Back in 1980, Professor Noriaki Kano of Japan and a group of his collegues developed a customer satisfaction model known as the Kano Model or Kano Analysis.  This analysis has been used virtually every industry from automobiles to hotels.  Unfortunately, it has not often found its way into healthcare.

Let me briefly describe it for you.

The model is made up of three distinct categories: Exciters, Performers, and the Basics.  As you can see in the model below, these categories constitute the three lines.  A brief healthcare definition of each:

The Basics - These are the common things we do that people cannot live without.  For instance, hand hygiene.  Consumers today are acutely aware of the need for healthcare providers to wash their hands.  Forget to do it and they'll mention it to you.  It's an infection control issue as well as a huge patient dissatisfier.

Performers - Performers are what you are currenlty doing to make patients satisfied.  It's what is getting you by.  In the patient satisfaction world it would be the 50th percentile...average at best. 

Exciters - Exciters make people love you.  Exciters truly elicit the "Wow" that we so desperately seek from our consumers.  It is the cutting edge service that is uncommon in our industry.

Let me give you an example.  In the early part of this decade a women's breast center decided to provide a relaxed atmosphere featuring soft music, down robes, and a botique atmosphere.  These Exciters increased patient satisfaction greatly and was a far cry from the breast centers of old.

Over time as more and more breast centers moved to this model patients began to expect this service making it the norm...or the a Performer.  Because it was an expectation of so many women, if the service wasn't provided patient satisfaction tanked.

The more and more this atmosphere took root in breast centers across the country the more it moved from a Performer to on of The Basics that women just wouldn't live without.  Many hospitals, suffering from a drop in patients due to not offering these amenities, quickly changed course and tried to add newer and even more chic products and service lines in the breast centers.

You see how it works...a Exciter turns into a Performer after a while...that turns into The Basics before long.  Take the automatic windshield wiper for example.  Never had it...had it...can't live without it.

It's important to understand the life cycle of your new and improved service.  You can only ride it so long.  Many organizations seem to ride these into the ground, not understanding how these cycles occur.  Be creative, understand what your consumer is looking for...blow their socks off...and be prepared to keep blowing their socks off.