Service quality measurement. A new approach based on Conjoint Analysis

This article is concerned with the measurement of service quality. The main objective is to suggest an alternative criterion for service quality definition and measurement. After a brief description of the most traditional techniques and with the intent to overcome some critical factors pertaining them, I focus my attention on the choice-based conjoint analysis, a particular stated preferences method that estimates the structure of consumers’ preferences given their choices between alternative service options. Discrete choice models and the traditional compensatory utility maximization framework are extended by the inclusion of the attribute cutoffs into the decision problem formulation. The major theoretical aspects of the described approach are examined and discussed, showing that it is able to identify the relative importance of the relevant attributes, calculating elasticity and monetary evaluation, and to determine a service quality index. Then simulations enable the identification of potential service quality levels, so that marketing managers have valuable information to plan their best business strategies. We present findings from an empirical study in the public transport sector designed to gain insights into the use of the choice-based conjoint analysis.