Kano Model

As the product team develops their product features, prioritising them based on client satisfaction, they further classify the features according to their importance. “Basic features,” “Performance features,” and “Excitement features” are the three categories that make up the list. The roadmap for product development is created in accordance with the anticipated time for the product to be on the market. These characteristics are then compared with the two most crucial criteria –

• The characteristics that have the ability to increase consumer happiness
• The amount of money needed to put the features into effect

The graph plotting the above criteria against the X and Y axes for the above qualities provides a reasonable representation of the amount of money, effort, and customer happiness spent.

Product teams who use the Kano Model in the creation of a new product or the upgrade of an existing one categorise features into the five categories listed below:

Basic:

This category includes features that buyers expect to see in all items of this sort. They’re necessary for the product’s fundamental function, and although they’re unlikely to thrill people, if they’re absent from the design, satisfaction levels might plummet drastically.

Performance/Satisfiers:

These features reflect a product team’s dedication to provide more capability beyond the standard suite. They improve the whole experience and may provide one product a minor competitive advantage over another, but it’s unlikely to be a deal breaker.

Excitement/delighters:

This category of features may have a substantial impact on a customer’s buying choice and user happiness. Excitement attributes/delighter product team’s perspective.

Data from user research should also be collected by product teams. They may create a survey targeted to each of the features of a product and ask users from the target demographic(s) to express their opinions on how the features work.

The qualities may be shown in a variety of ways by teams. An interactive wireframe or a more advanced prototype may be appropriate, but one should avoid devoting too much effort on any demo model. The main purpose is to describe the function of the feature and how it assists users in achieving their objectives.

The surveys should determine how useful each item is to consumers and how they would feel if it was left in or out of the final product. To provide the most accurate and meaningful feedback, participants must only be from the target audience. Kano Model surveys provide standard replies that determine whether a user ‘loved’ a feature, ‘anticipated’ it, feels ‘neutral’ about it, ‘tolerates’ it, or ‘dislikes’ it. When bringing a product to the market, product teams may study the diversity of reactions and identify which features are most likely to please buyers. They may persuade a consumer to adopt and remain loyal to a brand over time, even if the quality of following items declines. ‘Delighters’ may convert consumers into brand champions and inspire them to give favourable reviews online, attracting new customers.

Characteristics that are indifferent:

Any feature classified as ‘indifferent’ has no explicit positive or negative influence on users. They may be unsure if the existence of the feature boosts or diminishes their degree of enjoyment.

Reverse characteristics:

Features in this category intentionally dissatisfy consumers and should be removed from the product entirely. If there are enough of them, they might drive people to grow dissatisfied with a product and perhaps investigate alternatives.

Placing features under any of these categories enables product teams to identify which are the most crucial in the development of a product — and which may be deleted entirely.

In theory, product teams may use the Kano Model to build any product. However, it is most advantageous to teams operating under tight deadlines and with limited resources. In such cases, there is no time to waste: every hour and every dollar counts. Investing in things that will dissatisfy people or perhaps drive them away to a rival is a major waste of money.

The Kano Model may also be of great assistance to teams working on a certain sort of product for the first time, or to those with limited overall expertise. The Kano Model is designed to give helpful direction, outlining which features must be included in the development and why. It makes prioritising seem natural.

Finally, the Kano Model may help teams that want to get an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to market as fast as feasible. They might continue their investigation and add more satisfiers or delighters later on.

One of the primary goals of the Kano Model is to assist teams in understanding, categorising, and incorporating these three major kinds of needs into the products or services that they are building. The five kinds of consumer needs are categorised based on their capacity to either increase customer satisfaction or decrease customer satisfaction levels. The ability to identify which client needs to fit into which categories and the relevance of each demand may assist in prioritising development efforts and determining what to include in your offering as well as where to focus resources on enhancing these requirements.

Some of the most significant advantages of using the kano model are as follows:

Save both time and money.

The kano model eliminates the waste of time and money involved in building features that do not appeal to the intended audience of users.

Prioritize the areas that need attention.

The kano model reveals the high-priority areas of your present product’s features that need quick attention in order to correct under-performance problems.

Make a list of your finest characteristics.

This strategy converts your feature suggestions into a clear development plan that is prioritised according to their ability to improve performance and increase customer happiness.

Customer satisfaction should be improved.

When using the kano model, you may skip feature development on concepts that will not improve customer happiness, allowing you to delight your consumers more quickly.

There are several downsides to utilising this technology, though, which should be taken into consideration.

The majority of the data is quantitative.

The responses supplied by the questionnaire are mostly quantitative (numerical), and thus cannot be used to investigate the ‘why’ behind the information. It is possible that more study may be required to dig deeper into the findings.

It is necessary to do research.

The results of the questionnaire must still be analysed, and some understanding of the subject matter is required in order to interpret and implement the findings.

It may be difficult to handle.

Manual methods of delivering surveys may be difficult to manage since they require a lot of time and are hard to compare. A smart technological solution will take care of all of this for you and integrate it into your existing system.

There are various ways in which you may use kano analysis at your company in order to increase customer satisfaction levels:

Improve the quality of your goods and services.

You might get started with kano analysis by following this straightforward five-step procedure:

• Ideas for special features should be gathered: Collect existing feature ideas or come up with new ideas for features that you would want to include in your goods or services but aren’t already available.
• Each feature in question should be classified according to the Kano feature categories: Make a list of each feature and categorise it into one of the five categories based on consumer feedback and your own assessment. These categories are:basic, performance/satisfiers, excitement/delighters, indifferent attributes, reverse attributes/.
• Position the features on the kano graph to determine which features would be the most effective and where there are opportunities for fast victories.
• Examine the characteristics of each category group and consider how you may make your product or service better (you want to look at how each category can be positively productive to the product or service).

Persona characteristics arise as a consequence of the kano findings.

Once you have the information about the categories for each aspect, you can use it to match the likes and dislikes from the questionnaire to the marketing personas that you have developed.

As long as specific characteristics (for example, those that promote recycling) and personas (for example, a youthful audience that is environmentally concerned) are compatible, you may tailor marketing messaging to these groups and position your features as advantages.

These characteristics will certainly be considered desirable by aligned audiences, increasing your chances of selling more items and services.

Modeling the trade-off between benefits and costs

You may follow up your planning with a benefit and cost model for each item, given that you’ll have a prioritised list of features at the conclusion of the five-step procedure by then.

As a result, it may be possible to determine which features, if adopted, have the potential to provide a high return on investment by boosting sales.

Knowing this can help you make better decisions throughout your product development cycle, which is particularly important if you are limited in both time and money resources.

Select the appropriate features: It is recommended that you test up to 20 features using the Kano model. More than that will make the questionnaire unwieldy.

Select the correct customers: Select a sample size that reflects your customer segmentation, market segmentation, and target marketing personas. Don’t overlook the importance of variety! Because there will be a lot of data to analyse, a sample size of 15-20 is a decent amount to start with.

Obtain the most accurate information: Make sure your inquiries are clear to obtain the best replies. Give the draught questionnaire to another team member for a second opinion.

Consider more qualitative interviews: Along with the kano model questionnaire, use qualitative interviews to elicit the ‘why’ and context for the replies.