USING CONJOINT-ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF SERVICE ATTRIBUTES MEASURED IN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEYS

Determining the relative importance of service attributes is one of th e most important objectives of customer satisfaction measurement. Two popular methods that are currently used are ''gap analysis'' of expect ations minus performance and linear regression of the overall satisfac tion rating on the ratings far the attributes. Unfortunately, both the se methods have shortcomings, so Ice develop a new method which is bas ed on a conjoint analysis of nine hypothetical service scenarios. This information is used to fit a satisfaction response model as a functio n of the component service attributes. In turn, the current service le vel is plotted on the response surface and the ''path of steepest asce nt'' in the direction of maximum customer satisfaction gives the best ''direction'' for management to plan a quality improvement program. We compare the proposed method with those currently being used and find it is more responsive to changes in attribute performance as a firm's quality improvement strategy evolves.