For each segment, sales distribution is determined by availability and a monthly Customer Survey Score. The December score is published in the Segment Analysis pages of the Capstone Courier.

A product’s Monthly Survey Score is developed using marketing’s "4 P’s" - Price, Product, Promotion and Place.

Price and Product

The Survey evaluates the product against the buying criteria. To get a perfect score, a product would need:

• A price at the bottom of the expected range;
• A position at the ideal position (remember, the segment moves each month, so this can occur only one month per year if at all);
• An MTBF specification at the top of the expected range;
• An ideal age for that segment (remember, unless they are revised, products grow older each month, so this can occur only one month per year if at all).

A product meeting the criteria above would have a perfect base score of 100.

Adjusting the Base Score

Next, the base score is adjusted by squaring the result when the base score is divided by 10:

(base score)/10)² = adjusted base score

This adjustment removes the linear relationship between the scores; in other words, better products are rewarded with proportionally higher results.