Classifying Customer Attributes with Importance Performance Analysis and Fuzzy Kano

Abstract

Analyzing what consumer needs remains every day’s challenge for every business. Every business entity requires continuous effort as consumers become more demanding and have more access to product/service offerings, leading to more competitive market dynamics and the necessity for more innovative ways of offering products/services. The research aims to recommend a set of customer attributes for the studied company and analyze the selected attributes using a combination of Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) and fuzzy Kano. The research is a case study of a company selling gift vouchers for individual and corporate consumers. The research combines literature study and affinity diagram workshop to identify the required consumer attributes, which are analyzed using the integration of IPA and fuzzy Kano. The results suggest that the studied company should concentrate on several attributes, such as A7-simple requirement during the purchasing process, A10-no administration fee during purchase, A14-cross promotion with various sister brands, and A15-no minimum purchase. The attributes fall under “concentrate here” in the IPA grid while at the same time, those are considered as “effective improving area” in the fuzzy Kano grid. The studied company is also recommended to keep their good work on the attribute of A5-expiry date longer than one year so that it remains their competitive attribute and does not fall into the other inferior quadrants.