Attitude aspects associated with self-driven rental cars

Abstract

With a change in lifestyle, a trend towards shift in consumption has led to a booming rental industry in India. With multiple products across categories now available in the rental market, the mode of consumption is changing and so is the consumer behavior in this space. With this change as the focus of our study, we aim to identify key factors that shape consumer attitude towards the car rental category. The Indian car rental market’s revenue is projected to grow at a considerable Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35 per cent. Furthermore, this sector is expected to be worth more than INR 800 billion by 2019, which is quite an encouraging aspect for market players in this segmenti . Identifying two groups – non-users and users of car rental service, the entire study was based on the attitude towards the category as whole, with directing our recommendation to a specific brand – Zoom Car. Our entire study is based in Indian context. Our study involves an in-depth study of existing literature on the rental models adopted worldwide, which we took as the basis of the study in the Indian context. Focusing on key attributes derived from the literature survey, our analysis was directed towards identifying relative importance of these attributes in both the non-user and user category. The semantic differential scale was utilized to evaluate the responses of consumers in the age group of 18-40 years, typically urban respondents with a minimum education level of under graduation. Gathering inferences from the 108 responses collected (46 non-users and 62 users), analytical techniques like the t-tests and paired t-tests were used to identify the trend across the user segments. The factors identified to be the most important for both non-users and users include positive e-WOM, safety, and customer service. These have already been begun to be carried out by Zoom Car, the brand under consideration. We recommend that they are given high importance to for both users and non-users. Also as derived by our analysis, we strongly recommend the ensuring of differentiated product-premium fit in the sales offering, which could very well serve as the differentiating factor in this space and boost their market offering. The analysis led us to the conclusion that in the attitude model, affective component was the differentiator among the user segments while cognitive and conative component was equally important for both non-users and users for the car rental category. Hence, this study can be helpful to understand consumer attitude in the car rental category. This understanding can be utilized in devising the marketing strategy and IMC mix of brands. Here, with Zoom Car as the focus brand, we have also suggested recommendations in line with our study.