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Abstract
Surveys are an effective mode of collecting customer feedback. Open ended survey questions capture important dimensions of the respondent's experience. The purpose of this study is to compare the Critical Incident (CI) and Concept Mapping (CM) techniques with respect to their ability to identify major customer requirements and the time required to complete each analysis. Results of a case study indicated that CI appears to be more appropriate for scenarios where continual participation from members of the survey population is not feasible. Otherwise, CM would be the technique of choice for analyzing written comments.
1. Introduction
Achieving quality demands a clear definition of customer requirements. Service Quality as perceived by customers is defined as the "extent of discrepancy between customer's expectations or desires and their perceptions" [13]. Customers perceive quality positively if the service providers meet or exceed their requirements. Juran and Godfrey [7] summarized a number of techniques that have been used to capture the voice of the customer. These include telephone calls to customers, visits to individual customers, focus groups and surveys. Surveys collect information from individuals in a systematic way. Typically, a questionnaire survey consists of closed and open ended questions. Responses to closed ended questionnaires are pre -determined and do not allow the customers to add remarks or explanations. Open ended questionnaires on the other hand, overcome this limitation and help capture specific perceptions of customers and discover their expectations.
The objective of this study is to compare two of the major techniques that can be utilized in analyzing customer's responses to open ended questions. The following section offers a review of the literature pertaining to surveys, critical incident and concept mapping. Section 3 represents a case study where the two techniques were utilized to identify students' requirements of in-class presentations. Section 4 involves discussion of the results obtained followed by concluding remarks in section 5.
2. Literature Review
Surveys use "structured questioning to map out perceptions, using samples from a population frame, into data that can be statistically analyzed" [12]. The survey process includes determining research objectives, the target population, mode of administration and analysis techniques. As indicated by Kirk & Miller [6], "Quality is linked with reliability and validity in quantitative and qualitative research." One of the...