A Two-Dimensional Quality Model for Evaluating the Quality Attributes of Notebook Computers

Transcription

1 A Two-Dimensional Quality Model for Evaluating the Quality Attributes of Notebook Computers Lin-Lang Tang * and Su-Lin Huang ** (received July 2001; revision received November 2003; accepted January 2004) Abstract This research utilized the Kano two-dimensional model to investigate the quality attributes of notebook computer products and services in order to measure customer satisfaction in these dimensions. Data was gathering using a questionnaire. The data was then analyzed using oneway ANOVA to estimate the deviation among consumers, dealers, and manufacturers. That procedure provided a more accurate method for measuring the quality of the notebook products. Then, we used quality satisfaction indexes to evaluate the quality attributes that increased the satisfaction or decreased the dissatisfaction of the consumer providing manufacturers and dealers with an effective method to improve quality. The results indicated that the higher the customer s satisfaction, the greater the purchase intention. Furthermore, when a nearly faultless quality factor has been provided by a manufacturer or a dealers, consumers will treat this factor as a must-be or one-dimensional quality. If a quality factor is not supported by manufacturers or dealers, the factor will be regarded as an attractive or indifferent quality factor. Keywords: Customer satisfaction; Two-dimensional quality; Quality creation; Notebook computer 1. Research Background and Purpose The information technology industry is changing more rapidly than ever before. Notebook computer products feature a short life cycle and a rapidly changing and competitive market. Manufacturers must be adaptable in this environment. Manufacturers must also be dedicated to product design and develop products that meet the demands of the customer. Therefore, customer-oriented products must be pursued and developed by R&D designers. The expectations of the customers are the key elements in determining the products quality. Thus, how to measure products and services becomes an important issue for the designers of notebook computers. * Corresponding author: Graduate School of Management, Yuan Ze University, 135 Yuan Tung Road, Chung-Li, Tao-yuan 320, Taiwan, ROC; Tel: ext 623; Fax: ; balltang@saturn.yzu.edu.tw ** Graduate School of Management, Yuan Ze University, 135 Yuan Tung Road, Chung-Li, Taoyuan 320, Taiwan, ROC. 539

2 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang Notebook manufactures follow well-established standards to piece together hardware and software components. The major components can be purchased in a competitive global market. These components include the CPU (Central Processing Unit), housing, keyboard, memory chips, motherboards, disk drivers, monitors, modems, and connectors. Usually, the hardware in a notebook computer consists of standardized components that are purchased from specialized suppliers and assembled into a single platform by the manufacturer. Innovative technical changes are typically initiated by the component suppliers (e.g. Intel CPUs), and are often applied simultaneously by notebook computer manufacturers. Advanced CPU s improve the quality of note- books. Furthermore, each manufacturer adds a number of brandspecific features that are unique to that platform or company including such items as pre-installed software and the operation system [21]. As a result, notebooks differ in their processing speeds, memory capacities, portability, software configurations, modem speeds, and screen sizes. Since technological advances occur at a rapid rate, the average life cycle of a notebook model is only about six months. The manufacturer upgrades the notebook when the life cycle of a notebook model ends by, incorporating newly developed features such as a new platform (i.e. family) based on a new technology (e.g. the Pentium CPU) into the notebook in order to remain competitive. Major manufacturers offer a variety of models that target different market segments. There are many brands in the current local notebook computer market. A manufacture needs an effective method to measure and manage the total quality of their products and customer service in such a competitive environment. Current measures of service quality do not adequately capture the customer's perceptions of service quality [3]. The changes in product technique and the diversification of customer requirements make it more complicated to predict customer preferences. Customer thoughts on quality are often confused and are difficult to identify. This research used the Kano twodimensional model to investigate the quality attributes of notebooks. The purposes of this study were three-fold and included: (1) Discovering the two-dimensional quality attributes of notebook computers through the questionnaire survey and analyzing the data to determine if any significant differences exist between consumers, dealers and manufacturers. 540

3 (2) Using quality satisfaction indexes to discover the quality factors that improve satisfaction and decrease dissatisfaction. (3) Investigating the relationship between customer satisfaction and purchase intention. In the following sections, we will discuss the literature regarding customer satisfaction and Kano s model. Then we will introduce the questionnaire design and sampling. Section 4 presents the survey results and explanation. The last section presents the concluding remarks. 2. Customer Satisfaction and Kano s Model 2.1 Customer Satisfaction and Market Share Manufacturers who provide the customer with quality products and service can always be successful in this customer-oriented era. More and more firms use satisfaction ratings as an indicator of the performance of products and services, and as an indicator of the company s future [6,7,17]. Reichheld and Sasser [20] stated that satisfied customers purchased goods and services offered by a manufacturer more frequently and in greater volume. Customer satisfaction reduces price elasticity because satisfied customers are willing to pay more for quality products and services [16]. Market share is a direct consequence of customer satisfaction and loyalty. The present or future market share of a company is composed of existing, loyal customers, and new customers that switch from other product manu- factures. The higher the customer retention rate, the higher the future marketshare [13]. High levels of perceived quality and customer satisfaction have an additional effect on future market shares due to the positive quality image and the positive word-of-mouth advertising of satisfied customers [12]. Researchers and customer relation managers have failed to deliver large numbers of loyal customers by using typical customer satisfaction measure-ment systems. The observed relationship between stated satisfaction and repeat purchase is very weak to nonexistent [17]. The degree of satisfaction, once past a critical level, cannot reliably predict repeat purchase. Increasing amounts of stated customer satisfaction beyond some threshold does not necessarily translate into increasing levels of repeat purchase. However, the relationship between stated dissatisfaction and defection is very strong and very linear. This suggests that satisfaction is not simply a linear continuum from very dissatisfied to very satisfied, but rather a non-linear function or two different constructs altogether. 541

4 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang Most attitude researchers agreed that purchase intentions alone are a better and stronger predictor of behavior than attitudes [7,23]. Purchase intentions represent the perceived likelihood that a particular brand satisfaction is preceded by a high degree of intention to buy the notebook. As the quality variance across products affiliated with a brand increases, consumers confidence in their evaluations about the quality of a brand extension decreases [4]. Therefore, this research will investigate the relation between customer's satisfaction and purchase intention for notebook computer. 2.2 Kano s Two-Dimensional Model Customer satisfaction has often been seen as one-dimensional the higher the perceived product quality, the higher the customer s satisfaction, and vice versa [6,13,17]. But fulfilling individual customer expectations to a great extent does not necessarily imply a high level of customer satisfaction. Attractive qualities can help the firm to design products that meet the potential needs of the customers [16]. Kano s model is a method to explore quality requirements and needs of the customer [14,15]. It is also the type of expectation that defines the perceived product quality and thus customer satisfaction. To meet the diversified needs of users, Kano et al. [11] inevitably started to pay attention to the question what to make and then to manufacture products of original quality specifications. With the change from how to make to what to make, quality management has also become unsuitable. Furthermore, according to him, what Kano [10] was doing now is to select the term quality creation rather than quality management. Kano s twodimensional model divided the quality attributes into four types, e.g. mustbe, one-dimensional, attractive and indifferent, which are shown in Figure 1 [11] and explained as below: (1) Must-be requirements: The must-be requirements are the basic criteria of a product. If these requirements are not fulfilled, the customer will be extremely dissatisfied. On the other hand, as the customer takes these requirements for granted, their fulfillment will not increase his satisfaction. Must-be requirements are in any case a decisive competitive factor, and if they are not fulfilled, the customer will not be interested in the product at all. (2) One-dimensional requirements: With regard to theses requirements, customer satisfaction is proportional to the level of fulfillment--the 542

5 higher the level of fulfillment, the higher the customer s satisfaction, and vice versa. One-dimensional requirements are usually explicitly demanded by the customer. (3) Attractive requirements: These requirements are the product criteria which have the greatest influence on how satisfied a customer will be with a given product. Attractive requirements are neither explicitly expressed nor expected by the customer. Fulfilling these requirements leads to more than proportional satisfaction. If they are not met, however, there is no feeling of dissatisfaction. (4) Indifferent requirements: If the quality attribute cannot be classified into any of the above three catalogues, it is called the indifferent attribute. Kano s model is used to establish the importance of individual product features for the customer s satisfaction, and thus it creates the optimal prerequisite for the process-oriented product development activities [5,19]. To construct the questionnaire, the researchers formulated a pair of questions for each potential customer requirement for which we desired customer feed- back. Classifying customer requirements using Kano's method has the following advantages [8]: (1) The product criteria which have the greatest influence on the customer s satisfaction can be identified, (2) Kano s method provides valuable help in trade-off situations in the product development stage, (3) Must-be, one-dimensional and attractive requirement differ in the Customer Satisfied Product Dyfunctional Attractive Must-be One-dimensional Product Fully Functional Customer Dissatisfied 543

6 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang Figure 1 Diagram of Kano Two-Dimensional Model utility expectations of different customer segments, and (4) Discovering and fulfilling attractive requirements creates a wide range of possibilities for differentiation. This paper intends to identify Kano categories for user requirements of notebook computers. Furthermore, we will investigate the relationship between quality attributes of product and customer's satisfaction. The customer satisfaction index indicates whether satisfaction can be increased by meeting a product requirement, or whether fulfilling this product requirement merely prevents the customer from being dissatisfied. The average impact on dissatisfaction, the must-be, and the one-dimensional columns were divided by the same normalizing factor for the calculation [1]. The customer satisfaction index is indicative of how strongly a product feature may influence satisfaction or, in the case of its non-fulfillment, customer dissatisfaction [16]. The researchers designed a questionnaire by applying Kano's twodimen- sional method. The research design is illustrated in Figure 2. The results of the quality measurement provide manufacturers and dealers with an effective method to improve the quality of service and products. In the following section, we will utilize Kano's two-dimensional model to investigate the quality attributes of note book computer and explain how product require- ments can be classified by means of a questionnaire. Kano s quality attributes - Users - Dealers - Firms Purchase intention Customer satisfaction Figure 2 The Research Framework 544

7 3. Questionnaire Design and Interview Sample The steps followed in developing the Kano based questionnaire were: develop the questionnaire, test the questionnaire, revise if necessary, administer the questionnaire to customers, process the survey results, and analyze the survey results [22]. Notebooks are classified into four quality attributes including attractive, one-dimensional, must-be, and indifferent quality according to results from questionnaire. The key quality factors of notebooks include eight dimensions referred to in the related literature [2,9]. The questionnaire was designed using these eight dimensions: feature, safety, function, compatibility of expansion, reliability, service and reaction, communication, brand image as abstracted in the first column of Table 3. A pair of questions was formulated which the customer answered in one of five ways [11]. The examples illustrated below are the questions from Kano questionnaire regarding customer requirement for notebook computers: - If the safety design is good, (1) I like it that way. how do you feel? (2) It must be that way. (3) I am neutral. (4) I can live with it that way. (5) I dislike it that way. - If the safety design is poor, (1) I like it that way. how do you feel? (2) It must be that way. (3) I am neutral. (4) I can live with it that way. (5) I dislike it that way. The first question concerns the reaction of the customer if the product has that feature (functional form of the question); the second concerns his reaction if the product does not have that feature. Must-be, one-dimensional, attractive, as well as product requirements towards which the customer is indifferent can be classified by means of a questionnaire. In addition to the Kano questionnaire, it may be helpful to let the customers rank the 545

8 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang individual product satisfaction by rating scale and determining the purchase intention on these brands [1]. The sample included manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. The consumer and dealer questionnaires were surveyed at computer shops located in the cities of Taipei, Hsinchu, and Tao-Yuan. Manufacturers' questionnaires were surveyed from OEM notebook computer companies. The sample included a total of 705 participants including 38 manufacturers (R & D personnel), 67 dealers, and 600 consumers. A total of 688 useable questionnaires were received from 38 firms, 66 dealers, and 584 consumers. The total effective feedback rate was 97.59%. The degree of satisfaction and purchase intention was rated using a Likert's five scales. The relationship between demographic variables and satisfaction/repurchase intention are shown in Table 1. The demographic characteristics of the sample includes 294 males (66%) and 152 females (34%). Approximately 49% of the sample fell into an age range of Approximately 41% of respondents class themselves as service workers, while 30% of respondents class themselves as businessmen. The one-way ANOVA test was applied to test the difference between the demographic variables. The result of the satisfaction variable indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between male and female participants. The quality attributes of notebooks and the user perceptions of important factors influencing purchases include: feature, safety, function, compatibility for expansion, reliability, service and reaction, communication, brand repu- tation. These quality attributes were aggregated and tested for reliability by using Cornbach s alpha( α ). The results of this test are presented in Table 2, where it is clear that all the extracted quality attributes satisfy the minimum recommended alpha level of 0.7 for reliability [18]. 4. Survey Results and Explanation The results of the survey were explained in three parts. First, we classified the quality factors using Kano's method and tested each factor using an analysis of variance to determine if there were any statistically significant opinions regarding quality factors among the consumers, dealers, and manufactures. Next, we defined the satisfaction/dissatisfaction indexes to explain the quality improvement items. Finally, we divided consumers into groups with distinguishing characteristics of products/services by applying Kano model, and examining whether or not the total degree of satisfaction and purchase intention were the same for the groups. 546

9 Table 1 The Relationship between Demographic Variables Variable Sex Age Education Occupation Monthly income Item Number of Satisfaction Repurchase intention sample Average F (P) value Average F (P) value Male Female (0.0082) 2.69 (0.2926) Under (0.0918) 2.66 (0.1333) High school College (0.0587) (0.0654) Graduate Officeholder Industry Business Student (0.3790) 2.66 (0.1667) Service Others Under 10, ,000-30, ,000-50, ,000-70, (0.1886) (0.600) 70, , , , , , Table 2 The Cornbach s of Questionnaire Classification Fulfilling quality characters Unfulfilling quality characters Feature (#1, #2) Safety (#3, #4, #5) Function (#6, #7, #8, #9, #10) Compatibility for expansion (#11, #12) Reliability (#13, #14, #15, #16) Service and reaction (#17, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22) Communication (#23, #24, #25) Brand reputation (#26, #27, #28) Remark: the numbers in the brackets are the number of questions 547

10 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang 4.1 Classification of Quality Attributes for Consumers, Dealers and Manufacturers We distinguished the quality factors of notebooks separately for consumers, dealers, and firms based on the Kano model. The quality attributes of classification and test results for a total of 28 questions are shown in Table 3. To further interpret the concept among three subjects, we tested each quality factor using an analysis of variance procedure. Ten items belong to the one-dimensional quality for consumers. The two-dimensional quality has 18 items, and the must-be and indifferent qualities have 9 items each. All 28 items identified as two-dimensional quality attributes were of must-be quality. Only one item was of a one-dimensional quality for the manufacturers. The other 27 items were of the two-dimensional quality and most (10 items for deals and 9 items for manufacturers) were of must-be quality. We found that there was a statistically significant different perception between the consu- mers, dealers, and manufacturers using an ANOVA test. Column 6 in Table 3 identifies the significant variables of the quality items. Fifteen items of the quality attributes reflect the statistically significant deviations (P<0.01) bet- ween consumers, dealers and manufacturers. Therefore, the notebook manu- facturers need to change their design concept to fulfill the customer require- ments. 4.2 Prediction of the Notebook Quality Improvement by Satisfaction Indexes To measure the impact on satisfaction, add the attractive and one-dimensional items, and then divide by the sum of the attractive, one-dimensional, must-be and indifferent responses. While measuring the satisfaction index, Noriaki Kano supposed that the improvement on quality factor would decrease the dissatisfaction at the ratio of one-dimensional quality plus the ratio of must-be quality. The increased satisfaction effect could be displayed as the ratio of attractive quality and one-dimensional quality. To calculate the satisfaction index (and dissatisfaction index), we add the attractive and onedimensional items and divide them by the total number of attractive, onedimensional, must-be and indifferent responses as displayed in equations (1) and (2). The comparison result is shown in Table 4. This method can be applied to analyze the increased satisfaction and decreased dissatisfaction if we improve certain quality factors. Furthermore, it provides a priority hint for improving the quality of notebook computers by manufacturers [Matzler 1998]. Satisfaction index = (A + O) / (A + O + M + I) (1) Dissatisfaction index = (O + M) / (A + O + M + I) (2) 548

11 Table 3 The Classification of Kano Quality Attributes for Different Groups Classification Major items Consumer Dealer Manufacturer Sig. Feature 1.Product weight and size M M M Outlook design I M I Machine temperature after use O I M Safety 4.Safety design M I M Prevention device of burglary I O I *** 6.Complete for each function O M M *** 7.Capacity of saving device M I M *** (memory) Function 8.Easeness for re-assemble I M M Executing speed of CPU O M M *** 10.Screen quality of LCD O M M *** Compatibility 11.Function expandability M M M *** for expansion 12.Compatibility M M M System Stability O M M *** 14.Long operation time O M M Reliability 15.Parts lift time O M M Easiness of getting available spare parts M I M *** 17.Providing training courses I M I Nr. of available retailers I M I *** 19. Repair and service by dealer Service and M I M *** after-sales reaction 20.Service attitude of dealer O M M *** 21.Product price A I O *** 22.Loan payment term A I I Customer complaint system I M I *** 24.Available network Communication information A A I *** 25.Guaranty period O M M Reputation of manufacturer O I I *** 27. Reputation of dealer A I I Brand 28.Well advertisement of I I I *** product Remark: A: Attractive, I: Indifferent, M: Must-be, O: One-dimensional. The satisfaction index of the manufacturers is higher than that of the consumers for product quality. This implies that the producers overestimate the satisfaction in product quality as illustrated in Table 4. The gap between producers and customers should be further investigated to improve the customer satisfaction. The higher dissatisfaction index includes: product weight and size (0.76), temperature after use (0.7), speed of CPU (0.74), LCD screen (0.7), function expandability (0.84) and compatibility (0.79). 549

12 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang Table 4 The Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction Index Classification Major items Consumer Dealer Manufacturer Feature 1.Product weight and size 0.39/ / / Outlook design 0.32/ / /0.16 Safety Function 3. Machine temperature after use 0.32/ / / Safety design 0.26/ / / Prevention device of burglary 0.29/ / / Complete for each function 0.32/ / / Capacity of saving device (memory) / / / Ease of re-assemble 0.24/ / / Executing speed of CPU 0.29/ / / Screen quality of LCD 0.35/ / /0.72 Compatibility 11.Function expandability 0.18/ / /0.71 for expansion 12.Compatibility 0.16/ / /0.78 Remark: The value of the left column is degree of satisfaction, the value on the right is degree of dissatisfaction. These items should be improved by manufacturers to reduce the customer dissatisfaction. Different market segments usually have different needs and expectations, sometimes it is not clear whether a certain product feature can be assigned to various categories. It is especially important to know the average impact of product requirement on the satisfaction of all the customers. The customer satisfaction index is indicative of how strongly a product feature or services may influence satisfaction or, in the case of its nonfulfilment, customer dissatisfaction. Therefore, the Kano two-dimensio- nal model and proposed satisfaction index provide more accurate methods to measure the quality attributes of products for further improvement. 4.3 The Satisfaction and Purchase Intention for Different Consumers According to Kano's two-dimensional model, the attributes of consumers can be divided into four groups including: attractive, onedimensional, must-be, and indifferent. Table 5 is summarized from the products and service attributes. Since the quality factors in this study include both product quality (items 1-16) and service quality (items 17-28), we investigated their degree of satisfaction and purchase intention separately for the different consumer groups. The rule of classification is based on

13 Kano quality factor attributes of consumers. They are classified by their significances on a Likert's five scales. For product quality, the consumers of the must-be group had both the highest degree of satisfaction and purchase intention. Consumers that had specific requests for the product attributes of must-be and one-dimensional grouping also had higher overall satisfaction, while those requesting fewer specific attributes had a lower degree of satisfaction with the product. For service quality attributes, we found that the attractive group had the highest satis- faction and purchase intention. This implies that once consumers have more specific requests for service attributes (attractive group), they will be less satisfied overall. On the other hand, those requesting fewer attributes will have higher overall satisfaction. Results due to product quality are associated with one-dimensional and must-be quality attributes for the most part, while service quality tends also to be an attractive quality. If manufacturers only improve the service quality without fulfilling the must-be and one-dimensional product quality, they will not upgrade the overall satisfaction of consumers. So, the priority of a firm should be to improve product quality, and then to improve the service quality. The results illustrate statistically significant relationships between repurchase intention and customer satisfaction for product quality attributes (i.e. items #1~#16) as shown in Table 6. Analyzing using the Duncan test, we found that there is a significant difference between high score (3.11) and low score (2.79) groups for customer satisfaction on service quality attributes. Table 5 The Satisfaction and Purchase Intention by Quality Attribute Product Consumer attribute Number of consumer Average satisfaction Purchase intention Attractive group One-dimensional group * 2.68* quality Must-be Group * 2.72* Indifferent group Attractive group * 2.69 Service One-dimensional group quality Must-be Group Indifferent group * 2.65 Remark: * are figures with higher values. 551

14 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang Group Quality Product quality (#1-#16) Service quality (#17-#28) High (2.99) Low (2.87) High (2.99) Low (2.79) Table 6 The Duncan Test for High-Low Group High-low group Customer satisfaction Re-purchase intention (by Duncan test) Average score P value Average score P value One-dimensional Must-be Attractive Indifferent Attractive Indifferent One-dimensional Must-be Remark: Likert scale scores up to However, there is no significant difference (P=0.092) on the re-purchase intention between high score and low score groups for service quality attributes (i.e. items #17~#28). 5. Conclusions The findings indicated that it is important to investigate the market requirement to find out what the attractive characteristics are of notebook computer to the customer. This should be done during the product development stage. We classified the quality attributes of notebook computers from the viewpoints of customers to find out their preference for improving the product quality. This paper introduced the two dimensional approach, investtigated the quality attributes of notebook computer products, and evaluated the degree of customer satisfaction. Based on the results of the questionnaire from consumers, dealers and manufacturers, the quality attributes were classified by means of the Kano two-dimensional method. The customer concerned attractive items included: price, payment terms, available network information and reputation of dealer (see Table 3). The manufacturer needs to provide better service by enhancing these items, and thus improve customer satisfaction. The customers are not concerned about the outlook design, prevention device of burglary, easiness for re-assembly, training courses, number of retailers, or customer complaint system. So, the manufacturers do not need to pay too 552

15 much attention to these items if attempting to improve the customer satisfaction of their products. We used the Kano two-dimensional model to discover the satisfactory and dissatisfactory measuring indexes. The results indicated that the higher the customer s satisfaction, the greater the purchase intention. The firms and dealers of notebook computers should refer to these indexes to improve quality. If the management can append more important questions as weights into the questionnaire, the quality should also be improved. The research demonstrates how product requirements are ascertained, how a questionnaire is constructed, and how the results are evaluated and interpreted as the basis for product development. Kano's two-dimensional model can be used as the foundation to improve the overall quality of notebook computers. This study has several limitations. First, the questionnaires were completed by R&D managers of the manufacturers. Maybe other managers, such as product managers, have different opinions. Second, this study reveals that higher customer satisfaction leads to higher purchase intention. But it needs further testing to evaluate the relationship between the attractive, onedimen- sional, and must-be groups for service quality. It is also necessary to perform more systematic research between customer satisfaction and the quality attributes of notebook computers in the future. Acknowledgement The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the development of this work. They also gratefully acknowledge the funding granted by The National Council of Science, Taiwan to support this study (NSC E ). References [1] Berger, C., R. Blauth, D. Boger, Bolster Kano s methods for understanding customer-defined quality. Center for Quality Management Journal Fall [2] Chang, P.Y The benchmark of notebook computer. Unpublished MBA thesis, National Chiao-Tung University. [3] Dabholkar, P.A., D.L Thorpe, J.O. Rentz A measure of service quality for retail stores: Scale development and validation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 24(1) [4] Dacin, P.A., D.C. Smith The effects of brand portfolio characteristics on consumer evaluations of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing Research 31(May)

16 Lin-Lang Tang and Su-Lin Huang [5] Gitlow, H.S Innovation on demand. Quality Engineering 11 (1) [6] Gottlieb, J.B., D. Grewal, S.W. Brown Consumer satisfaction and perceived quality complementary. Journal of Applied Psychology 79(6) [7] Gronholdt, L., A. Maartensen, K. Kristensen The relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty: Cross-industry differences. Total Quality Management [8] Hinterhuber, H.H., K. Matzler, F. Bailom, E. Sauerwein Un modello semiqualitativo per la valutazione della soddisfazione del cliente. Micro and Macro Marketing April [9] Hsei, C.H Brand loyal of notebook computer for Taipei area. Unpublished MBA thesis, Chung-Hsing University. [10] Kano, N TQC as total quality creation. ICQC, Tokyo [11], N. Seraku, F. Takahashi, S. Tsuji Attractive quality and must-be quality. Hinshitsu quality. The Journal of the Japanese Society for Quality Control 14(2) [12] Kordupleski, R.E., R.T. Rust, A.J. Zahorik Why improving quality doesn't improve quality (or whatever happened to marketing?). California Management Review 35(3) [13] Kotler, P Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning Implementation and Control, 9 th ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc. [14] Li, C.C Attractive quality and competence. Proceeding of the 2000 Conference Management of Technology, Taiwan ROC. [15] Liu, D., R.R. Bishu User requirements of web interface: A Kano model analysis. Proceedings of the 4 th Asia-Pacific Conference on Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, Taipei, Taiwan. [16] Matzler, K., H.H. Hinterhuber How to make product development projects more successful by intergrating Kano s model of custom- mer satisfaction into quality function deployment. Technovation 18(1) [17] Neal, W.D Satisfaction is nice, but value drives loyalty. Marketing Research, Chicago 11(1) [18] Nunnally, J.C Psychometric Theory. McGraw-Hill, NY. [19] Plsek, P.E Creative thinking for surprising quality. Quality Progress 33(5) [20] Reichheld, F.F., W.E. Sasser Zero defections: Quality comes to services. Harvard Business Review Sep-Oct

17 [21] Rivkin, J.W., M.E. Porter Matching Dell. Harvard Business School, , Jun 6. [22] Tang, L.L., P.J. Cheng The quality survey on medical service by using Kano two-dimensional model. Journal of the Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers 18(2) [23] Warshaw, P.R A new model for predicting behavioral intentions: An alternative to Fishbein. Journal of Marketing Research