AN ASSESSMENT OF GAP BETWEEN EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS

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1 10 ABSTRACT AN ASSESSMENT OF GAP BETWEEN EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS TARAK PAUL* *Assistant Professor, Royal School of Business, Betkuchi, Guwahati, Assam, India. Mutual funds have evolved over the years, in keeping with the changes in the economic and financial systems, as well as the legal environment of the country. New products have launched according to the requirements and changes in the investors perceptions and expectations. Understanding the investors expectations and meeting those expectations are the key area of interest of marketing experts. Mutual fund in India as an investment avenue is growing since its inception in the early 60 s with the formation of UTI. Past studies revealed that mutual fund as an investment in India is growing but the industry is still struggling to win the investors confidence. The industry need to identify the expectation of the investors and meet their expectation. The study has been conducted in Guwahati city and 260 existing retail investors have been considered for this purpose. The paper highlights the expectations and experiences of retail investors from mutual fund products and the level of gap exist between their expectations and experiences. The study pointed out that there is a significant gap between the mutual fund investors expectations and experiences. KEYWORDS: Customers Solution, Mutual Fund, Investors Expectations, Investors Experience. INTRODUCTION Customers satisfaction is given utmost importance as they generate the business of a firm and survival of a firm from long term perspective. A customers expects to get the desired need fulfilled from the purchase of a product or services. Customers expectation is defined as the perceived value that customers seek from purchase of goods and services. A Customer s expectations from a product or services are influenced by perception of the customer about the product or service and can be created by previous experience, advertisement, hearsay and brand image. Rolph, E, Anderson & Joseph, F, Hair, Jr. (Rolph E Anderson, 1972) stated that Consumer expectations can influence the perception about the product Tracey Lawrence (Lawrence) pointed out it s imperative to understand the need of the customers before customers express. Meeting the expectations of customers will cement the relationships, increase customers satisfaction and retain their business. On the other hand, Customers experience is an interaction between an organization and customer as perceived through a customer s conscious and sub-conscious mind. It is the blend of an organization s rational performance, the senses stimulated and the emotions evoked and intuitively measured against customers expectations all

2 11 across all moments contact. Companies are adopting different promotional strategies to attract people towards its products and services and try to develop long term relationship with them. The basic idea is to target the consumers buying decision and increase market share of the company. If the expectations of customer are not taken care of seriously the informed customer may cause a threat to the firm as well as industry as a whole. The study attempt to measure the level of gap exist between customer solution expected and experience from mutual fund products among the retail investors. The product part of 4C model of marketing mix i.e. customer s solution has been used in this paper. Schultz, Tannenbaum, Lauterborn (Schultz, 1993) proposed a consumer oriented 4C model in C model of marketing mix replaces the 4P model of marketing mix shifting focus to satisfying consumer needs. The product part of 4P model is replaced by customers solution in 4C model. Different segments of savings have different expectations. Therefore, products must be aimed at satisfying the investors needs and expectations. SURVEY OF LITERATURE L.C. Gupta (Gupta, 1991) noted that 75.6% of the household investors are not willing to invest in mutual fund unless there is a prospective return. However, there is a drastic change in the attitude mainly for two reasons. Second, a number of sectoral equity funds have been launched and have gain popularity and have attracted a considerable investment. One is the failure of many assured return schemes to fulfill their assurance due to poor investment performance. Society for Capital Market Research and Development (Chowdhury, 2001) observed that the mutual fund industry has undergone a transformation. It delves into investors' attitude and identifies current problems and finally suggests ways to improve the industrial performance. Anderson and Sullivan (Sullivian, 1993 Spring) expressed that there is a growing managerial interest in customers satisfaction as a means of evaluating quality. High Customers rating are widely believed to be the best indicator of a company s future profit. S.R. Nair(Nair, 2011) stated decision making process is greatly influenced by how people perceive a particular situation or event. Perception is the process by which and individual selects, organizes and stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. According to V. Joshi (Joshi, 2009) stated that two person may be exposed to the same stimuli, and under the same environmental condition, how each one of them recognizes, select and interprets the stimuli will be a highly a individual process. Individuals while perceive express his own view of reality. Adam Richardson (Richardson) pointed out that customers experience is the sum totality how customers engage with your company and brand, not just in a snapshot in time but throughout the entire arc of being a customer. Stock Exchange of Thailand [SET] after the Asian Economic Crisis The study conducted by SET focused on (a) SET Product Strategy (b) SET Positioning Strategy (c) Investor Education Strategy (d)investor Marketing Strategy The study mainly focused on product, positioning, education and marketing strategy. Panda, T. K. & Tripathy, N. P (Panda) observed that the small investors purchase behavior does not have a high level of coherence due to the influence of different purchase factors. Due to the reduction in the bank interest rates and high degree of volatility in Indian stock market, investors are looking for an alternative for their small time investments which will provide them a higher return and also safety to their investments. So mutual funds offer the best alternative to the small investors in India.

3 12 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Stock Exchange of Thailand observed that the image of mutual fund as a product is influenced by marketing strategy. A.P. Kurian, Chairman of Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) pointed out that the Indian investors have become conscious. Over the years, Indian investor s level of understanding of complex financial products has gone up. Society for Capital Market Research and Development (2001) observed that the mutual fund industry has undergone a transformation. It delves into investors' attitude and identifies current problems and finally suggests ways to improve the industrial performance. Many studies of such kind have been conducted but this study has been conducted to measure the level of gap exists between expectations and experiences as perceived by mutual fund investors from the customers solution perspective marketing mix. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The objective of the study is to measure the level of gap exists between the expectations and experiences of retail investors of mutual fund products. HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY For the purpose of the study, the following statistical hypothesis has been considered: H 0 = There is no significant difference between the level of the customers solution expected and the level of the customers solution experienced with respect of Mutual Fund as perceived by the Retail Investors. METHODOLOGY The universe for the study is mutual fund investors residing in Guwahati municipality area. The study involves collection of data from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data was collected with the help of a structured questionnaire (Annexure) and secondary data was collected from books, journals, magazines and articles from the different websites. The questionnaire is divided into two parts. The first part contains the demographic details like age, gender, educational qualification, income etc. and the second part contains twenty three items relating to mutual fund investors expectations and experiences from customers solution dimension of product mix perspective. Items for the questionnaire were selected based on the survey of literature as well as the pilot study. Items were so constructed that these elicit the opinions of the targeted retail investors towards the mutual fund on a five point scale. The questionnaires were served and responses were elicited from 260 Mutual Fund Retail Investors [i.e. respondents] on one to one basis through personal visit to the respondents through snowball sampling. The collected data relating to investment profile has been presented with the help of tables and charts and data relating to mutual fund investors, expectations and experiences was tested using paired t test for sample means at 95% confidence level.

4 13 ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION TABLE 1: TABLE SHOWING % OF INCOME SAVE AS INVESTMENT % income save as investment No of Respondents Percentage 10-20% % Beyond 30% Grand Total Source: Compiled from survey data FIG 1: DIAGRAM SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF INCOME SAVE AS INVESTMENT It is evident from the above that about 46% investors invest 10-20% of their income as investment and nearly 35% invests 20-30% of their income as investment and about 19% investors invest beyond 30% of their income as investment. TABLE-2: TABLE SHOWING PERIOD OF INVESTMENT Period of Investment No of respondents Percentage Less than 1Year Years years

5 14 More than 5 years Grand Total Source: Compiled from survey data FIG2: DIAGRAM SHOWING PERIOD OF INVESTMENT Majority of the investors i.e. about 38% invest in mutual fund for long term i.e. more than 5 years and 30% investors invest for medium term.i.e. for a period ranging between 3 years to 5 years while 23% invest for short term.i.e. for a period ranging between 1 year to 3 years and only 9% invest for very short term i.e. for a period of less than a year. Therefore, it can be said that investors of mutual funds prefer to invest for medium and long period of time. TABLE 3: TABLE SHOWING FREQUENCY OF CHECKING PERFORMANCE Frequency of Checking status No of Respondents Percentage Daily Quarterly Weekly No specific time Grand Total Source: Compiled from survey data.

6 15 FIG3: DIAGRAM SHOWING PERIOD OF INVESTMENT Nearly 54% mutual fund investors do not follow any specific time interval to check the performance of their investment. Nearly 38% mutual fund investors check the performance of their investment quarterly and about 4% checks the performances of their investment daily and weekly. Therefore, it can be said that for majority of investors there is no specific time frame for checking performance of the mutual fund investment. TABLE 4: TABLE SHOWING SOURCE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION Source of Information Collection No of Respondents Percentage Electronic media Financial Advisors Friends & Relatives Print Media No specific Source Source: Compiled from survey data Grand Total

7 16 FIG 4: DIAGRAM SHOWING SOURCE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION About 31% mutual fund investors collect information about mutual fund through electronic media and about 23% respondents collect information through their financial advisors. Nearly 13% investors collects information about mutual funds from print media and only 8% collects information from friends and relatives. However 23% respondents collect information from miscellaneous sources. Therefore, it can be said that electronic media is the most popular source of information collection of mutual fund investors followed by financial advisor T-TEST RESULT The score obtained from the survey in respect of expectations and experiences of mutual fund investors from mutual fund products were tested by using t test for paired sample means and the results are shown in the table below- TABLE 5: CUSTOMERS SOLUTION Variable 1 Variable 2 Mean Variance Observations Df 249 t Stat

8 17 t Critical two-tail Source: Compiled from survey data. The above result showed that the null hypothesis i.e. there is no significant difference between the level of the customers solution expected and the level of the customers solution experienced with respect of Mutual Fund as perceived by the Retail Investors is rejected as t (calculated) value is greater than the t (critical) value at 5% level of significance. In other words, significant gap exists between the level of customers solution expected and customers solution experienced as perceived by retail investors of mutual fund. NOTE: t test is commonly used when the size of sample is less than 30 (small Sample). According to some experts in case sample size of 120 or more t distribution and normal distribution are virtually in distinguishable.[nk Malhothra & S Dash (2012), Marketing Research-An Applied Orientation, 6 th Ed, Pearson Publication New Delhi) In this study sample size is 260 and paired t test was used. CONCLUSION It is evident from the above there exist a high level of gap between mutual fund investors expectation and experience. The industry must understand the investors expectation from the products and try to bridge the gap between the level of expectations and experiences perceived. The study supports the views of A. Bhowal & T.Paul (Bhowal,2012) that mutual fund as an investment in India is growing but the industry is still struggling to win the investors confidence, an in-depth analysis into investor s expectations from MF products, its performance, management, service and other related areas could be done. It also supports the views of Rolph, E, Anderson & Joseph, F, Hair, Jr., as stated above, that Consumer expectations can influence the perception about the product. Therefore, mutual fund products should be designed considering the need and expectations of different segment of investors. ANNEXURE QUESTIONNAIRE 1. Name(Optional): 2. Age(Please tick): (a)below 30 years (b) years (c) years (d) years (d) Above 60 years 3. Gender (Please Tick): (a) Male (b) Female

9 18 4. Educational qualification(please Tick): (a) Up to 10 th (b)up to 12 th (c) Up to Degree (d) Beyond Degree 5. Annual Income (Please Tick): (a) Below 1lakh (b) 1-2 lakh (c) 2-3 lakh (d) Above 3lakh 6. % of income you save as investment (Please Tick): (a) Below 10% (b) 10%-20% (c)20%-30% (d) Beyond 30% 7. Period for which you invest in MFs. (Please Tick) (a) Less than 1 year (b)1-3 years (c) 3-5 years (d)more than 5 years 8. Your frequency of checking the performance and Status of the Fund. (Please Tick) (a) Daily (b) Weekly (c) Monthly (d) Quarterly (e) No specific time 9. How do you collect information about the funds? (Please Tick) (a)print media (b) Electronic media (c) Friends and Relatives (d) Financial Advisors (e) No specific Source. 10. In respect of the following statements tick the appropriate alternatives: Please give your response in a scale of 1-5 in respect of the following statement relating to expectation and experience regarding your mutual fund investment. Assign 1 for least score and 5 for highest score SL No Items My Expectation My Experience 1 Companies in the mutual fund industry are providing all information about their products in the offer document 2 Companies are providing me sufficient information about the products relating to management of funds 3 Mutual fund products provides better return in comparison to other investment avenues

10 19 4 Mutual fund products hedge the loss of money against inflation by giving adequate return 5 Mutual fund products provides well-diversified portfolio 6 Mutual fund products provides flexibility like SIP,SWP, Dividend reinvestment etc 7 Mutual fund provides transparency in respect of fund managers investment strategy and outlook 8 I feel safe and secure when I invest in mutual fund products 9 Companies are providing me mutual fund products as per my requirement 10 Companies are providing me knowledge on buying & selling mechanism of products 11 Mutual fund products are easy to liquidate 12 Companies are giving my money back on redemption of mutual fund products within stipulated time 13 Companies are providing prompt service in case of switch off from one product to product 14 Movement in Share market has significant impact on NAV of the mutual fund products 15 NAV of the products shows the actual value of funds 16 The charging of Entry & Exit load while buying & selling mutual fund products was appropriate ( Now withdrawn) 17 The commission payable to agent for their services are exorbitant 18 Companies inform me whenever they come up with new product(s) 19 Companies send the statement on my investments in mutual fund products at regular interval 20 Companies provides me all other information as and when require 21 Companies provide me knowledge to evaluate the financial performance of the product in which I have invested

11 20 22 Companies provides me services at door step in case of buying & selling of mutual fund products 23 Companies are providing me knowledge about online purchase and sale of mutual funds. 11. Any other comments Date.. Signature Place. REFERENCES Bhowal, A and Paul, T. (2012). Mental Accounting of Retail Investors of Mutual Fund and Marketing Mix -A Tango. Reflection, pp Chowdhury, U and Gupat, L. C. (2001). How Good Are Mutual Funds, Society for Capital Market research & Development. Don E. Schultz, Stanley I. Tannenbaum, Robert F. Lauterborn (1993), Integrated marketing communications, McGraw-Hill Professional, pp pages Gupta, L. (1991). Indian Shareholders- A Survey, Society for Capital Market Research and Development, New Delhi. Joshi, V. (2009). Organisational Behaviour., Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning, Pune Nair, S. R. (2011). Consumer Behaviour in Indian Perspective,Himalaya Publishing House, Mumbai. Rolph E Anderson, J. F. H., Consumerism, Consumer Expectation and perceived product performance. s.l., Association of Consumer Research, pp Sullivian, E. W. A. &. M. W., 1993 Spring. The Antacedents and Consequence of Customer Satisfaction for Firms. Marketing Science, Volume 12, pp WEBSITES

12 (Lawrence, T.) A.) /bitstream /2259/198/1/customer+orientation.pdf.(Panda, T.K. and Tripathy, N)