Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, customer focus, continual improvement, six sigma.
January 2, 2008
It Just Works

Does Your Product Or Service “Just Work”? By Jim Kukral

That’s it. It’s the highest compliment you can get. “It just works” is a very powerful phrase in this day and age

There is truth to that statement. I think largely due to how bad so many products are - that they don’t actually work. The Kano model of customer satisfaction is an excellent way to view customer expectations.

The Kano model states that you have expected quality - it just does what it needs to (what is expected). Then more is better type - give me more at the same price and I am happier. But where you really want to get as a company is products and services that delight customers.

When you are delighted you are not easy prey to other companies. When you are satisfied you are ready for offers that say we will give it to you a bit cheaper or give you a bit more. But if you are delighted you don’t want to leave and instead are telling everyone you know how great this product or service is.

I think it might be that in many cases now people are delighted if things just work. Perhaps they have become so disillusioned that something actually working is delightful - I think there is real truth here. Which shows how much room there is to improve. It is such a huge bother to deal with junk that doesn’t work and the thought of dealing with the lousy service on such failures is enough to drive them to tears.

Related: What Job Does Your Product Do? - Quality Customer Focus - Ritz Carlton and Home Depot - Good Customer Service Example - Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service - More Bad Customer Service Examples :-(

2 Responses to “It Just Works”

  1. shaun sayers Says:

    The Kano model is a pretty sound way to look at things. I’ve made reference a few times lately on my blog that product conformance is no longer seen as a bonus and that contracts are won and lost on more subtle service related aspects of the package. CRM is the new conformity, maybe

    http://blog.capablepeople.co.uk/blog/_archives/2008/2/6/3506645.html

    BTW I’ve added this article to my first carnival, as it linked in really well to another article I’d only just posted

    http://blog.capablepeople.co.uk/blog/_archives/2008/2/5/3506508.html

    Shaun

  2. Curious Cat » Customers Get Dissed and Tell Says:

    And even just providing something that just works is seen as a treat. The all too common dis-service, combined with the internet, leads to Consumer Vigilantes.

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