Comparative Analysis of Oil Marketing Companies in Pakistan, with Special Refrence to Services Provided by Pso

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In the highly competitive world of today, the quality of service provided to customers determine whether the company would be able to retain these customers or not. The aim, therefore, is to understand and anticipate what the customers look for, when they come to a petrol pump. In case the service level and facilities that are highly valued by the customers are provided inefficiently, PSO needs to identify these areas and improve its performance there. In case the customers are not getting the desired service level, there is an opportunity regarding what needs to be done to provide the customers with need satisfying products and services.

MANAGEMENT DILEMMA AND MANAGEMENT QUESTION

THE DILEMMA:

“How to predict customers beliefs and attitudes about various brands 300 cc cars!”

MANAGEMENT QUESTION:

“What does a customer look for when selecting a fuel outlet”

Research OBJECTIVES

A research proposal is being presented that aims to evaluate the service features and the service facilities that are provided to PSO customers. Since the customer base at PSO is very wide, developing a generic strategy for all the customers may not be very effective. This research will help in identifying how effective and efficient the service level is that the motorists get at PSO Stations. This will help in determining the following factors:

- Do the customers know about the availability of these services?

- Do the customers value the services being provided currently at PSO Stations, do they view these services positively? In case these services are only noticed and not availed, try to find out

- What type of services do the customers look forward to getting when they come to PSO?

- Do they get these services at PSO?

For the above mentioned factors, the current level of service and the customers’ attitude, satisfaction levels and opinions regarding these services needs to be gauged and the same objective was kept in mind while formulating the research design and survey methodology.

The following objectives need to be accomplished through the proposed research

- To gauge the current service level in order identify how affective it has been in capturing the customers and in what area's improvement is needed to influence the customers’ buying behavior positively by providing a friendly and helpful ambience, so that they perceive PSO petrol pumps’ service level to be the best.

To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the research problem/opportunity clarification is necessary. The management problem involves determining how to improve the service level provided at PSO petrol Pumps and make the customers aware of these services so that customer dependability, reliability and loyalty towards PSO Petrol Pumps can be enhanced.

SAMPLING DESIGN

To conduct the report it is important to identify the population, samples, elements. and other sampling items that will be part of the research

Element and units

The element and unit size would be consumer that visit petrol stations

Extent

Karachi was selected as the city where research would be considered

Time

Research would be conducted during the period of October - November 2001

Population

The population would comprise op all consumers of petrol in the country

Sample Size

Due to the time consideration a sample size of 75 customers is considered. Although the sample size is small however this will also result in less non-response error.

Research Procedure

A non-probability sampling method is being carried in the report. Both judgmental and convenience procedures will be used.

The company specified the areas and the petrol pumps where the research needs to be carried and it was up to my choice to select the respondent for the filling of the questionnaire.

MEASURMENT INSTRUMENT / TYPE OF QUESTIONNAIRE

A questionnaire has been prepared which will be filled by the samples selected for customers residing in Karachi

The data collection instrument used to collect the primary data is a structured questionnaire with open and close-ended questions. Using questionnaires for gathering information allows the level of flexibility required for this research. This has been done to collect accurate information with the help of questions, which are relevant in the circumstances

The questionnaires in most cases will be self-administered, which means that the interviewer himself will ask the questions rather than giving the questionnaire to the respondent to fill out. The reason for this approach is that in asking questions form the customers guaranteed that responses to all the questions was recorded and in case there was a problem in interpreting the question by the customer, the question was clarified by the interviewer before answering the question.

TYPE OF QUESTIONS

The questionnaire consists of 10 questions. These questions are aimed at gathering customer responses on factors, which are under discussion and are aimed at achieving objectives.

As it’s a general knowledge that city customers have less time to respond to the questions because the normal time taken to fuel a car is 3 - 5 minutes. Visits to petrol stations are considered a chore therefore most people are normally in no mood to answer questions. Similarly people at central locations cannot spare more than a minute or two to answer questions since they are rushed or are in a hurry to reach someplace. The questionnaire therefore had to be administered during this time period.

For this reason, the length of the questionnaire and the combination of questions are adjusted keeping in mind the time constraint. Therefore, most questions were closed-ended, signifying