A two-dimensional perspective on attractive quality

Attractive quality has for two decades been accentuated as a strong driver of loyalty, word-of-mouth and saleability. Recent elaborations of the concept of attractive quality however point to obstacles to the development of quality practices, such as engineering methods, to support the creation of attractive quality in practice. One obstacle is the lack of explanations as to why certain aspects of an offer are perceived as an attractive quality. There is a need to understand why attractive quality occurs. This paper aims to address these obstacles by presenting the results of a search for mechanisms claimed to cause attractive quality in literature. As a result, the paper identifies and relates two fundamentally different mechanisms considered important for the generation of attractive quality. The need-based roots of attractive quality point at an explanation in terms of the satisfaction of high-level needs. This is in sharp contrast to the currently dominant explanation of attractive quality as the exceeding of expectations. The two mechanisms are further distinguished and related to each other resulting in the classification of three different types of attractive quality. The three types are designated as 'Surprisers', 'Life Enrichers', and 'Attraction Boosters'. The 'Life Enrichers', which are defined as satisfying high-level needs of the customer, are highlighted as an important and promising area for future research.