent Variables are:

Reputation of the Supplier,

Maintenance of Time Schedule,
Quality of Work,
Kind & Amount of Experience,
Word of Mouth.

With the combination of these factors, we will use Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Analysis of
Covariance (ANCOVA), Regression and Multiple Regression to focus on the most preferred
factor. The results of the study will help us identify which component plays vital rose in
customer satisfaction and thereby help us to analyse what Kaltimex Energy should focus on.

7. Research method
There are two primary methodologies that can be used to answer any research question:
experimental research and non-experimental research. We will be using Non-experimental
research that allows observation but not intervention.

8. Data Collection Techniques: Questionnaire

There are many ways to collect data. Two important methods to consider are interviews and
observation. We will be using observation from questionnaires to different customers.

9. Sample design

For a smaller but accurate representation of the greater population, we will be using data from
clients who were affiliated Kaltimex Energy for the past 5 years, to analyze what affects their
customer satisfaction.