Also known as Kano Modelling and Kano Mapping.
Customer needs and expectations keep changing over time. This requires companies to revise and assess these needs from time to time to adapt to the changing environment. Kano analysis is a method that is used to identify and categorize customer needs based on customer preferences, comments, and reviews. The results of the analysis can then be considered when analyzing potential opportunities for improvement.
Kano analysis is often used to capture the voice of the customer in order to categorize and prioritize all forms of customer feedback. Data can be collected simply using an interview or a standardized questionnaire. Kano allows to understand how a product or service feature affects customer satisfaction. This provides an insight into the dynamics of customer preferences and allows to be able to respond more objectively.
Basically, the Kano model identifies three groups of features to products and services (must-be, performance and delight features). Two other group of features can also be considered in the analysis (indifferent and reverse features). These five group of features are based on what customers say is important and how they value products and services.
The Five Groups of Features
The must-be features – These are the basic requirements and the reasonable level of quality as determined by the customer. If these requirements are not present or are insufficient, customers will be dissatisfied. These features are rarely mentioned when discussing with customer their needs.
Examples: A defect-free product, timely and responsive customer service, the windshield of a car, and the operating system in a PC.
The performance features (satisfiers) – These features result in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. The better the performance, the more customers are satisfied. Companies often use these features to prioritize their improvement initiatives.
Examples – The reduced amount of spoilage in a production line, and the speed of answering a phone in a call center.
The delight features – Organizations should aim for giving customers more than what they expect. These are the features that distinguish your product or service. They are often unexpected, unspoken, and provided to customers for no additional money.
Examples: Getting a free mouse when purchasing a laptop, and having your car washed after being serviced.
The indifferent features – These are the features that their presence or absence do not affect the satisfaction level of customers.
Examples: Some utility applications in your smartphone or computer.
The reverse features – These are the features that bring dissatisfaction if they are present.
Examples: Asking too many questions in an interview or adding too many extra features may results in dissatisfaction to the majority of customers.
The results of collecting the voice of the customer information and categorizing customer feedback can be presented in a Kano diagram. A Kano diagram has two axes, a vertical axis which represents customer satisfaction, and a horizontal axis which represent feature presence (or the degree of feature implementation).
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Get customers to do the Kano mapping where possible. You may need to use direct observation of customers to identify what’s important to them. If you can’t ask or observe the customers, brainstorm with the people who deal with customers (salespeople and customer service representatives).
Conducting a Kano Analysis
The following steps explain how to conduct a Kano analysis:
- With your team, define the purpose of the Kano analysis exercise.
- Brainstorm all possible product or service features.
- Brainstorm everything that can be done to delight customers.
- Classify the collected features into the Kano categories. Get customers to do the classification where possible.
- Think of ways to improve customer satisfaction and retention (ensure your have the basic features, ensure you provide the best possible performance, and ensure you are delighting your customers from time to time).
- Agree on the actions you need to take to improve the current situation.
Example
The following example illustrates how we can use the Kano model to analyze customer satisfaction for the economy class in an airline company. First, the team has brainstormed all possible service features and classified them into the three main Kano groups.
Then, the team has added the customer satisfaction information based on previously conducted surveys.
The same information has been presented graphically in a Kano diagram. The numerical values of the satisfaction information were used.
Kano analysis can be helpful to show how customer needs are constantly changing as time goes on. The features that are considered delighters today are the must-be of tomorrow.
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