INDIA POST: CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS USING SERVQUAL MODEL

Abstract

India post is one of the very few traditional organisations with an established culture in India which came into closer contact with the common man in the country since 18^th century. To compete in the technologically driven economy, India post grafted many tech based services apart from the ritualized ones. But any service offering by a business organisation will be profitable only when it is availed by the target customers. Today customers are stepping out of their traditional role of being passive buyers and evolved as active players in the market. In spite of providing banking and other e-services at comparatively cheaper price, India post fell on hard times and has become a loss making concern. The present study is descriptive in nature and included primary and secondary data. The objectives of the study are to find the frequency of usage of various services by the customers of India post and to analyse the gap between perceptions and expectations of service quality in five dimensions using SERVQUAL model. Purposive sampling method is used to select 385 sample respondents in Kanniyakumari district and it is found that Banking and remittance is most frequently availed service and Philately is mostly not availed by the respondents. The gap score is found positive in Assurance dimension and most negative in Empathy dimension. India post should take steps create awareness about the benefits of various products and get customer feedback to compete in globalised markets