Customer Satisfaction: What Does My Customer Want?

Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a sentence came to mind some time ago: “If you want to appease your customer, give them what they want. If you want to satisfy them, give them what they need.” Are you familiar with this problem? From which perspective? As a customer or as a service provider?

During my long career in requirements management and quality assurance, I have come to appreciate the Kano model as a useful tool in this regard. According to this model, my customer’s satisfaction is linked to certain characteristics of a product or service. In my experience, the three most important ones in practice are: the basic, the performance, and the excitement features.

According to the Kano model, basic features are those characteristics of a product or service that my customer subconsciously expects. They are so self-evident to him that their absence leads to great dissatisfaction, but their presence does not increase his satisfaction. He simply takes them for granted because they are nothing special to him. For this very reason, they are not aware of them and will never explicitly demand them, which is why basic features pose a high risk of customer dissatisfaction.

Performance features are consciously demanded by my customer, and their absence also leads to dissatisfaction. However, if they are present, this will increase their satisfaction. Interestingly, according to the model, their absence has less of a negative impact on customer satisfaction than that of basic features. In other words, what a customer subconsciously takes for granted is missed much more than what they explicitly demand. My interpretation: they expect what they take for granted much more than anything else.

According to the Kano model, delight features are characteristics whose absence does not lead to customer dissatisfaction because they are not (yet) consciously recognized by the customer. But their name already suggests it: they are characteristics that delight the customer. They are not explicitly demanded by the customer, and the customer certainly does not take them for granted. If I offer my customers products or services that surprise them positively, I can significantly increase their satisfaction.

The initial question was: “What does my customer want?” My answer: For me to satisfy them! And according to the Kano model and my own experience, the best way to do this is by not just giving them what they ask for. That is, so to speak, only the “duty” – and that alone is not enough to win the day. The “extra” includes satisfying my customer’s needs that they do NOT express. To do this, I must first recognize what they take for granted and secondly, I must ensure that they get more benefit from me than they could have imagined before.

Understanding my customers with all their needs, meeting their expectations, and exceeding them: That’s what makes work fun. I should not only deliver what they have ordered, but I must also pay attention to what they tacitly assume. For the benefit of my customers, I can and may be innovative.

If you have any questions on this topic or would like to share your experiences, please contact me.