Consumer Reports

Personal application week 2

The product which was chosen for comparison in a customer value table is the blackberry curve which falls under the category of smartphones which is a cellular device. Using the data from the included “Consumer Reports” ratings table a customer value table was constructed showing various smartphones out in the market. Along with this table a Value Map was generated from which a fair price line was calculated. The fair price line allows for the determination of the fair price of each smartphone which was then compared to the actual price to generate a customer value for each smartphone.

After completing the value map, you can see that the BlackBerry Curve (AT&T) has a performance rating of 61, relative performance of 103.4775, cost $200, and had a fair price of $240.91. This leads to the smartphone having a customer value of $40.91. Since the customer value is positive it is understood that, for the price, it is definitely a good deal but the best deal would be the T-Mobile sidekick with the higher customer value of $217.92. The worst smartphone would be the Nokia N95 with a customer value of -432.08.

This table and chart do not include all aspects of benefits a customer considers when buying a product. Other factors that affect a customer’s perception of value are cost of ownership, benefits brand, and service benefits. In order to measure and reflect such aspects an overall performance index would need to be calculated for each smartphone and then used to further compare them.