MANIPULACIÓN E HIGIENE DE LOS ALIMENTOS.

To get to know which attributes should be improved to get the most effective improvements, it is important to weight the overall attribute importance with the difference in means of that attribute. In order to do so, we compute what we called the “Value Improvement Score” (VIS). Through this score we want to be able to give a weighted interpretation of the gaps based on the importance of the underlying attribute. The VIS is calculated by multiplying the gap (mean difference between the attribute’s average expectation and perception score) with the attribute’s expectation score mean. Thereby the higher the VIS score, the greater potential for improvement this attribute seems to have.

We argue that it is necessary to weight the gap scores in order to know which value elements can truly serve as the most effective drivers for value improvement. We argue that an attribute can have a higher importance in general, but can have little opportunity for added value when the firm already seems to meet the expectation. In turn, we argue that this would leave little room for (effective) improvement of this attribute and, hence, is not effective for additional value creation. This can also be seen the other way around: There might be an attribute with a relatively large sized gap between expectation and perception, but how efficient is it to improve this when the overall importance of this attribute is low according to the customer? We stress that the gap size should therefore be adjusted – or weighted – by the importance of

-0,5 0 0,5 1

VIU1 VIU2 VIU3 VIU4 VIU5 VIU6

Mean differences (Gaps) along the value-in-use process attributes

Page 34 the attribute, before it can be interpreted in its full sense. We argue that the efficiency of attribute improvements – in order to improve value – is depending on a trade-off of attribute importance and the gap size. On the coming page, an overview is provided of all VIS scores for all three of the processes. Thereby the VIS’s are presented along with the matching attribute pairs on which the gap-score is based. In this overview one can clearly see which attributes have the most potential for improvement of value through process optimization.

When looking at the service interaction process, we clearly see three item pairs that stand out for improvement:

REL1 – REL4 (VIS 7.59); Fulfilling promises on time when promised to the customer.

RESP1 – RESP4 (VIS 6.77); Telling customers exactly when certain services will be performed.

REL3 – REL6 (VIS 6.68); Performing services right at the first time.

Based on the gaps of these attributes – weighted by their importance – we can state that these attributes would be the most effective opportunities for improving the service interaction process, and thereby value. There can also be seen that there is one negative VIS value. This is because the company is already performing above expectations. Hence, it does not show as a feasible driver for process- and value improvement. In our view, it can be argued that there might well be diminishing value gains from improving attributes on which the firm is already outperforming the expectation – does a customer feel that he or she gets additional value from improving an attribute if an attribute is already meeting the expectation in comparison to attributes that are not yet at the expected level? We argue that customers will probably experience a slighter increase in customer value when improving attributes that already meet the expectations. We argue that it does make little sense to improve attributes which are already fulfilling the expectation.

Regarding the value co-creation process one can see that the improvements should mainly be in the first four item pairs of the process:

COCR3 – COCR11(VIS 6.96); Taking critique from customers seriously.

COCR4 – COCR12(VIS 6.01); Improving services based on feedback from customers.

COCR1 – COCR9(VIS 5.55); Asking for input from customers for newservices/product development.

COCR2 – COCR10(VIS 5.04); Offering highly customized services.

However, even though these four attributes are the most efficient to make improvements on, it can be seen that the VIS of the last three attribute pairs are lower than the top three attribute pairs of the service interaction process. Apart from the first attribute pair of the co-creation process (COCR3 – COCR11; VIS 6.96), these attribute pairs of the co-creation process seem sub-optimal regarding value improvement. This can be said based on their VIS’s being lower than those of the top three attribute pairs of the service interaction process. When looking at the third and final process (the value-in-use facilitation process) we find two clear attributes that are most effective for the improvement of this process:

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VIU1 – VIU7 (VIS 5.42); proactively thinking about how services could be valuable for the customer.

VIU4 – VIU10: (VIS 5.16); Facilitating customers in using their purchased services optimally. Concluding: To get an overall view of which attributes are most effective for value improvement, it is helpful to rank all of the attribute pairs throughout all of the three processes. The overall ranking these attributes, based on the calculated value improvement scores, can be seen in appendix J. It presents a numerical conclusion about which attributes provide the best possible bases for value improvement based on the results of the quantitative research. The latter was one of the main goals of this chapter. It can thus be concluded, that the higher the attribute is on the list, the more potential it has for value improvement based on the weighting of the expectation of the customer with the gap that exist between this expectation and the perception of the customer along the attributes and processes. If the focal company wants to improve value effectively it should, hence, start with at the top part of the list. It can thereby be argued that it is wise to start with improving those top attributes of which the focal company feels that these are relatively easy improve, cost-wise and/or effort-wise.