In today's competitive market, companies need to offer the best possible experience to their customers to remain competitive. Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a strategy that helps companies understand their customers' needs and expectations so they can improve their experience and, consequently, business results.
Customer experience is more than delivering on promised services or fostering positive interactions, though both are important. Customer experience should be integrated into every level of the business , including brand awareness, marketing interactions, feedback management , and even product development.
With so many variables in this journey, it's crucial to focus efforts on creating an effective voice-of-the-customer program so that the experience aligns with consumer feedback. When companies focus on their customers' needs and preferences, they can deliver targeted (and successful) experiences every time.
So, let's understand everything about the voice of the customer?
What is Voice of the Customer (VoC)?
Voice of the Customer, or VoC, is the process of collecting, analyzing, and using information about customers' needs, expectations, and preferences. This information can be collected through surveys, interviews, online reviews, customer behavioral data, and employee feedback.
The term 'voice of the customer' was first used by Abbie Griffin and John R. Hauser in a 1993 MIT Marketing Science article titled “The Voice of Customer,” which described the VOC this way:
Voice of the Customer (VOC) is a business term used to describe the process of capturing customer needs. VOC is a product development technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs, which are organized into a hierarchical structure and then prioritized in terms of relative importance and satisfaction with current alternatives. The VOC process has important outcomes and benefits for product developers.
When companies understand their customers, they can develop better processes and make better decisions across the organization —from marketing and sales to product development and customer success .
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How the voice of the customer benefits business, and why it matters
Understanding the voice of the customer is not only beneficial for the customer experience, but for the business as a whole. The richer and more personalized information you have about your customer, the better your decision-making will be, and you'll avoid as many surprises due to cancellations or misalignment between the customer and the company.
According to a report from the Aberdeen Group , top performers of Voice of the Customer programs had 55% higher customer retention rates, a 23% in customer service costs, and nearly 10x higher year-over-year compared to others.
This is because by understanding your customer's needs, you can:
- Understand your customers’ preferences/expectations;
- Make more assertive, informed business decisions that align with customer needs;
- Discover market timings
- brand management and ;
- customer retention and ;
- Minimize negative experiences.
As mentioned previously, the VoC strategy also helps with product and service development and innovation . When you know what your customers want and expect, it's easier to adapt your products and services and ensure their success.
To summarize, the voice of the customer is important because:
- Helps companies better understand what their customers want and need;
- Enables companies to make better business decisions;
- Contributes to improving the customer experience;
- Increases customer satisfaction and retention;
- Reduces operating costs.
How to Start a Voice of the Customer Program Properly
A voice-of-the-customer program helps you better understand your customers' choices, concerns, and preferences. However, simply collecting customer feedback isn't enough—what really matters is how the data is analyzed and, more importantly, how your company uses the insights to develop new strategies that will help achieve business goals.
With that in mind, here are the steps to starting a voice of the customer program:
1) Set clear goals
Before starting your voice of the customer program, make sure you have clear, planned objectives tailored to your company's needs. List what you want to achieve by the end of the program. Example:
- Understand why customers do not use a certain functionality / do not access a certain page;
- Understand the customer's perception of our service;
- Understand why customers do not reach a specific stage within the journey;
2) Collect feedback
There are many ways to collect customer feedback. Here are some of the most common VoC techniques:
Search
Surveys are one of the most effective methods of collecting data from a large group of people. You can use a pre-made survey template to save time and effort, or if you prefer, you can create your own.
To achieve better results, our tips are:
- Keep the survey (and questions) short and to the point;
- Ask clear questions with direct answers (“yes”/“no” and multiple choice work well);
- Segment your searches based on personas for targeted results;
- Use the main metrics for measuring customer experience, such as NPS , CES , or CSAT ,
Online customer reviews
Online reviews are the comments that your customers or potential customers post on social media, booking sites, Google My Business , and which are most often open to the public and report their experience with the brand, product, or service provided.
This feedback, in addition to helping companies improve the experience they deliver, has a major impact on the purchasing decisions of other potential customers .
Interviews or meetings
Interviews typically require more effort than other methods, but they are valuable opportunities to build a relationship with your customers while gaining a deeper understanding of their needs.
This method is ideal for uncovering information about strategic customers. For example, let's say your goal, outlined in the first step, is to understand the main needs of enterprise with your product. However, you haven't gathered enough data through surveys or other methods, so the best way to do this is through an interview or meeting.
Pro tip: As you gather survey and interview data, consider what your customer really needs and how that information translates into improvements for your product or service. Document these insights for alignment within your organization and ask the department that has direct contact with these customers, such as the customer service/customer relations team – they'll likely have relevant considerations.
Social networks and chats
Social media and customer service chats allow companies to communicate directly with their customers, often in real time. These platforms allow you to collect and manage this feedback and also monitor customer reactions.
Customer behavioral data
You can learn a lot simply by collecting and observing customer behavior , and one of the main ways to do this is by observing how customers interact with your service, average session time, buttons/actions they usually perform, which day they access more or less, etc.
For example, understanding which attractions your customers visit/like most, their peak times, their route to your establishment, and their preferred shopping categories—heat maps will help you see how your customers navigate your website/platform. All this information will bring even more intelligence and predictability to your operation .
Comparing what your customers say they want and how they behave will help you identify what you really need for successful product development and strategy.
Employee feedback
Your employees often have valuable insight into the customer experience, especially those who interact directly with them. For example, your customer service may notice certain customer patterns that aren't apparent in other VoC surveys, such as common behaviors.
Additionally, employees can help you identify bottlenecks in your processes or technologies that may hinder successful customer experience .
Our tip is to gather employee feedback (through surveys, brainstorming sessions, or whatever method works best) to gain an inside perspective on the customer experience.
3) Analyze and act on feedback
After collecting customer feedback, companies need to analyze it to identify key trends and insights. This analysis should be done systematically and in a structured manner so that companies can make the most of the information gathered.
Feedback analysis should include the following steps:
- Feedback classification: Feedback should be classified by type, source, and relevance.
- Quantitative analysis: Feedback should be analyzed numerically to identify trends and patterns.
- Qualitative analysis: feedback should be analyzed textually to identify insights and perceptions.
Based on the analysis results, companies should implement improvements to their products, services, and processes—that is, act on this feedback. These improvements should be targeted at the areas that presented the greatest problems or opportunities for improvement.
Implementing improvements based on customer feedback is essential to improving the customer experience and business results. By acting on collected feedback, companies demonstrate their commitment to meeting their customers' needs and expectations.
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Data that proves the importance of investing in a voice of the customer strategy:
- 46% of consumers feel satisfied when an organization responds to negative customer reviews – Oracle .
- 89% of consumers started doing business with a competitor after a bad experience – Oracle .
- Due to poor service, Brazilian companies lose R$400 billion – EXAME
- Implementing a voice of the customer (VOC) strategy generates on average: (Search)
- 10-fold increase in the company's annual revenue;
- 55% increase in customer retention rate;
- 23% reduction in customer service costs year-over-year;
- 292% higher employee engagement rates.
Conclusion
The voice of the customer is an essential strategy for companies that want to offer the best possible experience to their customers and, consequently, increase their results.
Companies that understand and value their customers are poised to deliver the best experiences that will keep them ahead of the competition, making it easier to increase retention rates and annual revenue year after year.
Are you already using this strategy in your company? Discover Harmo , the first and only platform that integrates online reviews and satisfaction surveys to create an effective customer voice program!
