THE MEASUREMENT OF THE SERVICE ATTRIBUTES IMPORTANCE: A SCALE COMPARISON

ABSTRACT This article discusses specifically the methodological aspects of measurement of attributes in services for a context of quantitative research. In this case a self-applied questionnaire approach was used. The article begins describing some aspects of marketing decisions and the relationship with the information. Some measurement methodological aspects, mainly scales, in quantitative research was analyzed and discussed. The study proposes the decreasing points approach for the measurement of the attributes importance. An exploratory study was made to compare the scale utilization results of semantic differential, the scale of Carvalho and Leite (1999) and two approach formats of decreasing points to evaluate the main attributes that would influence consumers in the choice of a beauty parlor. Results pointed that Carvalho and Leite approach was the more realistic and discriminatory comparing with the three analyzed scales.