Kano Framework in “gold panning” the customer-centric MVP

Startups approach the product rollout in a variety of ways, using their own recipes of success. Though, at a given point in time, all of them get puzzled with WHAT is it that they want to present to the market in the first place. The backlog seems endless, but you can’t build everything right now, nor you want to put all of it in.

To shape your offering and identify the WHAT, you first need to understand the WHY: Why you want a specific feature to be part of the initial release.

If your focus is on delivering value and ensuring the high level of customer satisfaction, you want to incorporate the Voice of the Customer in identifying and ranking the product requirements. And one of the best techniques that come in handy here is the Kano Analysis.

Back in 1984th, Dr. Noriaki Kano introduced the Kano model, which suggests evaluating features against two dimensions — customer satisfaction versus investment made by the organization, and provided a ranking scheme to distinguish between essential and differentiating product features.

As proved by his study, conducted with 900 participants, Kano classified 5 emotional responses to the features, ranging from frustration to delight: Frustration → Dissatisfaction → Indifference → Satisfaction → Delight

He also developed a methodology for mapping these emotional responses onto the model, which can be visualized as the 2-dimensional graph:

The vertical axis indicates how satisfied the customers are, while the horizontal axis indicates the investment a company makes (the execution extent).

As derived from the customer emotional responses, Kano introduces 5 types of product features:

• Performance — Product attributes that directly correlate to customer satisfaction: increased functionality or improved quality results in increased satisfaction.
• Must have (or basic) — These are the attributes that your customers usually take for granted. They are the minimum acceptance criteria for the product, the “price of entry” to the market.
  No execution or poor execution of must-have features causes dissatisfaction, while improved execution only results in neutral satisfaction.
• Indifferent (or unimportant) — The customers don’t care whether these features are present or absent. Their satisfaction level remains neutral under either circumstance.
  You certainly do not want to invest in their implementation.
• Reverse — The features that cause dissatisfaction when present and satisfaction when absent. They make your customers say “I hate when they do that”.
  They should never be part of your offering.
• Delighters — These features are not expected by the customers, and therefore do not cause any dissatisfaction when missing. But when included, they bring an unexpected and pleasant surprise, they delight and attract the customers.
  Delighters enable your customers to experience something beyond what they know and expect from similar products or services. They fulfill people’s emotional needs.

“Products’ real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.”
— Donald Normann

On the oversaturated markets, product differentiation can be achieved by the high-level execution of performance attributes or by the inclusion of delighters.
Though, delighters won’t make it alone. The product is destined to fail if it does not meet the basic customers’ expectations or if there is no increment in functionality or quality. Therefore, you need to keep an eye on all three categories: your offering has to be a winning combo of basic, performance, and delighting attributes. The wrong mix and the unaddressed needs may endanger its success.

Step-by-step guidelines for the practical application of Kano Framework: Uncover Voice of the Customer with Kano Framework. Practical guide

Respect your competitors and time to market. Do not overload your product, as each of the included features requires time to be designed, implemented and tested. Time is priceless, and your competitors are always there to remind you about the ever-changing market needs.

The way your customers feel about some product attribute today is not the way they will feel about it tomorrow. Delighters turn into performance and must-have features as time goes by.
Monitor your customer satisfaction and competition, be sensitive to the changes and react appropriately, introduce new delighters as needed.

Note: The fact that people differ in their perceptions and priorities leads to a diversity of emotional responses to the same product attribute: what is expected by one person may be perceived as an innovation by the other.
Accurately segment your customers and consider the diversity when conducting the Kano survey: do not be over-analytic and look for the trends and dominant responses to derive conclusions about the masses.