The second analysis conducted by Regattieri et al.1 is based on an explorative study conducted through a questionnaire distributed to Italian users. In order to understand how customer satisfaction may be increased, the authors analysed Italian consumers’ perception of packaging quality attributes using the Theory of Attractive Quality, developed by Kano et al. in 19842. The findings are then compared with those of Swedish customers3.
Kano et al.4 defined a quality perspective in which quality attributes are divided into different categories, based on the relationship between the physical fulfilment of a quality attribute and the perceived satisfaction of that attribute. The five categories are attractive, one-dimensional, must-be, indifferent and reverse quality. All quality attributes can be satisfied or dissatisfied independently and they can change from one status to another according to the changes in customers’ perspective. The packaging quality attributes are classified into three entities: technical (e.g. protection of the product, use of recyclable materials), ergonomic (everything relating to adaptations to human behaviour when using the product (e.g. ease of grip, ease of opening, user-friendly)) and communicative (the packaging’s ability to communicate with customers (e.g. use of symbols, instructions for using packaging, brand communication)).
The questionnaire is made up of three parts:
- General information about the customers;
- Functional and dysfunctional question about packaging quality attributes. The classification into attractive (A), one-dimensional (O), must-be (M), indifferent (I), reverse (R) and questionable (Q) (Q responses include sceptical answers (Kano et al., 19845)) is made using an evaluation table (Figure 8.10), adapted by Löfgren and Witell6 from Berger et al.7.
- Level of importance of packaging characteristics: customers had to assign a value between 1 (not important) and 10 (very important) to the packaging quality attributes.
Figure 8.10 is adapted by 8 from 9
The analysis of the questionnaires shows that Italian users are mainly interested in the ergonomic entity, made up of packaging characteristics that permit easy of handling of the product. Italians believe that the most important packaging function is protection of the product, according to the traditional role that has always been attributed to the packaging function.
For each packaging quality attribute, better and worse average values are calculated, indicating whether customer satisfaction can be increased by satisfying a certain requirement (better) or whether fulfilling this requirement may merely prevent customer dissatisfaction (worse)10.
Better average
Worse average
i=1,…,n is the number of responses for each packaging quality attribute
j=1,…,m represents packaging quality attributes
Figure 8.11 shows the Worse-Better Diagram for Italian users.
The Worse-Better Diagram focuses on technical, ergonomic and communicative entities. Contrary to the ergonomic and communicative entities, it is not possible to identify a definite cluster for the technical group, since the packaging quality attributes are scattered in the diagram, moving from one-dimensional (e.g. recyclable materials) to indifferent (e.g. additional functions) to must-be (e.g. protection of the product). Ergonomic and communicative entities assume definite clusters in the Worse-Better Diagram: the packaging quality attributes belonging to the ergonomic entity are mainly classified as one-dimensional. They are distinctive attributes that customers consider during the purchase of a product, comparing different brands. Italian customers locate the communicative quality attributes in the middle of the diagram. They delineate a specific cluster, but the dimension to which they belong is not clear.
Another important analysis is the level of importance attributed by Italian users to each packaging quality attribute. The highest values of importance are assigned to the protection of the product (9.59), open-dating (9.47), and hygiene (9.52). Italian customers seem to be interested neither in the aesthetics of packaging (attractive and nice looking print and the aesthetic appeal have low levels of importance: 4.52 and 5.00 respectively) nor in the additional functions (5.80).
From the comparison with the Swedish results11, both Italians and Swedes have similar behaviour in terms of perception of packaging quality attributes. They consider the ergonomic quality characteristics the most significant packaging attributes, and the protection of the product the most important packaging function. Italians also perceive the use of recyclable material another important packaging attribute, in line with the growing importance of environmental considerations. Neither Italians nor Swedes place importance on aesthetics. For more details, see Regattieri et al. 12.
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