Travel

K.P.N Travels India Limited is plying buses in four states namely Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala, and Karnataka. Customer prefers KPN Travels buses through out the year for going to various places in South India. 38 years in public transport is indeed a great accomplishment by our company. Head-office is at Salem, KPN Travels India Limited, is in business since last 40 years. From a humble beginning, it has grown to become one of the leading bus operators with an expanding fleet of buses in the country. Offering excellent service with its well-maintained coaches and courteous staff, KPN Travels strength lies in its enlightened management under Dr.K.P.Natarajan its Managing Director. Today the luxury buses of KPN are familiar sights on almost all the vast highways of the South. The runaway success of the company and the popularity of its bus service is traceable to its quality and timely service to customers, excellent labour relations and the steadfast loyalty of the workers to the management. Born in the year 1949 at village called at Periyaputhur in Salem district. Dr. Natarajan (Kuppanna Goundar Ponmalai Goundar Natarajan) is simple and most unassuming, and he is from an agricultural family.

Dr.KPN started his career as a tour operator in 1968, Later, in 1971, he realized the need for regular bus services between major towns and cities. Thus was born KPN Travels in 1972. At the age of 23, he started the first service of KPN Travels between Thirunelveli and Bangalore. Initially he used to travel and sometimes even drove the bus himself. His regular travel on the buses gave him an opportunity to interact with all his customers and get valuable feedback, which helped improve service, facilities and comfort levels in the bus. In the next couple of years Dr.KPN could start his service from Trichy to Chennai. In fact, he began competing with railways by starting his service at around the same time from Trichy and reaching Chennai much earlier than the express trains. Customers enjoyed the experience and started preferring KPN buses. It is a fact thatA KPN was one of the firsts to introduce the latest technologies in buses. Today it has the latest and most modern fleet of buses, including 35 Volvo B7R high-end luxury coaches. Dr. KPN's sound management and pioneering ideas on fleet standardization, bus route review and employee training provided a strong base for growth.

The main objective of the SERVQUAL scale is to find out the customer satisfaction, customer expectation towards KPN Travels and it also helps to find the gap between the expected service and perceived service in KPN Travels.

Visited KPN Travels in order to prepare Questioner.

Open ended questioner had been prepared for five quality dimension of service quality.

Questioners have been issued to five travelers of KPN Travels in order to find the service they provide.

By the result of the survey we can identify the traveler's satisfaction, traveler's expectation and there by giving conclusion and recommendation.

According to SERVQUAL method questionnaire has been prepared, 22 questions has been prepared under five dimension of service quality. The five dimension of service quality are Tangible, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy. The questions is taken from the KPN Travels which is in Bommanahalli. These set of question are ranked 1 - 7 in which 1 being strongly disagree and 7 being strongly agree.

Tangibles - Tangibles are visually appealing facility. Were people can find in service centre with facilities available to them which is clearly visible.

1. KPN Travels has modern looking equipment.

2. KPN Travels physical facilities are visually appealing.

3. KPN Travels reception desk employees are neat appearing.

4. Materials associated with the service (such as pamphlets or statements) are visually

appealing at KPN Travels.

The next set of question has been taken on the bases of Reliability which denotes ability to perform the promised service dependable and accurately by KPN Travels

1. When KPN Travels promises to do something by a certain time, it does so.

2. When you have a problem, KPN Travels shows a sincere interest in solving it.

3. KPN Travels performs the service right the first time.

4. KPN Travels provides its service at the time it promises to do so.

5. KPN Travels insists on error free records.

The next set of question has been taken on the bases of Responsiveness which denotes Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service to their customers by KPN Travels.

1. Employees in KPN Travels tell you exactly when services will be performed.

2. Employees in KPN Travels give you prompt service.

3. Employees in KPN Travels are always willing to help you.

4. Employees in KPN Travels are never too busy to respond to your request.

The next set of question has been taken on the bases of Assurance which denotes Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence in the mind of customer.

1. The behavior of employees in KPN Travels instills confidence in you.

2. You feel safe in your transactions with KPN Travels.

3. Employees in KPN Travels area consistently courteous with you.

4. Employees in KPN Travels have the knowledge to answer your questions.

Last and final set of question has been taken on the bases of Empathy which denotes Caring, individualized attention that KPN Travels provides to their travelers

1. KPN Travels gives you individual attention.

2. KPN Travels has operating hours convenient to all its customers

3. KPN Travels has employees who give you personal attention.

4. KPN Travels has your best interest at heart.

5. The employees of KPN Travels understand your specific needs

These are the questions prepared to find out the perceived service of Kpn customers on basis of their ratings starting from the scale of 1 to 7 for which 1 being highly dissatisfied and 7 being highly satisfied and 4 being moderate which means they are either satisfied or dissatisfied.

From the above fig 1.4 clearly shows that there is more number of samplers who strongly disagree that KPN Travels is not Willingness to help its travelers and does not provide prompt service to their travelers, this was the main reason for which the rating has dropped down. Overall average score on responsiveness have been only 55% which is very less compared to overall percentage of five dimension of service quality is 56.23% most of them has rated very low in this category because most of them feel they did not give prompt service even though they were available to help travelers. All of them have rated very low in aspect of not providing information like when the bus will come and when the bus will reach exactly to their customers.

Fig: 1.5

From the above fig 1.5 clearly show that some of the sampler has accepted that KPN Travels has the ability to perform the promised service dependable and accurately to their travelers.KPN Travels insists to have error free records by maintain their bus from accidents. Reliability overall average score is 57.71% which is higher than the overall average score for five dimension of service quality is 56.23%

Since people who travel prefer private travels are mostly middle class and upper middle class they expect a lot as a value for money. There are certain things they expect because they leave government transport and take private transport. KPN Travels should highly concentrate on giving special attention by helping them from the time of booking to reach the place safely with providing them good facility by cleaning the buses on regular basis and checking the facility at the end of each places and giving them exact time of departure and arrival because some people consider time as money. So if they are not able to provide them there are many competitors to grab those opportunities. And also nowadays even government buses started giving same facilities as private buses do with a cost less than private travels. So they have to keep in mind because it is said to be a service with security and at most good faith and they have to give some special promotional offers for the people who travel most of the time so that they can retain the customers and there by capturing new customers by word of mouth and there by to generate profit.

KPN Travels reception desk employee should appear neat

KPN Travels employee should respond to the travelers as and when they ask for help.

KPN Travels should give their customer special attention.

KPN Travels should associate with the service such as issuing pamphlets or statements as a visually appealing facility to make customer understand about their services.