Integrating Kano’s model into WhatsApp quality services

Abstract

WhatsApp is being used by more than 160 million people in India and 1200 million people in the world which is record-breaking usage statistics in a history. This paper aims to find out the underlying Quality Dimensions and their elements for the features offered by WhatsApp. The authors conducted a survey to know about perceived quality of features based on users’ own feelings. This survey was conducted in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat state of India. The research sample consists the responses of 203 WhatsApp users. The authors adapted Kano’s model to further analyse the research objective. Kano’s model helped to identify the quality elements of each listed 19 features of WhatsApp. The subsequent analysis techniques include CSCs (Customer Satisfaction Coefficients), EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis). From the analysis, the two Quality Dimensions are identified; Additional Features and Essential Features. The research shows that features like and audio calling can increase customer satisfaction from low to medium or high level. These findings can further help App developers to have better insights for designing and developing customer friendly applications.

Key Words: Kano’s Model and Service Quality Elements, Quality Dimensions, WhatsApp in India, Exploratory Factor Analysis