| Customer Requirements And The Kano Analysis |
| Written by Craig Calvin | |||
| Saturday, 10 January 2009 15:39 | |||
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Understanding the customer's needs and wants is a top priority for the manufacturing and service industries. A very simple, but extremely effective tool to accomplish this is the Kano Analysis. Knowing customer requirements is imperative to the growth of any company, as a satisfied customer will stay with your product and will likely bring in more customers over time. The Kano Analysis is used by Six Sigma implementation teams in charge of development of products and services to accomplish their goals.
Understanding the customer's needs and wants is a top priority for the manufacturing and service industries. A very simple, but extremely effective tool to accomplish this is the Kano Analysis. Knowing customer requirements is imperative to the growth of any company, as a satisfied customer will stay with your product and will likely bring in more customers over time. The Kano Analysis is used by Six Sigma implementation teams in charge of development of products and services to accomplish their goals. Six Sigma teams are always working with the goal of matching the customer's requirements with the company's products. Different customers may purchase a product and their experiences will all be different. During the product development stage, the company will have taken into consideration the customers' requirements. And upon delivery, the customer needs to find the product suitable. There are generally three different outcomes to the scenario. If the customer finds the product to suit their needs they will be satisfied. If the product falls below the requirements, the customer will be dissatisfied, or even angry. Likewise, there will be situations where the customer's requirements are exceeded and they will be delighted. The Kano Model addresses these levels of satisfaction into three categories: dissatisfiers, satisfiers and delighters. The dissatisfiers, those whose basic needs are unspoken requirements, are expected to be present without any special instructions. For example, an airline flight that is on time is expected and not requested. When the requirements are satisfiers, it means that the needs are specifically mentioned. Their provision can increase or decrease the satisfaction levels. For example, if a passenger were provided with a club lounge with internet access as per his requirement, he will be satisfied. If these things are not provided, that would make him dissatisfied. The third category is delighters, or satisfaction of excitement needs, where needs are satisfied beyond expectation. For example, when passengers flying on an airline are given services when needed urgently, even if the airport is closed, the guest would be highly delighted. With all of this in mind, it is well known that customer needs and desires change over time. And the seller of services or products may not always be aware of that fact. Customers are fickle and will change their minds. And the provider who realizes that will carefully craft his product or service to accommodate that factor, as he attempts to capture satisfaction levels of a larger group instead of dealing with targeted requests. Companies must continue to keep communication lines open with their customer base. If customer needs aren't understood, then they can't be met. And if they aren't being met, then the company will be faced with customer loss, financial loss, and profit loss. Six Sigma, using the Kano Model, will contribute to any company's success by implementing basic tools of management and analysis, leading to success and higher profits. About the Author: If you are wanting to expand upon your employable skills you may want to check out Six Sigma Certification. The Six Sigma Black Belt program is top notch and is the most esteemed field training certification in the industry.
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