Further Extrapolation of Secondary Data

Additional analysis provided the opportunity to qualify and link earlier ideas. Possible relationships between the five VC forms and four temporal-types of VC were suggested, and the idea that each value form could be perceived both in prospect and in retrospect was forwarded. Subsequent conceptual modeling re-examined the notion of VC as a gestalt property and, ultimately, a sixth primary VC form, 'Aggregated VC', was proposed and identified as a possible representation of 'overall' VC. This led on to the construction of the following VC definition:

• Value for the customer (VC) is any demand-side, personal perception of advantage arising out of a customer's association with an organisation's offering, and can occur as reduction in sacrifice;
• presence of benefit (perceived as either attributes or outcomes);
• the resultant of any weighed combination of sacrifice and benefit (determined and expressed either rationally or intuitively); or
• an aggregation , over time, of any or all of these.

Further interpretation allowed for a more complex dispositional perspective on VC to be established. This suggested that each element within a chain linking VC with satisfaction, loyalty and profit must be considered as a hierarchically arranged property (each with longitudinally linked 'highs' and 'lows'). It was further suggested that VC perception, rather than expectancy disconfirmation, might be the key to understanding satisfaction.