Page 73 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

54 Chapter Three

services such as vegetables, fruits, pencils, and personal banking services can
find customers all over the social spectrum.
In order to be successful in the presence of versatility of value and vastly
different customer opinions, it is important to know the types of market that
your product or service is in and understand what values from your product
or service can be brought to customers.

The value of even a single product or service can be broken down into
several categories:
• Use value. Properties that make something work (also called functional
value)
• Esteem value. Properties that make something desirable to own (also
called emotional or psychological value)
• Exchange value. Properties that make it possible to exchange one thing
for another

For example, the use value of an airline ticket is the ability to let a customer
take an airplane from point A to point B; even a coach class ticket is able to
provide that use value. A business class ticket provides a little bit more
functional value, such as better seating and better food, but it provides sub-
stantial esteem value, that is, the feeling of “I am special, I have special
status.” A coach class ticket deals with a mass market; the business class
ticket deals with a niche market.

If we want to enhance the value of our product or service so we can be more
successful in the marketplace, we need to determine what will make it more
valuable. But value is a matter of customer opinion. We need to understand
what makes people motivated and excited.

Abraham Maslow developed a simple scale to define the psychological
needs of people. He called this scale the hierarchy of needs, as illustrated in
Fig. 3.1. Dr. Maslow said that people are motivated to do different things at
different levels of psychological development or different levels of society.
He divided these motivational factors into five different basic needs. As
each need is satisfied, other higher needs arise. Although the lower-level
needs may never disappear, they become weaker or less important. A person
may have several needs at the same time, but one need is dominant.
Dr. Maslow’s theory provides a lot of insights about customers’ buying
motivation. For example, customers in developing countries usually prefer
products that address basic needs, robust in harsh user conditions, low cost,