Have you ever wondered about how to master the sweet spot of Customer Satisfaction. Most Business owners will tell you the key to achieving and keeping customer satisfaction lies somewhere around learning to listen and understand your customers. However, the same Business owners and their clients will also tell you that once their businesses grew and had to hire more people, somewhere along the way, their customer satisfaction ratings were not the same, more mistakes were made, and eventually some customers left dissatisfied. This is common among many businesses, mainly because many businesses do not know how to strategically and tangibly plan for customer satisfaction and retention.
The Kano model, a theory created by Professor Noriaki Kano who was a professor of Quality Management at the Tokyo University of Science in 1984, is a key tool to strategically and tangibly plan for customer satisfaction and retention.
How to Use the Kano Model
The Kano model will allow you to strategically plan on meeting customer satisfaction by having a clear and tangible way to meet your customer needs and exceed them.
Basic (Must be) Needs:
It is important to understand what your customer’s basic needs are. Simply put, whenever you don’t meet the “Must Be” basic needs, your customer will leave unhappy and dissatisfied. For example, If you’re in the hospitality business, among other businesses, your customer will expect to find a very clean and hygienic environment. As a hotel, saying you have a clean and sanitized hotel room doesn’t excite your customer, this is the very foundation of your business. Whenever businesses clearly define what their customer expect of them and implement these expectations, then we can say we have strategically planned and closed the “Must Be” category.
Performance (More is Better):
Once the basic features are met, the performance features are what set most businesses apart. These are the features and functions that your customer could use to simplify their needs. For example, every customer expects there to be lines at the grocery store, but the faster they can check out of the grocery store, the happier they will be. At the same time, the slower the check-out, the more dissatisfied they will be. Businesses must understand the value added activities that could be implemented to simplify doing business with them, from a customer’s perspective.
Excitement (Delighter):
Finally we have the “Delighter” features. The delighter in many cases is the cherry on top that excites your customer about doing business with you again. If you don’t fulfil these delighter activities, your customer will not be unsatisfied as you would’ve met their requirements already. However, if you do, the customer will leave happier.
- Example 1: A grocery store can choose to pass out a free ice-cream cone as the customers leave the store on a hot summer day. This was not required, but it could be a delighter for that customer.
- Example 2: Personally, I had a pizza shop that always sent me a handwritten thank you card and a free pizza coupon whenever I placed a large order for one of the courses I was teaching.
None of the delighter actions were necessary, however in the end they built customer loyalty and retention.