Use Pairwise Questioning to Collect More Useful VOC Data.docx

1、Use Pairwise Questioning to Collect More Useful VOC DataUsePair-wise Questioning to Collect More Useful VOC Data Michael Ohler April 30, 2010Imagine receiving the following message from your organizations travel assistant:“You will really like your next business trip! I have booked you into a hotel

2、right in the city center. It is a bit far from the factory and not really cheap, but after work you can do lots of things!”But what if you would have preferred to stay at a quiet hotel by the seashore, just a 15-minute drive away from the factory, rather than in the bustling city center? If the trav

3、el assistant had collected the voice of the customer (VOC), you might have been more satisfied with the trip.This example is a reminder of how important it is to gather VOC. Getting VOC right is highly important when designing a product or offering a service. The Kano model, along with “pair-wise” q

4、uestioning a method for testing the desirability of certain product or service parameters can aid in this job. These analysis methods help practitioners to classify customers perceptions of service or product attributes, and to understand effects they can have on customer satisfaction. By using thes

5、e tools, everyone will be closer to receiving the kind of services and responses that they want.Understandingthe Kano ModelThe Kano model, shown in the figure below,distinguishes between three different types of attributes: Delighters have little impact on customer satisfaction when absent, but they

6、 strongly increase it when present. Basic attributes often only go noticed when they are absent. If they are missing, customer satisfaction can drop significantly. Performance attributes can increase or decrease customer satisfaction, depending if they are present or not. Customer satisfaction grows

7、 along with the fulfillment of these attributes.Kano ModelThe business trip example can help to further explain the Kano model. For instance, besides being located reasonably close to their place of work, many travelers want to choose from a range of restaurants, cinemas, theatres or other leisure f

8、acilities once their work is done. Put simply: The more choice the better. Thus, the number of facilities within reach is a performance attribute. Nowadays, high-speed Internet access in a hotel has turned into a basic attribute. Business travelers expect to find it; thus, its presence does not posi

9、tively impact satisfaction. However, if the web service is too slow, intermittent or absent, satisfaction can drop considerably.Also, hotels sometimes charge excessively for national or even local phone calls. This clashes with the travelers home experience, where most have a flat rate for their nat

10、ional calls and cheap options for international calls. This context can make the price of a phone call from a hotel room a delighter attribute: At a low (or flat) rate, customers can call their family without worrying about the phone bill. Their satisfaction increases suddenly when the rate drops be

11、low a certain threshold. For prices above that threshold, they may use their cell phone. At that point, satisfaction will remain unaffected, no matter how high the rate really is.Dealingwith Different AttributesOnce practitioners are able to classify attributes under the delighter, performance or ba

12、sic categories, they can take these attributes into account when designing a product or service. Each type of attribute must be addressed appropriately, which is why it is important to get the classification right.For a basic attribute, like high-speed Internet access in a hotel room, a threshold ne

13、eds to be established. This can be done by asking customers: “How do you use your Internet connection?” The hotel can then determine the bandwidth needed to support these habits. Typically, thresholds for basic requirements stay stable over time. It is advisable, though, to monitor related usage pat

14、terns and to also ask questions such as: “How would you like to use your Internet connection?” In the near future, business travelers may expect to watch their home TV stations via the Internet. Spotting such a trend early can lead to the offer of a delighter. This way, what now is a basic attribute

15、 (bandwidth) might become a delighter in a different context in the future.With that said, a delighter attribute does not necessarily lead to a design feature, because the absence of a delighter often goes unnoticed. However, design teams should challenge all reasons why delighters cant be built int

16、o a product or a service: “Why shouldnt hotels be able to negotiate flat rates for their rooms with the local telephone company?” Taking such questions seriously is important for two reasons. First, delighter features can help organizations to avoid “buying” customer satisfaction through price abate

17、ments. Second, if the competition finds a cheap way to design the delighter or simply decides to offer it, the attribute can quickly turn into a basic requirement. If customers start getting used to being delighted this way, not offering this former-delighter-turned-basic-requirement can lead to a s

18、evere drop in customer satisfaction and, in the worst case, to the loss of customers.Performance attributes can be used to increase customer satisfaction. Often, however, an increase in these attributes can lead to a higher product or service cost. Design teams should challenge this link between per

19、formance and cost: “How can I give my business travelers more of the options they want without booking them into expensive hotels?”AnalyzingCustomer DataDesign teams may struggle with how to categorize attributes as delighter, performance or basic appropriately. Especially in the absence of an exper

20、ienced facilitator, the Kano analysis can be an exercise team members are reluctant to participate in.Such teams then fail to use their best knowledge to understand VOC and design the right features into a product or service. Tracing back the nature of an attribute to the original VOC can be difficu

21、lt. When interviewing customers, practitioners cannot simply ask questions like, “Are you delighted by?” Consequently, teams often guess or vote for the nature of an attribute. This can make the outcome unsatisfactory and also reduce team members appreciation of Kano analysis. As a result, insuffici

22、ent care may be taken in designing features of a product or service that addresses these attributes.IntroducingPair-wise QuestioningTo ease the Kano analysis process, teams can use pair-wise questioning to determine the nature of an attribute. Pair-wise questioning, which can be applied in customer

23、interviews and questionnaires, allows for a rational and consistent classification of attributes.Consider the situation of a supplier to the shipbuilding industry. This medium-sized company is reviewing its portfolio for air-conditioning equipment and related services. The engineering team considers

24、 the following attributes to be important to shipbuilding customers: Instructions for operation, including contact information for the suppliers engineering department if issues arise The time it takes to have a knowledgeable contact person on the ship construction site The noise level of the air-co

25、nditioning equipment The fit of any specific equipment into a wide range of environmentsThe team wants to understand the nature of these attributes better. They use pair-wise questioning to determine the customer perspective. They ask customers the following questions regarding each of the four attr

26、ibutes: “How do you feel if the attribute exists?” “How do you feel if the attribute does not exist?”For each of these questions, the possible answers are: “I really like it” (+) “I like it” (+) “I feel neutral about it” (o) “I dont like it” (-) “I really dont like it” ()The team used the classifica

27、tion system in Table 1 to interpret the nature of the attributes.Table 1: Classification of Attributes Using Pair-wise QuestioningHow do you feel if the attribute exists?+0-How do you feel if the attribute does not exist?+InconsistentIndifferentNegative exciterNegative exciterNegative performance+In

28、differentInconsistentIndifferentIndifferentNegative basic0Positive exciterIndifferentInconsistentIndifferentNegative basic-Positive exciterIndifferentIndifferentInconsistentIndifferentPerformanceBasicBasicIndifferentInconsistentClassificationOptionsAs seen in Table 1, inconsistency may arise if the

29、pair-wise questions being asked are not suited to classify the attribute appropriately (a problem of the measurement system). In this case, further follow-up with the customer will be needed.Attributes classified as “indifferent” in Table 1 may be added as features, just to be safe, if they are not

30、too expensive. Before doing so, however, teams should consider the overall complexity of the resulting offer. Why dilute the essence of a product or service with features that customers are indifferent to? Further follow-up may also be needed regarding these attributes.Table 1 also shows that there

31、are not only “positive” but also “negative” performance attributes, where less is better. Often (though not in the above example for phone calls from hotel rooms), price may be a performance attribute.Similar to “more or less is better” performance attributes, there are also positive and negative ex

32、citement attributes. These can make a real difference when present (for positive exciters) or absent (for negative ones). A positive exciter leaves customers indifferent when absent, while a negative exciter does so when present. The same distinction can also be made for basic requirements.While it is important to know that positive and negative performance, exciter, and basic attributes exist, facilitators should not insist on working out a clear separation betwe