Estrategias de búsqueda

Dr. Noriaki Kano, dean of engineering at Tokyo University, wrote a book describ- ing estimation of customer needs. The premise of this book was derived from work Dr. Kano did with Konica Camera during the 1970s. Konica wanted to differenti- ate itself from competitors. Initially, it had sought advice from its internal product designers regarding creating new design features for cameras. However, the infor- mation gathered from the design engineers was not useful to Konica. Dr. Kano took a different approach in that he went out to ask the customers using the Konica camera as well as the laboratories that developed their pictures what they would like to see in way of camera improvements. As a result of his interviews and on-site visits, Dr. Kano recognized many unspoken customer needs. Based on his analy- sis, Konica developed several design improvements to Konica’s cameras. Dr. Kano developed three categories to classify customer needs, as shown in Figure 3.8. The first Kano need is categorized as basic, the second as performance, and the third as excitement. Basic needs are usually unspoken by the customer. The expectation is that the product or service will satisfy these customer needs at a basic level. It takes methodical research to extract this information from customers because they rarely describe the level at which basic needs must be set in order to be satisfied. Customers do not really notice if the basic need is met because it is an expectation of the value exchange between supplier and customer. Another characteristic of a basic need is that when it is absent, the customer will immediately notice and

complain about its absence. An example of basic need is going to a restaurant and receiving the food cooked properly. If the restaurant meets this basic need, i.e., cooks the food properly, the customer does not really notice because this is an expectation by the customer, but the customer will complain if the food is not cooked properly. Customers differentiate one product or service from another based on performance needs related to value elements such as cycle time, price, utility, and functions related to the product or service. Customers will usually be able to state the levels at which performance needs must be set to ensure their satisfaction. Also, there are usually several competitive product or service alternatives available to a customer at a given time. This makes it easy for a customer to compare such things as on-time delivery, product pricing, and other performance characteristics among competitors. In contrast to basic needs, customers will usually pay more for performance features if these are important to the customer. Excitement needs are product or service characteristics that delight a customer. An example would be a situation in which a customer says, “Wow! I didn’t know I needed this!” Excite- ment needs are usually associated with new products and services that delight and excite customers. Relative to excitement needs, customer purchasing behavior is important. This is because some customers will be early adopters of the product or service and pay higher prices than later adopters. On the other hand, late adopters prefer to wait until the purchase cost decreases to a level at which, relative to their perception, the product or service is fairly priced. Over extended periods excite- ment needs migrate into performance needs, and performance needs become basic needs. Personal computers are an example of this evolutionary process. At any point in their product life cycle, different features of personal computers can be catego- rized as meeting basic, performance, and excitement needs. At this point in time, examples of basic needs would be the ability to run common Microsoft or Linux operating systems and connect to the Internet. Performance needs might be related to microprocessor speed or other features that improve performance or make a com- puter easier to use by customers. Excitement needs may be related to the availability

Price + Convenience Time +

Perceived Benefits Utility + Function + Importance 1. Basic Needs

2. Performance Needs 3. Excitement Needs

Understanding the Voice of the Customer (VOC) n 71

of dual processors, video imaging, compactness, and other unique features. Over time, the categorization of these features will change as technology improves and customer value expectations migrate.

A customer’s perceived value for a product or service can be broken into the elements of convenience and price. As an example, in certain situations, some cus- tomers may be willing to pay more for the convenience of a product or service. An example is a convenience food store that charges higher prices than other retail stores because it is open 24 hours per day and 7 days per week and is conveniently located for its customers. Convenience can be further broken down into elements of time and perceived benefits. Finally, perceived benefits can be broken down into subelements of utility, function, and relative importance to the customer. To sum- marize, there are five value elements of any product and service: price, time, utility, function, and relative customer importance. The relative prioritization of these five value elements will vary by market segment as well as customer purchase behavior regarding adoption of new products and services, i.e., risk evaluation. These value elements can be used in combination with the three Kano needs to obtain useful customer information by market segment.