Happy customers, colleagues and good priority setting with the KANO method

KANO model priority setting prioritization

The KANO model

This is where KANO comes in. The KANO model was developed by the Japanese professor Noriaki Kano, who wanted to systematise various customer requirements in product development with his model. In my opinion, however, his model offers clues and inspiration for the development and design of a wide variety of things: from products to relationships to personal lifestyles. Because practically everywhere, as already explained, it is about creating pleasant or even delightful experiences with limited resources.

What does the KANO model have to offer? Let's start with the original application of the model in product development. Every product consists of different features and functions. The first step of KANO is to categorise these features and functions. According to KANO, there are five categories of features (numbers correlate to the graphic below):

1. Must-haves: Features that are expected by customers. These can be considered must-haves and absolutely basic characteristics. Because they are taken for granted, these features will not arouse enthusiasm, but may very well cause a lot of damage if they are poorly implemented or completely absent.
2. Performance features: Characteristics with which products mainly compete with each other. Customers consciously look for these features and their performance is important for satisfaction. As a rule, the more of these attributes or the better their implementation, the better the perceived performance of the product and the higher the satisfaction.
3. Anti-performance: These features are related to the above mentioned performance features, but behave in exactly the opposite way. So: the more these characteristics are present, the worse for the product and the satisfaction.
4. Indifference: These are features that the customer does not care about. Their presence or absence has no positive or negative influence on the customer experience.
5. Delighters and exciters: Features that are not expected by the customer, but whose (surprising) presence cause enthusiasm.

All-in-one chart

Before we dive into a few examples, let's take a look at these five categories graphically. To do this, we create a coordinate system with two axes. The horizontal axis provides information on the extent to which a feature is or is not present or how well it is implemented. The second, vertical axis describes the level of satisfaction and enthusiasm that is achieved for the customer by the feature.

KANO customer satisfaction

Welcome to the KANO hotel

To familiarise ourselves with this graphic and to practise using the KANO model, let's imagine a visit to a hotel.

After a long journey, we arrive at our hotel room and look forward to a refreshing shower. Under the shower, we realise that the hotel room unfortunately has no running water right now due to construction work. That is an absolute no-go! Running water is a basic must-have feature of a hotel room. If this feature is absent, it greatly worsens the customer experience, while even the most excellent implementation of running water would provoke a neutral shrug of the shoulders from the customer at best, because this feature is expected and considered basic.

After this first bad experience, we want to calm down a bit and go to the balcony to get some fresh air. There we enjoy the beautiful view. We knew that we would have a balcony in this room and are very happy with this (expected) feature of our room. We even find the view much better than in many hotels we have stayed in before. So, compared to other hotels we like this performance very much and recognize it as a nice plus over the competition. However, the beautiful view has no chance to compensate for the defective shower. But in itself we are very satisfied with this feature of our room.

We are also pleased by the fact that we enjoy absolute peace and quiet on the balcony and are not disturbed by street noise. The absence of noise (an anti-performance feature) is an important recreational factor for us. So, the absence of noise is another plus for us.

Now we lie down on the bed for a moment and notice the television on the opposite wall. It has a diagonal of about 47 cm - which we don't really care about. Whether the diagonal is 30cm or 70cm is irrelevant to us. After all, we didn't come to this hotel to have a great TV experience. The complete absence of a TV might be irritating, but we are indifferent about the diagonal of the screen.

Lying on the bed, we notice a small brochure on the side table. In it we read that we can choose from a whole menu of different types of pillows and can order the best pillow for us at no extra charge at the reception and it will be delivered to our room. This pleasant surprise causes delight because our fictitious hotel guest has been struggling with neck problems for a long time and often spends unrestful nights in hotels because the normal pillows never meet his needs. So this surprising choice of different pillows causes spontaneous delight for the customer.

It's all in the mix

Let’s recap: Every experience (like our hotel stay) and every product is a collection and a specific constellation of the different feature categories. Each provider chooses a different mix and can thus differentiate itself.

But we can also look at it the other way round and realise that different customer segments and target groups classify the features differently - what is a performance feature for one target group does not matter to another and so on. In other words, the mix of characteristics makes the difference between whether an experience will be satisfying for a particular target group or not. KANO can therefore be useful in developing a product-market fit.

What is your personal mix and how has it changed over time? If you want, you can go through the world in the coming days with a playful curiosity and look at things through a pair of KANO glasses. This will help you to recognise what is important to you, what delights you personally and what leaves you unimpressed and indifferent.

You can also think back to earlier times and realise that your favourite mix of features has changed over time. What once excited you may have become a must-have.

For providers of experiences and products, it is therefore important to note that the "right mix" depends on the target group, is constantly in motion and therefore the offer must move and adjust accordingly. Recurring enthusiasm and success has to be earned. Resting on your laurels and standing still for too long is not an option.

Is KANO everywhere?

I think after this test run using the hotel example, we can become a bit more virtuosic and ask ourselves how else we can use the KANO model. Could it be that this KANO method could offer interesting clues in all kinds of situations? Can it help us setting the right priorities and invest our resources wisely? How about the client relationships mentioned at the beginning that we want to improve or the strengthening of our team spirit?

No matter which example we choose, we need to ask ourselves the following questions according to the KANO model:

• What are the absolutely elementary basic qualities that must be fulfilled? Here we have to identify and fulfil all of them.
• Which features improve performance and satisfaction (for the client, for our team members, etc.) and which 2-3 features do we want to focus on? Which ones add the most value - i.e. have the best return on investment? Which mix of features is particularly interesting and potent? After all, we always have to arrange ourselves with limited resources and therefore, realistically speaking, we cannot provide all performance features at the same time.
• Which things do we have to avoid and which characteristics can we safely disregard?
• How can we delight and excite people? Which small things can trigger disproportionate surges of satisfaction - i.e. have an extraordinarily high return on investment?

In my opinion, as a rule of thumb we can imagine a successful product, service etc. as a pyramid: The foundation is formed by the must-have qualities. Here we need to be thorough and conscientious. The next level belongs to the performance features, where we want to get an attractive mix of a few of these attributes and execute excellently. At the top of the pyramid are the delighters and exciters, where we can create a long-lasting wow effect with just one of these features.

Note that we could try and pack as many features in our KANO pyramid as possible. But we won't. If we need to prioritise, we should make sure that we have all the must-have features covered, include a couple high-performance features (not all of them since we need to take our limited resources into account) and top it all of with at least one delighter.