Chapter 1 Research Design 1.1.

Introduction, Importance and Significance of the Study:Time was when one had to wait months, even years, to buy in India, The options o f Indian drivers were limited to just a few homemade and heavy cars, such as the Ambassador, Premier etc. The collaboration of the Japanese car giant Suzuki wit h Indian carmaker Maruti completely changed the market. Maruti 800, a small fami ly car, became a prized possession for Indians. But now, that too seems ancient in the current glut of new cars on Indian roads. It is Honda, Hyundai and other models that have become the pride of Indian roads. Last year more than one million cars were sold in India. Sales figures are expec ted to grow for another 10 years that makes India an extremely attractive market for car giants. Rising disposable incomes and changing lifestyles are being att ributed to the car industry. But experts believe the main driver of the Indian c ar market is the availability of car finance on easy installments and reasonable interest rates. Stricter Pollution norms are also forcing vehicle manufacturers to adopt latest technology in maintaining emission standards. This is likely to curtail the aver age life span of a vehicle on road while the maintenance cost and the genuine pa rts consumption per vehicle is expected to increase. 1.2. Rationale:Now day s number of small cars on the Kolhapur roads is increasing .This num ber has some relation with two wheelers and public vehicles. To find out this an d other parameters in customer satisfaction measurement of Kolhapur city was the basic requirement of this study. 1.3. Objectives:An empirical study on measurement of customer satisfaction was therefore undertaken for four models of small cars. Maruti 800, Santro, Tata Indica and W agon R to help managers employ satisfaction research, this article describes a t echnically simple; criteria based approach to analyze customer satisfaction. Thi s paper aims to I. To analyze the response of customers towards the performance of differen t models of small cars. II. To identify the factors of customer satisfaction. III. To identify the differences in demographic groups towards of customer sa tisfaction. IV. To give suggestions wherever necessary. 1.4. Hypothesis:Indian Auto Industry especially small car sector is paying much more att ention to quality standards to achieve full consumer satisfaction. 1.5. Research Methodology:In this report researcher was take help of both the sources of informati on for his study viz. Primary and Secondary data I. Primary Data:A. The primary data are those are collected a fresh and for the first time, and thus happen to be original in character such data are published by authorit ies who themselves are responsible for their collection. Stratified random sampling method is used for collecting the data in this study. The data collected was tabulated and analyzed with the help of simple percentag e with total score analysis and scoring techniques. A structured form of questionnaire was distributed to 200 respondents in Kolhapu r city of Kolhapur district, consisting of four zones during a month and deliber ate attempt was made to give a fair representation to various attributes of the consumer s viz. Age group, occupation and income of the consumers. B. For the purpose of the study, target population was identified as all ow ners of small cars in Kolhapur city. The sample population was consisting of 50 small cars owners of Maruti 800, Santro, Tata Indica and Wagon R, making it a to

tal of 200. Survey was design for this study using well-established measures of cars. The questionnaire consisted of 2 parts. Part 1 was of demographic details of the respondents like age, gender, income and models of the cars being used. P art 2 was of measures of customer satisfaction. The car owners were asked to giv e opinions towards various questions on their satisfaction from their car. II. Secondary data:A. On the other hand, are those which have already been collected by some o ther agency and which have already been processed? Generally speaking, secondary data are information which has previously been collected by some organisation t o satisfy its own need but it is being used by the department under reference fo r an entirely different reason. Secondary data was collected from standard textb ooks and from various published articles through internet and journals. To know the consumer preference of small cars in the city 200 samples was observ ed from four zones at important junctions during the busy hours. B. Here the researcher had referred various magazines, journals, news papers, pu blished company reports and advertisements. Then he has taken essential informat ion from all these as secondary data to fulfill his objectives to support his pr imary data. 1.6. Expected Contribution:In this project work target population of all small car owners In Kolhap ur city was found out. Necessary information was collected by means of a questio nnaire to achieve desired objectives of the study. Then the collected data is pr esented in the forth chapter with the help of tables and graphs wherever necessa ry. With the help of this some finding are drawn in next chapter. Further, sugg estions (if any) based on these findings are also given. 1.7. Limitations of the study:1. The Geographical Area was limited, i.e. Kolhapur city only. 2. Time was a limiting factor for the study 3. The researcher concentrated on only a few Models like Maruti800, Santro, Tata Indica and WagonR. 4. Respondents bias is yet another limitation of the study.