Two key measures in any customer satisfaction program are the current level of satisfaction with the attributes being measured and the importance of each attribute in determining the overall level of satisfaction. Importance can be “stated,” that is asked directly of the customer, or “derived” mathematically from the pattern of answers to all questions relating to overall satisfaction.

Derived importance and stated importance are often very different. This is because stated importance yields undifferentiated ratings – all attributes are important in relative terms.  Customers tend to rate all performance attributes high in importance to them and leave management with little direction, or even worse, point them in the wrong direction on where to focus. Conversely, importance that is derived mathematically provides the differentiation that helps guide management insight and action. 

CFI Group uses its advanced predictive modeling to determine impacts (i.e., derived importance) when many different causes (i.e., quality components) simultaneously affect an outcome (e.g., Customer Satisfaction).  The chart below illustrates the results from a real case study where we asked respondents to rate importance for attributes in various areas (i.e., Brand Image, Products, Pricing, etc) as shown in the yellow bars, and where importance was derived through our predictive modeling framework as shown in the red bars. 

Three areas – In-store Marketing, Information and Invoicing – were rated highly in stated importance but actually have no impact in differentiating respondents overall customer satisfaction (CSI). Similarly, After Sales Service was rated very highly in stated importance but had minimal impact on customer satisfaction.  The modeled results show clearly that Brand Image and Products have the most impact (i.e., derived importance) on CSI, and Pricing has a moderate impact.

CSI scores for each area and the corresponding derived impacts provide management with more targeted guidance; i.e., where to: 1) improve areas with a low score but high impact and 2) maintain the level of performance in areas with a high score and high impact.  Without derived importance, this targeted guidance would be questionable at best.