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14
HAERYIP SIHOMBING
1
, YUHAZRI
2
, M.Y. and YAHAYA
3
, S.H.
1, 2, 3
Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Malaysia
17609, Durian Tunggal, Hang Tuah Jaya, Melaka, MALAYSIA
1
iphaeryutem.edu.my
1.0 I
NTRODUCTION
In cur r ent hyper competitive mar kets, the companies’ sur vival in the mar ket and, thus becoming successful in their business field ar e depends on many factor s contr ibuted. Since the main objective of a business is, basically,
to cr eate pr ofit by satisfying the customer s, accor ding to Schnaar s 1991, thr ough the cr eation of customer satisfaction w ill enable the company to gener ate some benefits to them, including the r elationship w ith the
customer s as a good foundation for the cr eation of loyalty and r epeat pur chase of customer s. On this per spective, Rahman 2004:426 stated the customer satisfaction constitutes as a car dinal indicator . By
consider ing on this point of view , customer r elationship development and management systems ar e, ther efor e, need to be focused heavily by companies Ver hoef et al., 2002, w hile the development of effective customer
r elationships need to be r ecognized as an essential component of mar keting strategies Lymper opoulos et al., 2006:366. Tow ar d this idea w her e ser vice quality as becoming a pr imar y competitive w eapon, then the quality
of ser vices is globally r emained as a cr itical point for businesses str ategy to a comparative advantage in the mar ketplace Hossain Leo, 2009:338; Staffor d, 1996:6
The facts, w hat the companies faced to the challenges and competitions in the mar ket ar e not only on how to identify w hat the customer satisfaction and r equir ements. This is due to the actual manifestation of the state
of satisfaction is var y fr om per son to per son, also against pr oducts or ser vices. In addition, the customer satisfaction is an ambiguous and abstract concept Kanojia and Yadav, 2012. Whether they have been or might
be successfully implementing or not, accor ding to Kultanan et al., 2006, the customer r equir ements ar e much mor e technically complex than in consumer mar ket, especially in ser vice sector . In pr oduct quality
measur ement, even they ar e still in scientific debate on super ior ity of one method over another . This is due to the methods used ar e usually not tr eated as complement ar y, r ather as alter native tools Zelma, 2008. Hence, as
pr eviously w as under lined by Grigor oudis et al., 2002:1, a number of measurable par ameter s that dir ectly linked to sever al aspects of company’s pr oducts ser vices or elsew her e r emained as an abstr act and intangible
notion. In addition, ther e ar e a common pr oblems occur r ed w hile analyzing data fr om customer satisfaction sur veys w hich is car r ied out by compar ing the stated and der ived impor tance for a set of satisfaction dimension
Gr igor oudis and Spyr idaki , 2003:229; Kano et al., 1984. Ther efor e,
i Fir st, the companies need to alw ays taken their business str ategy into account in pr oviding goods
and ser vices to satisfy the customer s by inter pr eting todays competitive mar ket as a cr ucial effor t in cr eating a loyal customer , w hich involves of captur ing and r etaining them. In this per spective,
In current hypercompetitive markets, customer satisfaction is one of major requirements that enable the company to generate some benefits to their business. This is also including the relationship with
the customers as a good foundation for the creation of loyalty and repeat purchase of customers. However, the customer requirements are much more technically complex than in consumer market,
especially in service sector. On the other hand, the analysis of importance and performance assumed on Kano method to measure customer satisfaction also lead to misleading the implications of
customer satisfaction since some scholars use this technique into symmetric and linear relationships between attribute level performances. In this study, we poposes the approach on how to find the
priority improvement or the most significant element required for improvement based on Kano method as a measurement basis ; using Kano manipulating graph, ranking level, and then a
simplification approach toward the graphs to enable the priorities significant element required for improvement determined and justified. To justify the approach proposed, some trials carried out in
service companies as the case of study. Key w ords:
Customer satisfaction, Kano method, Kano manipulating Graph, priorities for improvement required.
A BSTRA CT
HOW TO MEASURE AND IDENTIFY THE ULTIMATE IMPROVEMENT REQUIRED FOR CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
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Limit ed. All right s reserved
15
w hen customer s ar e satisfied, they ar e mor e likely to r et ur n. While they ar e dissatisfied, how ever , the customer s ar e mor e likely to go elsew her e. Ger son 2003 stated the under standings of
customer ’s expectation depend on the fulfilment of customer ’s need and the existence of the pr oduct or ser vices per for mance deliver ed to them. Besides the quality and pr ice factor s, since the
r etention of ver y loyal customer is a key to or ganizational sur vival, the other s impor tance factor that should be ther efor e consider ed by them is also how to attr act the customer to buy the pr oduct
Jones Sasser , 1995. Hence, it can be concluded that a major outcome of mar keting activities ar e not only r elated t o how much pr ofit can be achieved, but also on how high customer satisfaction
r esulting fr om company’s activities. This can be exper ienced in a var iety of situations and connected to both goods and ser vices CSSP,2007:6 ; Cengiz, 2010:78.
ii Second, Tse and Wilton 1988 ar gues that the customer r esponse should be consider ed to the
mismatches disconfir mation per ceived betw een pr ior expectations and actual per for mance of a pr oduct. A compar ison of the per ceived per for mance against the expectations is as a level of
customer feelings Kotler , 2003 w her e the expectation, as asser ted by Hsu and Cai 2009:5, is as a cr itical antecedent of satisfaction that becomes a deter minant of attitude. The customer satisfaction
has r elated to an emotional challenge of the exper ience tow ar ds the consumption of a pr oduct ser vice, the pur chase evaluation, accor ding to Wilkie 1990, is ther efor e r equir ed against the
customer s expectations and dissatisfaction of the selected alter natives. Especially, w hen the expectations r esults outcome w er e not met Engel, 1990. Hence, due to the customer satisfaction
is gr eatly affected by customer expectations CSSP, 2007:6, how customer s, accor ding to Gr önr oos 1998:329, per ceived good the pr oduct quality they should be based on the measur ement against
w hat the appr oaches of attitude deter minant of customer satisfaction r elated to the ser vice per ceptions and expectations value. To addr ess this issue, scholar s discussed about as follow s:
a
the pr ocess of cr eating and deliver ing the value to customer s in the mar ketplace as the combination of customer satisfaction and pr ice Collier , 1995.
b how to cr eate the ser vice values w ith the aim of satisfying customer w her e the company
must to cor r ectly attr ibute the factor s r elated of the identified quality so that cor r ect decision can be made Chen and Lee, 2007.
c the assumption that a customer w ill lear n fr om exper ience, w her e the decr easing levels of
expectations disconfir mation against goods and ser vices should affect customer satisfaction McQuitty et al., 2000.
d the using of satisfaction r atings as the per for mance indicator of pr oducts and ser vices
deliver ed, beside the indicator of the company’s futur e Matzler and Hinter huber , 1988. iii
Thir d, accor ding to Kumar et al., 2008:176-177, they ar e, how ever , not clear ly to differ entiate the ser vice quality constr ucted; distinguishing betw een functional ser vice quality FSQ w hich
means doing things nicely and technical ser vice quality TSQ is as doing things r ight. Specifically in ser vice business, most of the case discussed the ser vice per ceptions and expectations. i.e. bank
Alhemoud, 2010; Naeem Saif 2010; Guo et al., 2008; Jabnoun Al-Tamimi, 2002, financial and loan funding Gottschalk, 2008, hospital Br ennan, 1995; Williams et al., 1998; Peltola et al., 2007;
Padma et al., 2009, public ser vice
Rodr íguez et al., 2009, secur ity firm Xu and Goedegebuur e,
2005, air lines Gustafsson et al., 1999; Fr ost and Kumar , 2001, education Joseph et al., 2005; García-Ar acil, 2009, etc.. In or der to incr ease the company’s competitiveness, ther efor e the
companies should pay gr eater attention to customer ser vice quality and customer satisfaction thr ough the der egulation of the total per ception r elated to the quality of a ser vice as the outcome
technical quality, rather than simply addr essing ser vice quality fr om a functional per spective Gr önr oos, 1998:329; Kumar et al., 2008:183; Kang and James, 2004:266. Steve et al. 2001 in
their r esear ch added that in satisfying the customer s ar e also gr eatly depends on a smooth r unning pr ocess appr oach to successfully completing a customer tr ansaction. Briefly to say, ther e is a
positive linear r elationship betw een staff satisfaction, ser vice quality and customer satisfaction leading to pr ofitability Hallow ell et al., 1996; Yee et al., 2009.
Based on pr oblems afor ementioned, each of scholar s pr oposed the appr oaches how to measur e the customer satisfaction. i.e. IPA to impr ove or der -w inner cr iter ia and w in or der Lee et al., 2009, IPA w ith
str ength and w eakness Zemla, 2008, IPA w ith Kano Model and Dematel Hu et al., 2009, MUSA method Gr igor oudis and Spyr idaki, 2003, str uctur ing the customer r equir ement model w ith Quality Function
Deployment Kultanan et al., 2006; Matzler and Hinter huber , 1998; Lai et al., 2004, the w eighted aver age scor e model tow ar d Kano model Bhattachar yya and Rahman, 2004; Xu et al., 2009, customer satisfaction thr ough
cr eating loyal customer s Rahman, 2004, the influences the components of pr oducts and ser vices Sauer w in et al.
, 1996; Sauer w ein, 1999, the impor tance of quality attr ibutes using 8 categor ies of Kano model Yang, 2005,
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