What is CNS?

• CNS = Customer Needs Solution. The metric is NetCNS = Net Customer Need(s) Score.
• "CNS provides a framework for directing customer strategy and a high resolution, real-time picture of how well you are delivering on your customer needs & wants."
• "CNS is a customer insight method specifically designed to address weaknesses in relying on a single metric like the now-ubiquitous NPS model, by providing a simple, yet powerful and practical solution that provides a operational customer strategy and a clear path toward customer experience maturity."
• "CNS allows us to Define, Structure and Measure Customer Experiences."
• The founding question: "How are we meeting our customers' needs on a day-by-day, week-by-week and month-by-month basis?" This is the "only one question" that should be in the minds of "CEOs, COOs, customer experience directors, sales directors and most other people in a senior organisational position".
• "But it's more than just a metric. By looking at your business through the lens of customer needs, you will clearly understand what you must do to at a strategic and tactical level to consistently deliver excellence where it matters to customers."

A clear definition of customers’ Needs & Wants allows:

• "More effective delivery of the Basic Needs today at lowest cost"
• "Innovation around the delivery of Basic Needs faster, better, cheaper."
• "Genuine Innovation around Wants and Relationships."

Combined with a 1–2 year customer strategy, this allows:

• "A more accurate customer segmentation approach"
• "Change initiatives and projects that are aligned with the overarching business goals"
• "The avoidance of less productive 'point' solutions"
• "A clear differentiation between better delivery of Needs and genuine Innovation."
• "Reduced risk of disruption by competitors."

The headline opportunities are: "Delivery Basic Needs better, faster, cheaper", "Developing genuine Innovation around Wants that deliver improved margin and/or new revenue streams" and "De-risk disruption from competitors."

• Components: "A way of thinking"; "A set of tools that capture what customer say"; "A method to code what customers tell us"; "A database with tens of thousands of customer 'stories'". These feed Business insight → Strategy / Operations / New products & Services → "Becoming a customer needs driven organisation".
• The operating cycle: Listen, Act, Learn. In the 2022 wording:
  • Listen: "Define and measure the needs and wants of people (customers, staff, suppliers etc.)"
  • Act: "Better meet those needs and wants"
  • Learn: "Learn how you can adapt to changing needs and wants"
  • "People" here goes beyond customers to staff and suppliers.
• Three outcomes of Act:
  • A Needs-based Strategy: "Create solutions that meet needs, now and into the future".
  • Operational Improvement: "Taking action to ensure that Core Needs are delivered well at the lowest possible cost".
  • New Products and Services: "Understanding Perceived Needs and their Drivers to design and deliver products and services that deliver greater value".
• Seven key steps:
  1. Identify a small number of key metrics, including Customer Needs.
  2. Define Needs at the global level and Drivers at the local level.
  3. Measure both and create comparisons.
  4. Establish a common language.
  5. Create a global knowledge base to support acting locally.
  6. Share it via a small central team and centres of excellence.
  7. Build skills centrally and in the business.
  • Also: "The framework is agnostic to data collection platform, so organisations can continue to use their existing feedback solution."

• Definitions: "Customer needs can be defined as the benefits the customer absolutely must be getting from the organisation if that organisation is going to be successfully in business at all. Customer wants, on the other hand, are benefits that will enhance the experience but are not fundamental needs."
• Canonical example: "Customers of an airline, for example, need a seat in an airplane that will take them safely to their destination on time. A haute cuisine meal on the flight, by contrast, is a want, not a need."
• Language tip: "The terms 'wants' and 'nice to haves' are interchangeable; indeed, experience even shows that customers are better able to understand the phrase 'nice to haves' than 'wants'."
• Strategic use: Deliver Basic Needs "better, faster, cheaper" at lowest cost, and aim genuine Innovation at Wants and Relationships for "improved margin and/or new revenue streams". Meet "as many of its customers' wants/nice-to-haves as it can do profitably", or "those customer wants that can be delivered profitably, or at minimum cost."
• "Needs & Wants DNA": C-suite, insight/CX team and front-line solutions "can be bound together through a common DNA defined by Needs & Wants wrapped in an understanding of the overall relationship … These simple layers and the 'Needs & Wants DNA' can create a common organisational understanding and language."
• A clear line between the two is a stated benefit: "A clear differentiation between better delivery of Needs and genuine Innovation."

From 2021 the Needs vs Wants split was recast as a three-tier hierarchy based on Kano.

• The strapline: "We have to understand our customers so well, that we can create solutions that meet a hierarchy of needs, now and into the future". Also "Understanding the Hierarchy of Needs defines the Solution".
• The three tiers, and the kind of solution each one calls for:

• How the tiers move: "Core needs do not in themselves differentiate an organisation and so must be met consistently, at the lowest possible cost. Differentiators will, over time, become core needs. Innovated needs are key to business resilience and sustainable growth."
• The cost rule: "Money spent enriching a service beyond core, while core needs remain unmet, buys nothing and costs twice." And: "An unmet core need does not produce a complaint; it produces more demand." The distinction "is what makes the method a cost method rather than a satisfaction method."
• Standard definition of a Need (2021): "A Need is something that has to be there, otherwise the product, service or experience is perceived to have failed by the customer".
• Stephen’s "high concept" (2021): "In the future, successful organisations' primary function will be to understand and meet Customer Needs. It will be incidental what business or sector they are in".

• Quality over quantity: "A customer feedback programme should not be about using technology to bombard your customers for information that you then just digitally crunch away at. Instead, it is about giving them the opportunity to talk to you. It is about respecting your customer's time, by only collecting the data you need and by listening to everything they have offered to tell you."
• "This approach works best by focusing on what people say rather than what they score, although score of course can be useful."
• Statements, not customers: "Put simply it's all about the number of Customer Statements rather than Customers. Our methodology focuses on what customers need and want in the form of statements. The analysis then simple determines if needs & want are being met and how that then creates a relationship with the customer."
• Grounded Theory: "We start with a simple open question and as the data is collected, repeated ideas, concepts or elements become apparent, and are tagged with Needs Group classifications. As more data is collected, we iterate and re-review the codes which are grouped into Needs, Wants and Drivers." This contrasts with traditional research, "where the researcher chooses the topics to ask."
• Saturation Theory: "continue sampling and analysing data for as long as and until no new ideas appear". "You only need to hear something once."
• Sample sizes (exact): "We can achieve saturation with data sets as small as 300 statements, depending on the context … A regular monthly sampling of 1000 to 2000 statements is enough to: Confirm if new Needs or Wants are emerging (this typically happens slowly unless there is disruptor in the marketplace); Monitor how many Needs and Wants are being met."
• Human analysis: "Data can not provide understanding. Statistical significance is no match for common sense human analysis from an experienced specialist. We put people at the centre of every step from transcription to analysis." Also: "You can't empathise with a dashboard. Bring voice to dashboard."
• Why not big platforms? Sentiment analysis, theming and text analytics are used "not because they produce greater clarity - the opposite is the case, but because they are ways to avoid engaging with nuances of the actual customer experience". Organisations end up asking customers to "feed the beast". "Our approach is to dial it back, and focus on increasing the quality of the data."
• Codification bonus: "Codification of needs & wants can provide additional attributes to existing data allowing even deeper analysis and understanding of customer segments."