These conjoint analysis results revealed that both groups of shippers placed the highest
importance on "reliability of on-time delivery".
This result agreed with our earlier findings via the direct questioning survey and with similar studies completed elsewhere
the second most important service attribute was the cost of trucking service. This observation differed from what we had discovered earlier in the second stage that shippers placed higher concerns on the damage and loss over price.
The discrepancy in the findings between two survey techniques confirms our earlier critique of
the direct questioning method that the respondents have an inclination to overstate the
importance of certain attributes in the direct questioning survey because they generally assume better service can be obtained at no additional cost.
When being forced to make a trade-off between improved service and higher cost during the conjoint experiments, shippers would then respond more sensibly by giving serious concerns to the cost of service.