“Sustainability and longtime measurability of the Kano model regarding customer needs ”
Henning Stueber and Simon Wurth
M.Sc. Strategic Entrepreneurship for International Growth Halmstad University, Sweden
Abstract:
The Kano model has become a well known market instrument to analyze the customer's satisfaction when a company is offering products or services. Over the last 30 years the model was used many times and discussed in several different ways. Adopting the theoretical model in reality can affect problems in many different ways. The needs and wants of the customers can even change after a short time. Therefore the purpose of this study is taking a closer look for sustainability and longtime measurements of the Kano model regarding customer needs.
The results given in this qualitative paper can give advices to companies working with the Kano model. The findings show that the Kano model is easier in the theory than in practical working life.
Key words: Kano model, customer requirements, customer needs, customer satisfaction, theory of lifecycle, two factor theory Herzberg
1. Introduction:
In today's society when it comes to sales and marketing, quality is important for selling products or attracting new customers. Customers want to buy high quality products and have different kinds of expectation to be satisfied (Witwell, Löfgren and Dahlgrad, 2013). On the other hand customer satisfaction, needs and wants are becoming way harder for companies to analyze and calculate. It is evidenced that an improvement of the product or service quality increases the customer satisfaction (Marx, 2014). Customer satisfaction is known as one of the most important parameters for a long term company success, a better image and a positive profit (Marx, 2014).
Therefore the Kano model was invented in 1984 to structure customer requirements and examine its influence of customer satisfaction (Matzler and Hinterhuber, 2009). It belongs to the field of management and business (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011). Especially for complex products with lots of requirements and details the Kano model is useful (Homburg and Rudoph, 1997). To put the customer requirements into different classifications it helps managers to prioritise sales, differentiate products against competitors, understand the market situation and be able to fastly react on market changes ( Bailom, Hinterhuber, Matzler and Sauerwein, 1996). However the Kano model sees the connection of this factors in a nonlinear way and is structured in different bases for customer satisfaction (Sauerwein, Matzler,
Hinterhuber and Bailom, 1996; Kano et. al. 1984).
The overall question of this paper should be to examine the sustainability and longtime measurability of the Kano model regarding customer needs. The purpose of the study should be to give solutions how to use the Kano model as it’s best and explaining the value of it.
2. Method and structure:
The purpose of this study was to write about a topic which contributes the Kano model.
Therefore the authors should come up with a problem affecting the Kano model and discuss it. Firstly, to get a wider overview there were two scientific papers given by Klaus Solberg-Søilen. After reading them, the authors searched for additional useful references.
Here they searched for the keywords “Kano model, customer satisfaction and customer requirements”. There was no minimum amount given about the number of references.
After reading six to ten articles about this field the authors decided for the current topic
“Sustainability and longtime measurability of the Kano model regarding customer needs”.
The references and interesting theories and articles regarding this topic the authors found differ in the publication date from over 30 years ago to 2016. The older ones are focusing on general theories how the Kano model is defined and structured. The more current articles deal with nowadays development of the Kano model and about concentrate on the relationship between attributes performance and customer satisfaction.The authors sorted out the relevant information for this topic and built up a useful structure for their paper.
The paper is divided as follows. The first introduction part of the paper should give the reader a general overview about the topic of the paper and the problem being discussed. The method part should show the approach of the authors and the structure of the paper. After that in the result some theories and facts are provided. Chapter four brings up the discussion about the sustainability of the Kano model with the help of some practical examples. The last part concludes the main findings and provides suggestions for future researchers.
3 . Results:
In the following the theory of the Kano model as well as all relevant theory informations will be explained. This should give the reader a wider overview about the overall topic and helps to understand the content which will be discussed later in the further content.
Definition Kano model
The Kano model based on customer satisfaction was invented from Professor Noriaki Kano from the Tokyo Rika University (Berger, Bolster and Pauliot, 1993). Kano was implementing a model to divide products and attitudes in different categories (Kano et. al., 1984). Therefore he referred to the two factor theory of Herzberg or the so called motivation-hygiene-theory.
Herzberg's two theory model is dealing with the motivation of the customer (Berger et. al., 1993). Kano took it as a pattern to see a connection between the requirements and the impacts. He developed according to Herzberg’s theory different categories. The fulfillment or
non-fulfillment generates satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Berger et. al., 1993; Homburg and Rudoph, 1997). In other words: Motivators producing factors which by performance are responsible for satisfaction but for non-performance not producing dissatisfaction (Sauerwein, 2000).
According to the theory of Kano et. al. (1984) the Kano model is giving advices how to understand customer satisfaction regarding different quality levels and attributes. In addition to this it explains and connects theory with practical experience. This should help producers or companies to understand the customer's perspective in a better way (Kano et. al, 1984). In other words: The Kano model is giving an understanding for customer needs while visualising data (Gustavsson, Gremyr and Sarenmalm, 2016). It is responsible for the recognition of specific attributes which potentially create satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011).
Different types of requirements:
In this model Kano distinguishes between three different types of product requirements (Kano et. al., 1984) which are influencing the customer satisfaction (Sauerwein et. al., 1996).
These types are “must be attributes”, “one dimensional attributes” and “attractive attributes”.
Some researchers even speak about five different stages when adding “indifferent-” and
“reserve attributes” (Shahin and Mohammadi, 2017), which are not mentioned in figure one.
Each stage affects the customer in different ways. The following figure shows the Kano model. Below figure 1 each stage will be explained.
Figure 1: Kumynsky, 2016 Must be attributes:
The customer is expecting this attributes in a good quality without any
excuse (DeLayne Stroud, 2016). Some people define it also as “unspoken needs” ( Schmitz and Ardilio, 2011). The customer is taking them for granted without demanding them as they are basics (Sauerwein et. al., 1996). If the must be attributes are not fulfilled and missing, the
customer is getting extremely dissatisfied ( Sauerwein et. al., 1996). If the attributes are fulfilled the customer is normally not dissatisfied. Examples for this are breaks of a car or a clean hotel room after checking in (Shahin and Mohammadi, 2017). For companies these attributes are basic things to enter the market (DeLayne Stroud, 2016). In figure 1 this is shown in a nonlinear way (blue curve).
One dimensional attributes: The customer does not postulate these attributes, but the more extras the product has, the more satisfied or happier the customer is (Shahin and Mohammadi, 2017). In this case there is to say: The higher the level of fulfillment, the higher the customer’s satisfaction and vice versa (Sauerwein et. al., 1996). These so called “spoken needs” (Shen, Tan, Xie, 2000) allow companies to remain in the market (DeLayne Stroud, 2016). Taking again the example of a car this could be slight petrol consumption, speed up or life expectancy (DeLayne Stroud, 2016.). In figure 1 the linear dark blue graph is presenting this case.
Attractive attributes:
These attributes are having the greatest influence on the outcome of the
customer satisfaction (Sauerwein et. al., 1996). The customer is not expecting anything from these attributes. That's why some people also call it “unspoken needs” (Schmitz and Ardilio, 2011). With these attributes companies can distinguish from other competitors (DeLayne Stroud, 2016). Once the customer gets the extra attribute he is totally satisfied in a nonlinear way, shown in figure 1. If the requirements doesn’t fit the customer is at least not dissatisfied (Shahin and Mohammadi, 2017). Examples for this are an extraordinary design of a car or a backdrive camera.
These are the three main requirements to subclassify customers satisfaction. Nevertheless
“indifferent attributes” and “reserve attributes” are belonging to different stages of the Kano model as well.
Indifferent Attributes: Some things of the product the customer is buying he is not caring about. It has no result to his satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The customer either didn't need it or is neither interested in it (Schmitz and Ardilio, 2011). An example for this could be the thickness of a milk carton (Matzler et. al. 1996).
Reserve attributes: If this features are available they cause dissatisfaction of the customer but if they are missing the customer is not satisfied (DeLayne Stroud, 2016; Chen, 2012). The customer can be reminded through an undesirable experience in the past (Shahin and Mohammadi, 2017). Examples for this could be rust strains on a car .
Theory of lifecycle/ quality attribute:
The lifecycle theory is based on the Kano model describing that attributes for customer satisfaction can change after a while. There are three different lifecycle theories implemented.
The first one is according to Löfgren and Witwell (2008) so called “Life cycle for successful quality attributes”. To be more concrete it is changing from indifferent qualities into “must be
qualities”. The reason behind this is that customers maybe don’t see the need of some attributes. After a while they are enjoying using it and so it becomes an attractive attribute.
But without it customers are not dissatisfied. When it becomes more common it can change to one-dimensional factors (Kano, 2001). All competitors at the market are adopting it and this attribute becomes a basic, must be quality one (Kano, 2001). Without it it is even hard to succeed and enter the market in this industry.
Figure 2: Löfgren, Witwell and Gustafsson, 2011
The second lifecycle is called flavor of the month (Löfgren et. al., 2011). Sometimes attributes are not noticed by the customers for a long time. Suddenly they become important and a one-dimensional attribute. At this time they become very famous and the attribute is seen as trendy (Kano, 2001). After a while the attribute gets normal and disappears.
Figure 3: Löfgren et. al., 2011
The third lifecycle strategy is the basic once: Löfgren et. al., 2011 define them as stable quality attributes. It is not changing over time and is still a quality attribute belonging to a product. Even when there are new products introduced into the market with new attributes it is still valid.
Figure 4: Löfgren et. al., 2011
Structure of the Kano model
The Kano model is based on structured reality research questions (Tontini, Søilen and Silvera, 2013). It is the importance between the attributes and the customer's feeling of satisfaction after buying goods (Jacobs, 1999; Martensen and Grönhold, 2001). To find out what the different requirements to a special kind of product are and to classify them, customers are interviewed regarding different questions.
There are always two pairs of questions. One question is asking the consumer about the feeling when attributes like a product or service are fulfilled. It is also called functional question (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011). Dysfunctional questions are asking consumers about the non-fulfilment of attributes (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011). The interviewed person has different choices to answer. All these questions will be asked according to this principle. The answers of the customers within the survey are building the facts and base for this Kano model (Tontini, 2007). The combination of these two answers are producing the classification for five or less different categories (as explained in the paragraph above). With this process an indirect method for implementing customer satisfaction is made (Sauerwein et. al., 1996).
After that the data will be structured, categorised and then analyzed. Due to the point that this evaluation process is very complex, not all single steps will be mentioned. For the following chapters there is less importance to use it. If companies or organisations want to make sure that the customer data is always valid the survey for the Kano model has to be made in temporally distances (Sauerwein et. al., 1996).
4. Discussion:
With the help of the theory of the Kano model topics like measurability and sustainability of this instrument will be discussed.
Also the connection to reality and use of the model will be debated. Possible problems and upcoming issues the model is dealing with will be explained and furthermore advices given . In the last 30 years the theory of Kano became more adopted and applied in business or service management topics (Watson, 2003).
Due to the point that it is identifying different attributes for customer satisfaction it can give only a current status about the time the questions to the responders were asked (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011). This makes it so unpredictable for companies to analyze the same data half a year later.
Certainly Löfgren and Witwell (2008) argue that satisfaction of requirements or attributes can change after a while according to the “theory of lifecycle”. Nillson-Witwell and Fundin (2005) confirm that point by mentioning these attributes are dynamic. The theory of lifecycle has shown that customer requirements can change after a while (Löfgren and Witwell, 2008).
This depends on the environment, the market situation and the attribute of the product itself (Löfgren et. al., 2011). Zhao and Dholkias (2009) investigation is acknowledging this fact.
There it was shown that three of eight quality attributes changed their classification in a time of 18 month. Companies should always analyze the situation when developing a new product.
Therefore if they want to know weather they should add a new attribute to a current product the Kano model is an useful instrument (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011). Current data about customer requirements can be received.
For the sustainability of the Kano model this means results of the responders are current and useable for companies at that time the survey was made.
Furthermore as explained in the theory there are different types of lifecycles. Some attributes have no meaning for a long time as they suddenly become important and then they disappear again (Kano, 2001).
Using Kano in companies or for managers:
In general there is to say that the Kano model is helping companies identifying product and service features that are key drivers for customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011). When implementing new products at the market or try to increase the turnover of existing ones these informations are very helpful for managers.
The instrument of the Kano model makes it easier for companies to decide which products have a higher priority and which a lower ones (Löfgren and Witwell, 2008). According to the theory some advices can be given here:
For companies it doesn't make sense to invest time and money to develop “must be requirements” as car seats. These attributes are already there and represent the basic level to enter the market (Sauerwein et. al. ,1996).
Therefore it is better to focus more on the one-dimensional or attractive attributes. Here the chance is higher to attract more customers when having a special attribute to differ from competitors. Especially the attractive attributes are interesting here (Sauerwein et. al. ,1996).
Another advantage of the Kano model is that it covers both negative and positive customer experiences with products. It is also important how well the questions regarding the attributes are structured. Responders have to understand the questions clearly to give valuable answers to make the Kano model valid for future reasons (Sauerwein et. al., 1996; Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011).
Having good valid results from the Kano model it needs lots of work that has to be done (Mikulic and Prebezac, 2011).
5. Conclusion and Implications:
The Kano model is a useful instrument when it comes to the developing stage of a product.
Companies or quality managers have the opportunity to use potential customer opinions to get feedback about existing or developing products. The Kano model helps to elicit satisfaction and delight or dissatisfaction and frustration (Mikulic, Prebezac, 2011).
Even the different categories can help companies to identify for what kind of attributes or requirements they should focus on regarding the Kano Model survey. As an advice, companies should not focus on must be requirements. In fact they should more concentrate
on one dimensional and attractive attributes. It can be said that the whole process to implement the Kano model takes a lot of time and effort.
Regarding the purpose of the paper it was shown that the Kano model is sustainable and a longtime measurable instrument. It gives companies advices weather they should develop products or services and add special requirements to attract more customers. The Kano model in showing current thoughts of the responders. Because of the fast society changes and new upcoming product launches customer requirements can change in half a year completely. To have an up to date result for a longer time companies or organisation should do the Kano model in a regular interval.
However companies should use also other marketing instruments and not only the Kano model when it comes to analyzing customer requirements.
6. Future Research and Limitations:
This paper has shown that the Kano model is a useful instrument to evaluate customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For the future it can be a sustainable model with a good measurement under the aspect that the market and customer requirements are changing from time to time. For future researchers there will be a steady development and the Kano model will be discussed in many different ways. For the next years it will be interesting to see if the Kano model will still take an important part when it comes to measuring customer satisfaction.
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