How to delight your customers

Abstract

Asks which product qualities are decisive for the satisfaction of the customer and which features merely prevent dissatisfaction. Proposes Kano’s model of customer satisfaction for answering these questions and for drawing conclusions for the management of product development. In his model, Kano distinguishes between three types of product requirement which influence customer satisfaction in different ways when met: must‐be requirements, which are basic criteria of a product ‐ if these requirements are not fulfilled, the customer will be extremely dissatisfied; one‐dimensional requirements, where customer satisfaction is proportional to the level of fulfillment, the higher the customer’s satisfaction and vice versa; and attractive requirements, which are the product criteria which have the greatest influence on how satisfied a customer will be with a given product. Attractive requirements are neither explicitly expressed nor expected by the customer.