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An Approach to Discovering Product/Service Improvement Priorities: Using Dynamic Importance-Performance Analysis

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  • Jiacong Wu

    () (School of International Business, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China
    Institute of Management Science and Engineering, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China)

  • Yu Wang

    () (School of International Business, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China
    Institute of Management Science and Engineering, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China)

  • Ru Zhang

    () (School of International Business, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China
    Institute of Management Science and Engineering, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China)

  • Jing Cai

    () (University of Aberdeen Business School, Scotland AB24 5UA, UK)

Abstract

The cost budget and resources of a business are limited. In order to be competitive sustainably in the market, it is necessary for a businesses to discover the improvement priorities of their product/service features effectively and allocate their resources appropriately for higher customer satisfaction. Online customer review mining has been attracting increasing attention for businesses to discover priorities of product/service improvement from online customer reviews. Despite some prior related studies, their methods have several limitations, such as simply using the frequencies of mentioned product features in reviews as an indicator of importance; neglecting the market competition; and focusing only on the static importance and performance of the target product/service features. To address those limitations, this study proposes a novel approach to discovering a product/service’s improvement priorities through dynamic importance-performance analysis of online customer reviews. It first clusters similar features into a feature group and calculate the relative performance of the feature groups using sentiment analysis. Next, the importance of each feature group’s performance to overall customer satisfaction is measured by the factor categories based on the Kano’s model. The factor categories are determined by the significance values of each feature group in both positive and negative sentiment polarities derived from the constructed decision tree. Finally, feature improvement priorities of a target product/service will be discovered based on the dynamic performance trend and predicted importance using a dynamic importance-performance analysis. The evaluation results show that the dynamic importance-performance analysis approach proposed in this study is a much better approach for product/service improvement priorities discovering than the product opportunity mining approach proposed in the prior studies. This study makes new research contributions to automatic discovery of product/service improvement priorities from large-scale online customer reviews. The proposed approach can also be used for product/service performance monitoring and customer needs analysis to improve product/service design and marketing campaigns.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiacong Wu & Yu Wang & Ru Zhang & Jing Cai, 2018. "An Approach to Discovering Product/Service Improvement Priorities: Using Dynamic Importance-Performance Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 10(10), pages 1-1, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3564-:d:173856
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fallon, Paul & Schofield, Peter, 2006. "The dynamics of destination attribute importance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(6), pages 709-713, June.
    2. Wei-Jaw Deng & Ying-Feng Kuo & Wen-Chin Chen, 2008. "Revised importance--performance analysis: three-factor theory and benchmarking," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 37-51, January.
    3. Bomi Song & Changyong Lee & Byungun Yoon & Yongtae Park, 2016. "Diagnosing service quality using customer reviews: an index approach based on sentiment and gap analyses," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 10(4), pages 775-798, December.
    4. Kurt Matzler & Elmar Sauerwein & Kenneth Heischmidt, 2003. "Importance-performance analysis revisited: the role of the factor structure of customer satisfaction," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 112-129, March.
    5. Lai, Ivan Ka Wai & Hitchcock, Michael, 2016. "A comparison of service quality attributes for stand-alone and resort-based luxury hotels in Macau: 3-Dimensional importance-performance analysis," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 139-159.
    6. Guo, Yue & Barnes, Stuart J. & Jia, Qiong, 2017. "Mining meaning from online ratings and reviews: Tourist satisfaction analysis using latent dirichlet allocation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 467-483.
    7. Taplin, Ross H., 2012. "Competitive importance-performance analysis of an Australian wildlife park," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 29-37.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    improvement priorities; online customer reviews; sentiment analysis; importance-performance analysis;

    JEL classification:

    • Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General
    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q3 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products

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