2 Kano Model: Explanation of Success (Our Business Perspective)

In this chapter, we will define step by step on how to create and make use of the Kano model. As a prerequisite, we need to define the value proposition first, putting in perspective how the customer perceives value through the product they buy from us.

2.1 Define the Value Proposition

Value proposition is defined as the key attributes of the product and services that our customer is willing to pay. The key words here are “the customer is willing to pay.” Sit back and think for a moment. Reflect on a product you currently have that is very successful. Quickly, name in your mind five key attributes that come at first glance. List these on a piece of paper. Now, let’s run this scenario again, this time reflect on a product that is not doing very well. In your mind, list five key attributes that come right away. As we did before, write these below the previous list. Ask this question on each of those ten characteristics, is the customer willing to pay for it? Place a yes or no next to each property as you go down the list. Most people would find several noes and yeses when they listed all the ten product properties. If you find that your list has all affirmatives, that means the customer is willing to pay for all the attributes listed; you are one of the few that knows how to pair your product’s key characteristics to your customer’s needs. If you haven’t matched all customer’s needs, don’t worry, we will go step by step to systematically extract those key attributes.

As mentioned earlier in this book, we have assumptions of which properties and attributes work for our customer. Some of these ideas are rooted with facts while others are cherished without question, having long lost their reason for their being. In addition, those suppositions may deviate our path of success, causing bias, or limiting our field of view. By taking a deeper dive and analyzing those assumptions, it will help create a clear line of sight to our value proposition.

We will expand this idea with an example that will continue throughout this book. Our hypothetical customer is called Tubing Experts who manufactures plastic tubes. Typically, these tubes are made with PVC (polyvinyl chloride) which are extruded and can be made with virgin raw materials or a mixture of recycled and virgin PVC. We are one of Tubing Experts’ premier suppliers of liquid coatings. Our company, Liquid Paint Specialists, another hypothetical business, makes a paint that is applied over the plastic tube to provide the finished color and appearance that the end user will desire. The end users are typically marketing and graphic design professionals for commercial displays and exposition booths.

2.2 Prioritize the Value Proposition

Liquid Paint Specialists would like to know more about the value proposition of the coating product that they make, capturing a list of attributes by brainstorming one or two words. They would like input from a wide viewpoint, using a multifunctional team from various areas of our business that knows about the product in question. Table 2.1 has a list of potential functions or departments that could be invited to participate. It is important to note that not all areas need to be invited. The list is intended to spark a thought, considering which functions and individuals to invite. The optimum group size to do this brainstorming exercise is between 7 and 12 people.

TABLE 2.1
List of Business Functions or Departments

Customer Service	Purchasing
Distribution, logistics	Human resources
Supply chain	Manufacturing
Finance	Operations
Information technology	Marketing
Business administration	Sales
Research and development	Warehouse

Now that you have assembled the individuals that will participate in this brainstorming event, you will be the facilitator by capturing single-word or two-word attributes on a flip chart or whiteboard. Encourage them to be creative, have them piggyback ideas from one another. Another option would be round-robin and keep going around until several individuals start to skip. Once they start skipping, you may have started to reach the end of the brainstorming. At that point give the participants a few moments to shout out a few more ideas.

Continuing with our example company, Liquid Paint Specialists, our team of eight people have created the following list of attributes as shown in Figure 2.1.

**FIGURE 2.1**
Value proposition: list of brainstormed attributes.

Next step is to prioritize the list of perceived attributes using a multi-vote process. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the key attributes of our products and services are the ones that our customer is willing to pay for. Now that we have framed that concept, put that statement on top of your flipchart or whiteboard. Use it as a focal point on how you will evaluate each one of those captured brainstormed ideas. Each participant will be given five colored stickers to place it on the attributes that they perceive “the customer is willing to pay.” The rule of placing those stickers can be as follows, place a single sticker on each of those attributes that are highly important, another approach could be to place all or multiple stickers on a single attribute. You are given a limited number of votes, make the most of it. Figure 2.2 shows the list with voted attributes from our Liquid Paint Specialists team.

**FIGURE 2.2**
Value proposition: list of brainstormed attributes with voting dots.

A pattern of the most wanted attributes is emerging from the original 22 brainstormed ideas. We will use the Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule, which can be interpreted as the top 20% of items having an 80% of influence. This ratio has been defined in the nineteenth century by the Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto; he observed that 80% of the wealth in Europe was being held by 20% of the population. Another way that Pareto described this relationship is that the vital few or 20% have an impact over the trivial many, 80%. This ratio can be extrapolated into other disciplines such as engineering, healthcare, economics, sociology, and many other areas. Applying that notion to our list of attributes, we can calculate how many to extract from the list; in other words, which of these attributes are the vital few that have the most votes, being the top most influential ones. The general calculation is shown in Figure 2.3a.

**FIGURE 2.3**
(a) Pareto principal calculation. (b) Calculate top influential items based on the Pareto principal.

Returning to our example and applying that calculation, the top 20% can be computed as shown in Figure 2.3b. We arrive to the conclusion that the top four are the most influential ones. Rounding to the nearest integer is the preferred method when the calculation leads to decimal values.

Another approximation to know if the cutoff makes sense is using a graphical approach. Look at the Pareto chart in Figure 2.4. Does the chart have a natural break? A natural break means a jump from several bars of the same value to the next group of bars, and it doesn’t split the same value. In our example with four votes, it didn’t split equal valued votes because we captured both attributes with the value of 4. However, if the math gave us the top five, we need to make the decision to keep one or both attributes with three votes.

**FIGURE 2.4**
Value proposition: Pareto chart of voted brainstormed attributes.

Based on the calculation results, our top four are: product development, product consistency, delivery (on time), and samples. The Pareto chart, as shown in Figure 2.4, is a good visual representation to highlight those vital few top 20%.

Review these prioritized items with your brainstorming team. It is important that the pattern that emerged as the top 20% of your value proposition is discussed in detail. After each attribute has been examined, make sure you all agree to move forward with those highest voted items. These will be used to expand and craft the Kano model questions.

2.3 Kano Model Explained

The Kano model was introduced to the quality community in 1984 by Noriaki Kano et al. Basically, what he and the other authors saw was a limitation with quality being viewed one-dimensionally. Either you liked the product or you disliked it. It used an emotional or subjective manner of determining good versus bad. The authors expanded the concept of quality perception as a two-dimensional model. One of the dimensions was the subjective approach: how you felt about the product? The second dimension would be the objective approach: how did the product perform?

In this section, we will go step by step to understand how the Kano model structure will be used with the attributes defined for the value proposition. Figure 2.5 exemplifies the different degrees of product satisfaction using a subjective approach. The higher you move along the vertical Y axis, the happier you are with the product. The farther down you go on the axis, you will be less satisfied with the product. Exactly in the middle of the vertical line, you will be neutral.

**FIGURE 2.5**
One dimensional level of satisfaction.

Adding a second dimension, a horizontal X axis, will emphasize the way the product performs based on its specifications and quality attributes as shown in Figure 2.6. Starting from the left side of the X axis, the product performs poorly. Moving to the right along the axis, the better the product performs. In the center of this line will be a neutral point of product performance.

**FIGURE 2.6**
Two-dimensional method to measure product quality.

We have a two-dimensional diagram with four different quadrants. Each quadrant has different combinations of product performance and product satisfaction. The attributes that fall in these different areas will be defined as Kano categories. These categories will be drawn with arrows crossing these different quadrants having specific meanings and interpretations of the customer’s expectations and perceptions of the product performance. Kano has identified many variations of these. We will use only three.

The first category is called the Basic Needs or Dis-satisfiers such as core, basic product properties.

The second are Satisfiers. These are the performance attributes.

The third Delighters! These are attributes or product needs that go beyond the customer’s expectations.

2.3.1 Basic Need Category

These are basic requirements or needs that are expected features or characteristic of the product. If the Basic Need is not fulfilled, the customer will be extremely dissatisfied. The Basic Need category is sometimes called Dis-satisfiers. The customer satisfaction scale for this item ranges from low customer satisfaction to neutral. The upper limit is very important to note because as we increase this Basic Need attribute, we expect customer satisfaction will increase with it; however, it can hit a limit. The highest level of fulfillment this product feature will reach is an impartial reaction. The impact of this limit could be profitable since putting more resources to improve this attribute may not translate to more satisfaction from your client. On the Kano graph, these attributes will be located on the bottom two quadrants as shown in Figure 2.7. These attributes are sometimes defined as the “price of entry” to get into the market. Most of these needs are unspoken, and they can be gathered with one-on-one interviews or focus groups. If this characteristic is missing, or it is not properly met, it will turn from an unspoken attribute to a very vocal and noticeable one. Here is an example of this type of attribute. If the car ignition does not start the vehicle, that person will be immediately disappointed; however, if the ignition starts the car, as expected, that same person will be completely neutral about this event since that is the normal behavior. Recall the espresso coffee example being hot, does the Basic Need attribute come to mind?

2.3.2 Satisfier Category

The Satisfiers or performance needs category are product characteristics that will increase or decrease customer satisfaction by the degree that they are being fulfilled. These particular needs allow you to be competitive in the market you serve, sometimes identified as “more is better.” Customers will be speaking about these types of attributes, and these are easily identified. Also, these are the ones you will see on advertisements as key features highlighting their usefulness. They can be extracted from your customers via surveys. An example of this type of category would be the enhancement of an existing feature. Using the car example from before and the specific attribute of ignition, how can we make it better? First understand how that person interacts with the ignition process. The car can be started only if the person is inside the car. Using a key to start the car is already a basic need. Now with that foundation defined, expand on that concept to make it better beyond the Basic Need. Can that person start the car being away from it? Yes, with a remote starter which is similar to an already existing feature built-in the vehicle: the remote car door entry/lock. Expanding this feature of the car ignition attribute shows an improvement on the functionality of the ignition system (moving more toward the right on the X axis) and an increase of the satisfaction level of the customer (going up on Y axis). These two dimensions of the Kano model move in tandem and migrate from being on the bottom left quadrant to the top right, as illustrated in Figure 2.8. Other examples of Satisfiers are delivery speed, delivery costs, product price, user-friendliness of the product, technical support.

2.3.3 Delighter! Category

This category of the Kano model is the most difficult one to identify; at the same time, these are counterbalanced with the most rewarding experiences that your customers will have with your product. Consider these attributes to be the ones that will give your product the extra competitive edge especially if you are first in delivering it to your customers. This innovative attribute may exceed expectations because it is so unique; it allows you to excel in your market. Earlier, we noted that these are very difficult to identify since they are rarely spoken. The reason why it is so difficult to extract these from your customer because they are not even aware that this attribute is even available. The best way to gather these needs would be on one-on-one interviews or focus groups. A Delighter! attribute on the customer satisfaction scale ranges from neutral to high. If the Delighter! is not present in the product, the customer will not even know it is missing; therefore, they will feel neutral. On the other hand, if the customer is presented with a Delighter! attribute and sees it for the first time on the currently existing product, their satisfaction level will soar and be very excited about that added feature.

If we look at the quadrants of the Kano two-dimensional diagram, the Delighter! will be on the top left and the top right quadrants as depicted in Figure 2.9. What makes these attributes difficult to articulate is twofold: the customer often doesn’t demand to have it on the product, and the business cannot easily quantify the benefit of the new unstated attribute or need. We must always ensure that the new Delighter! being offered is aligned as an added value to the business case. Remember the original definitions of the value proposition and its attributes which include Delighter! Is the customer willing to pay for it? Since we have used an automobile example before, let’s define a Delighter! A car that will allow you to dynamically change the exterior color on demand from your smartphone using a palette of five preset colors. This hypothetical example can be achieved by using programable ink coatings technology when the car was manufactured. The car owner could choose the desired color with their smartphone by plugging into a special port on the dashboard. Providing this feature to a specific car market will delight and excite some customers, and they are willing to pay the extra premium to receive this added value attribute. If these same customers were not offered this value-added attribute, they would be neutral about its absence. The next example is a real product. White ceiling paint is difficult to apply and know if it was properly covering the older white paint since it is typically white on white. A new ceiling paint was developed. When the paint is applied, it goes on purple to know exactly the areas that have been painted. Once the painted purple-colored ceiling dried, it changed to white. Customers that used this type of paint were extremely happy since it addressed a hidden or latent need that the customer experienced, and the paint manufacturer offered an unexpected solution.

It is important to note that these arrows get demoted with time. What used to be a Delighter! at one time becomes a Satisfier, and subsequently a Satisfier becomes a Basic Need (Figure 2.10). Many years ago, hotel rooms did not offer a refrigerator. When they were first available, it was a Delighter! The same can be said when an iron and ironing board was offered in hotel rooms. Today, these amenities are Satisfiers, and some may argue, they are now Basic Needs. An example of a Satisfier for an automobile is the car door locks. They started as keyed door locks and advanced to push-button wireless locks. The first generation of push-button wireless door entries was directional using an infrared beam; you needed to point to the inside dome light of the vehicle through the glass window to open or lock the doors. The next-generation keyless entries developed were omnidirectional using a radio frequency to unlock the doors. As you approach the vehicle, you can unlock its doors many feet away. Today, the latest system unlocks the car based on proximity to the driver seat. By just having the key fob entry in our pocket, the car automatically unlocks, and the door opens freely. Today the key fob is a Delighter! The previous generation push-button wireless key entry has migrated from being a Satisfier to a Basic Need, and now the original key entry is antiquated and used for emergencies only. Many years ago, the air conditioner in a car was considered a luxury Delighter! today it is a must have, Basic Need.

In conclusion, we learned that customers can be very demanding and product manufacturers need to stay attuned to their client’s needs either spoken or unspoken. Table 2.2 summarizes the three Kano model categories highlighting their similarities and differences.

TABLE 2.2
Comparing the Three Kano Model Categories

Basic Needs	Satisfiers	Delighters!
Expected attributes or needs	Attributes that make you competitive in the market	Unexpected attributes or needs
Attribute not met: customer will be extremely dissatisfied	Attribute not met: customer will be dissatisfied	Attribute not met: customer is neutral about it, doesn’t know about it
Attribute met: the most the customer would feel is neutral about that attribute or need	Attribute met: the customer is more satisfied about it, more is better	Attribute met: customer satisfaction level will soar
Often unspoken needs, assumed to be there	Typically, these are spoken, used in advertisements, packaging, etc.	Mostly unspoken needs
Best collected: one-on-one interviews, focus groups	Best collected: using surveys	Best collected: one-on-one interviews, focus groups

2.4 Using the Kano Model: Explanation of Success

We have outlined the Kano model, and its three key categories are defined as: Basic Needs, Satisfiers, and Delighters! We will now use the data from our fictitious company, Liquid Paint Specialists, to convert the top attributes into specific questions that will be constructed and used during the one-on-one interviews with Tubing Experts. Figure 2.11 shows the process flow for the conversion of top attributes to Kano questions. These interviews will combine two answers of the customer’s feelings of the product with different performance attributes.

**FIGURE 2.11**
Process flow, converting top attributes to Kano questions.

Converting the one-word or two-word attributes to questions for the interviews will need to be carefully constructed. It would be best to have the core team that defined the attributes of the product to compose these requests. Each attribute will create two questions. One will emphasize addressing the situation, and the other is contrarian, it doesn’t address the condition. For example, using our fourth-ranked attribute, samples, from our Pareto chart from Liquid Paint Specialists as seen in Figure 2.4, we can now construct the two questions based on the formulaic structure shown in Figure 2.12a.

**FIGURE 2.12**
(a) Converting attributes into the two interview questions. (b) Example converting attributes into the two interview questions.

Sometimes the single word needs to be expanded to provide the right context. From the brainstorming session, we had the word samples. In this case, samples refer to product samples offered to the customer for tests or trials; it could have meant the reverse, samples given from our customer to us. That is the main reason why the team must collaboratively agree on the wording structure of the enquiries. As shown in the accompanying Figure 2.12b, the attribute placeholder can be substituted for a statement and not just a single word. We now convert the single word sample with the help of our team yielding the following: “if your supplier has a useful/inferior product sample process.”

Putting the attribute in the format suggested in Figure 2.12b yields the following two questions: How would you feel if your supplier has a useful product sample process? How would you feel if your supplier has an inferior product sample process? As mentioned earlier, these questions combine the two dimensions of feeling and product performance. Since the queries bracket the results by addressing and not addressing the attribute’s performance, we can now learn from the customer’s perspective how they will respond. This is important since their response will translate to one of the three types of Kano categories: Basic Needs, Satisfiers, and Delighters! In rare occasions, these results may not translate into one of those three types which we will explore shortly.

Reverting to the Liquid Paint Specialists case study, the top four attributes from the Pareto chart in Figure 2.4 will be converted into the two interviewing questions. Starting with the highest rated product development, the team decided that we may want to learn various aspects of it, leading to three new sub-attributes. The first sub-attribute is to create a new product joint venture with our R&D and their team. We currently do not offer this service. Converting this sub-attribute into the two questions following the pattern of Figure 2.12a becomes: How would you feel if we jointly develop a new product? How would you feel if we don’t jointly develop a new product? These questions will be used later as part of the focus group or interview with the customer. Creating sub-attributes helps us define and hone into deeper supplier/customer relationships, addressing potential new needs. Table 2.3 shows attributes and sub-attributes that we will explain throughout this section.

TABLE 2.3
Attributes and Sub-attributes

Votes	Attributes	Sub-attributes
6	Product development	Jointly develop a new product
		Develop a leading-edge product for you
		Our product would increase your current rating on consumer reviews
5	Product consistency	Product is within specs
5	Product consistency	Our product improves your productivity

We continue with our team on how to articulate the two other sub-attributes of product development, starting with “develop a leading-edge product for you.” Our team composed the two opposing questions from this new sub-attribute. How would you feel if we develop a leading-edge product for you? How would you feel if we don’t develop a leading-edge product? The third and last sub-attribute of product development is: a new product that will improve your current ratings on consumer reviews. Crafting those interview questions using the Kano structure yielded the following two questions. How would you feel if our product would increase your current rating on consumer reviews? How would you feel if our product would reduce your current rating on consumer reviews?

Let us now return to our Pareto chart in Figure 2.4. The second highest rated attribute from the Pareto chart, product consistency, created a similar discussion as the first rated attribute and derived two enhanced needs: product specifications and productivity. Refer to Table 2.3 to see these sub-attributes. Product specification was straightforward and yielded the following inquires: How do you feel if our product is within specs? How do you feel if our product is not in spec? Productivity, on the other hand, was taking a more creative approach to craft the questions. This productivity was with respect to improvements of our customer’s productivity and not ours. Converting this sub-attribute using our format provided these two Kano questions: How do you feel if our product improves your productivity? How do you feel if our product does not increase your productivity?

The third main attribute, delivery, generated the following: How would you feel if your shipment arrived when you want it? How would you feel if your shipment arrived other than the time when you want it? This second question could have been reworded, how would you feel if your shipment arrived earlier than the time you want it? Some companies may find receiving the product ahead of schedule to be acceptable. On the other hand, for some companies that run their facilities just-in-time, the second question may not be satisfactory. They may have a very tight supply chain, with specific arrival times and loading docks availability. If we do not deliver within the allotted time plus-minus a small window of opportunity, we may lose our slot and our customer will not receive the product as expected. As this example shows, make sure that you look at all angles on how to word these questions, capturing our capabilities plus our customer’s desired needs.

2.5 Convert the Replies to Kano Criteria

At this point, all interviewing questions are prepared and ready to test the responses. We follow the process shown in Figure 2.11, and test Step 6 of the flowchart. Selecting people from our company, we stress tested our questions, creating an environment that will allow honest and candid feedback. We learned that all interviewing questions were properly interpreted as they were intended. We will allow only four types of responses: good, typical, neutral, and not good. Let’s explore the following replies as we refer to Figure 2.13.

**FIGURE 2.13**
Criteria selection matrix, converting the two questions’ replies into Kano categories.

To understand how this chart can be used with the responses from our interview, we need to recall that these are paired questions, one is addressing the situation and the second is not, in other words, not addressing the situation. Let’s detail how this chart is used by demonstrating it with an example. Our company team members, testing our questions with a mock interview, provided the following answers. The first question addressing the situation was answered neutral, and the second question not addressing the situation was replied not good. That specific combination yields a Basic Need as shown in Figure 2.13. You’ll find that depending on how the combination of those replies will deliver one of the three Kano categories using the criteria selection matrix.

Notice that in Figure 2.13 only 5 from all 16 possible combinations are significant. Looking at those five, two become Delighters! two others are Basic Needs, and only one is a Satisfier. When these questions are used in interviews with customers, the most common answers are Satisfiers followed by Basic Needs and the least common ones are Delighters! That distribution of categories will vary from industry to industry and product to product. In addition, you are not at the mercy of statistical probabilities to have your interviews be answered in that manner. Since you are crafting these questions with a carefully selected multifunctional team, you and your team can create answers that may spark more Delighters! and less Basic Needs.

As mentioned earlier, we may have situations that will create a combination of results that do not map to any of those three Kano categories. Let us explore these potential cases with an example. After going through an internal brainstorming session with your company employees, you and your team discovered that our customer will benefit by having a straight-line communication to our Quality Control (QC) department. This attribute was then converted into the following two Kano questions. How would you feel if the name, phone, and email information of our QC representative were included in our Certificate of Analysis, COA? How would you feel if the name, phone, and email information of our QC representative were not included in our COA? When these queries were asked during the customer focus group sessions, the team received the following responses. The first answer, related to addressing the attribute of having the QC information, gave a result of neutral. The second reply from our client, if the attribute was not addressed, was typical. Using the diagram shown in Figure 2.13, the intersection of these two answers takes us in an unmapped area. This attribute is not a customer need. It is not value added, and we should not put resources on it. This is an important finding and must be discussed carefully with your team when debriefing all these close-ended questions.

Returning to our case study, we tested these questions with our internal team at Liquid Coatings Specialist using a focused group approach. After reviewing the answers, the Kano categories that emerged from the one-on-one assessment interviews yielded satisfactory results. Our team felt confident to use this questionnaire with our customer Tubing Experts. Table 2.4 shows all the close-ended Kano questions that will be used during the customer visit.

TABLE 2.4
Completed Kano Questions

Votes	Attributes	Was Addressed	Not Addressed
6	Product development	How would you feel if we jointly develop a new product?	How would you feel if we don’t jointly develop a new product?
		How would you feel if we develop a leading-edge product for you?	How would you feel if we don’t develop a leading-edge product?
		How would you feel if our product would increase your current rating on consumer reviews?	How would you feel if our product would reduce your current rating on consumer reviews?
5	Product consistency	How do you feel if our product is within specs?	How do you feel if our product is not in spec?
5	Product consistency	How do you feel if our product improves your productivity?	How do you feel if our product does not increase your productivity?
4	Delivery (on time)	How would you feel if your shipment arrived when you want it?	How would you feel if your shipment arrived other than the time when you want it?
4	Samples	How would you feel if your supplier has a useful product sample process?	How would you feel if your supplier has an inferior product sample process?

This chapter defined close-ended questions that will be used to gather the voice of the customer. In addition, we tested these two bracketed enquiries that led to two answers. After decoding those responses, they defined the Kano categories of Basic Needs, Satisfiers, or Delighters! Later in Chapter 5, we will use these top attributes to create the first House of Quality.