Journal of Social Service Research, 35:23–31, 2009 Copyright c  Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0148-8376 print / 1540-7314 online DOI: 10.1080/01488370802477022 Importance Counts: The Role of Relative Importance of Service Elements in Client Satisfaction Measures Chang-ming Hsieh ABSTRACT. It is not uncommon for social work service providers, researchers, and evaluators to develop measures to obtain client satisfaction data relevant to their particular service settings. These measures are often constructed through a set of (usually Likert-type) satisfaction rating response items for each of the service elements relevant to their settings. Scores from these multiple items are then either summed or averaged to produce global satisfaction scores. By summing or averaging satisfaction scores across all items, one implicitly assumes that all survey items that represent various service elements carry equal weight. This assumption of equal weight is somewhat counterintuitive because individual clients may perceive certain survey items or service elements to be more important, or carry more weight, than others. Analyzing data from interviews with 112 clients of an elderly case management service agency in a large city in the Midwest region of the United States, this study examined this equal weight assumption in an elderly case management service setting. Results indicated that not all service elements were considered equally important, which called into question the common practice of summing or averaging satisfaction scores of various service elements to represent global client satisfaction. KEYWORDS. Scale development, instrument construction, importance weighting, domain importance As an important form of program evaluation, client satisfaction has long received a great deal of attention in social work and social services (e.g., Eckert, 1994; Kane, Bartlett, & Potthoff, 1995; Rossi, Freeman, & Lipsey, 2004; Royse, Thyer, Padgett, & Logan, 2006). Although client satisfaction alone can not define quality of services, client satisfaction is generally considered a critical indicator of care or service quality (Ingram & Chung, 1997; Royse et al., 2006). As many researchers have pointed out, client satisfaction studies find that most survey respondents are satisfied with Chang-ming Hsieh is at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois, Chicago Chicago, IL. This research was supported by a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation, administered by the Gerontological Society of America. The author is grateful for the research assistance of Ms. Eun Hee Choi and Ms. Trina Nelson. Address correspondence to: Chang-ming Hsieh, Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 West Harrison Street (MC 309), Chicago, IL 60607-7134 (E-mail: chsieh@uic.edu). services received (e.g., Ingram & Chung, 1997; Royse et al., 2006). It is, therefore, difficult for service providers to make sense of the data without comparing the results with other agencies or conducting multiple studies over time (Ingram & Chung, 1997). In addition, from the perspectives of service providers, the practical utility of client satisfaction studies has been greatly restricted due, in large part, to two interrelated issues. First, client satisfaction studies have been criticized for using measures that are not context-specific (Schneider, 1991). Popular generic satisfaction instruments, such as 23