Re: Value for money

Posted by Ian Straus on February 11, 2000 at 11:16:25:

In Reply to: Value for money posted by Liz on February 10, 2000 at 17:24:25:

I've seen a "value for money" question produce results which appeared to reflect
A) the different products bought (i.e. hotel rooms can be suites, can come with a king size bed, can come with two double beds; can also be in new or old properties),
B) the customer's own characteristics (income; frequency with which they buy the service / product; whether it's billed to their company or comes out of their pocket),
C) the market (hotel rooms generally cost more in bigger cities; some of this is quality, some isn't; also some markets are overbuilt)
D) The price paid and discounts received (seen in both the hotel and theme park industries, where the same physical product may be sold at widely varying variety of price levels depending on season, day of the week, and customer segment)
E) recent changes in price paid: When the price had risen, as where the company does year-end repricing, the value question dropped in regions where the price had gone up most.

So
1) You will want to keep the product, price, and date data with the survey data for later analysis.
2)One result of the value question can be to give management a beneficial second thought about pricing policy.

I'd also like to say that asking direct questions about price / value tends to put the customer in a bargaining situation: They're not stupid, and many expect that if they answer that they received more value than they paid for, the price will go up. So I'd treat answers to this question as an index which will have meaning over time if it moves, but has little objective reality on a one-shot basis.

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