preview

Kano Model

Better Essays

in: Preprints Volume I of the IX. International Working Seminar on Production Economics, Innsbruck/Igls/Austria, February 19-23 1996, pp. 313 -327

1

THE KANO MODEL: HOW TO DELIGHT YOUR CUSTOMERS Elmar Sauerwein , Franz Bailom, Kurt Matzler, Hans H. Hinterhuber* Department of Management, University of Innsbruck

Which products and services can be used to obtain a high level of customer satisfaction? Which product features have a more than proportional influence on satisfaction, and which attributes are an absolute must in the eyes of the customer? So far customer satisfaction was mostly seen as a one-dimensional construction - the higher the perceived product quality, the higher the customer’s satisfaction and vice versa. But …show more content…



Discovering and fulfilling attractive requirements creates a wide range of possbilities for differentiation. A product which merely satisfies the must-be and one-dimensional requirements is perceived as average and therefore interchangeable (Hinterhuber/Aichner/Lobenwein 1994).

In the following we will explain how product requirements can be classified by means of a questionnaire. The ski industry, where more than 1500 customers were interviewed, is used to demonstrate how product requirements are ascertained, how a questionnaire is constructed, how the results are evaluated and interpreted and used as the basis for product development.

Step one: Identification of product requirements - "Walk in you customer’s shoes" The starting point for constructing the Kano questionnaire are the product requirements which have been determined in explorative investigations. Griffin/Hauser (1993) found that only 20 to 30 customer interviews in homogenous segments suffice to determine approximately 90 - 95% of all possible product requirements. Many market research institutes use focus group interviews to determine product requirements, assuming that group dynamic effects enable a greater number of

in: Preprints Volume I of the IX. International Working Seminar on Production Economics, Innsbruck/Igls/Austria, February 19-23 1996, pp. 313 -327

4

more diversified customer needs to be discovered. Compared with the expense, individual interviews seem to

Get Access