This release is available in Spanish.
Measuring consumer satisfaction today is an important target for enterprises when evaluating economic results such as profits, response to investment, and so on. More often than not, the methods employed by sales/marketing departments involve measuring satisfaction outside the context in which it should be measured. The causes and consequences surrounding the process of consumer satisfaction are not taken into account and are solely based on loyalty, sales and profits. Thus, many companies do not find a strong link between measurements of satisfaction and financial results.
The PhD thesis by University of Basque Country (UPV/EHU) researcher, Cristina López Caro, is entitled, Multivariant Analyses applied to the automobile industry, and deals with using methodologies that measure consumer satisfaction within the context of the automobile industry.
Ms López used data based on responses provided by readers of the Autopista magazine (one of the top European auto magazines). Using questionnaires, the magazine measured consumer satisfaction with recently bought cars, registering their degree of satisfaction with 25 attributes such as design, habitability, safety, steering, comfort, consumption, etc.
A complex phenomenon
Consumer satisfaction is habitually a complex phenomenon, with many aspects, obeying multiples causes and frequently incorrectly measured. Due to this, in order to identify the origin of its variability, Ms López employed the methodology of Structural Equation Models, amongst others.
The application of this technique and certain other ones by Ms López has enabled the identification of factors and structures underlying consumer satisfaction, the identification of change in satisfaction for one or more variables over time and, finally, the estimation of observed consumer satisfaction.
Thanks to all these methodologies, Ms López was able to specify consumer satisfaction pertaining to a single period, isolating the measurement properties of the satisfaction itself from the accumulated satisfaction during previous periods, observing a generally stable satisfaction over time and providing an alternative to the rates published by the journal, thanks to the estimate of consumer satisfaction for each model of car.
Ms López suggests that consumer satisfaction is a global evaluation based on the evaluation of its components (attributes of cars in the case in hand). All these estimated rates represent consumer satisfaction and enable quality and advertising improvements of the companies in the sector. Besides, they provide useful information when deciding which model of car to buy.
The results of this PhD thesis provide useful information to identify the attributes of cars and that can be employed in advertising. Moreover, it is expected that advertising based on the attribute of a car model will modify satisfaction with the rest of related attributes. Thus, a change in the promotion, information, advertising and so on, of an attribute will change the satisfaction produced by other attributes.
Information about the author
Cristina López Caro (Getxo, 1974) is a a graduate in Business Sciences and Economics and undertook her research under the leadership of Petr Mariel Chladkova and Ms Karmele Fernández Aguirre, from the Department of Applied Economics III (Econometry and Statistics) of the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences. She is currently working as a lecturer at the University Business School in the Basque capital of Vitoria-Gasteiz. For her PhD, Ms López received help from the University of Girona.