The Voice of the Customer (VoC) has become an integral business component for customer-centric organizations. Voice of the Customer programs generate data that improve customer experience analytics and provide insights that steer business transforming decision-making. More than 70% of VoC programs, however, do not yield positive results because they are not build systematically, nor do they cater to the short or long-term goals of the business. Successful Voice of the Customer programs are designed based on company needs, available resources and desired outcomes. They support a cycle of four activities that comprise a closed-loop feedback process: capturing customer feedback, analyzing feedback data, reacting to improve the experience and monitoring the results. So, how do you go about creating a successful VoC program?
Building a Voice of the Customer program in 5 steps
Step 1: List your company’s most promising feedback sources
Customer feedback comes in three forms: direct, indirect, or inferred. The first thing you need to do is make a list of established feedback sources that fall into those categories. Later, expand the list by adding sources of feedback that you are not currently utilizing but would provide you with valuable customer insights.
Step 2: Rank feedback sources based of volume and value
At this point you should start rating the feedback sources you have collected in step one. Be systematic in doing so. Determine beforehand the business goals you try to achieve with the VoC program and proceed with rating the feedback sources depending on whether they help you reach these goals. Keep an eye out for feedback volume and value per source/channel.
Step 3: Pinpoint the most appropriate feedback sources for your company
After you have a clear understanding of the available feedback sources, you should determine which of these sources are most relevant to your business. Unless you have unlimited resources, you are not going to be able to track every single feedback source known to man. Figure out which ones are most useful to your business and the people that make decisions for it.
Step 4: Start with the highest-ranking feedback source
During this fourth step, you need to start optimizing. You should now know which sources to track. Therefore, you need to enter in execution mode. If your highest-ranking sources are already established within your company you need to make sure they are optimized. If your highest-ranking sources are not established, you should put in place processes that allow for feedback to be collected through those sources and find its way back to you.
Step 5: Visualize VoC data in dashboards
This final step is the fruition of the VoC program. You now have VoC data rolling in. It is your job to make it count. You should make sure you translate the data into a language that everybody understands and make it accessible to the right people. Dashboards are a great tool to help you with this as they display data in a condensed and simple form.
Bringing it all together
To ensure the continuity and success of a Voice of the Customer program you need to frequently revisit these steps. The VoC program should reflect the challenges and opportunities your business is faced with. Therefore, it needs to develop and grow alongside your company. Working your way through these steps, whenever necessary, will enable you to turn VoC insights into a competitive advantage that shapes the customer experience.
Need a more detailed overview of our 5 step guide to building a Voice of the Customer program? Download the ebook: How to build a Voice of the Customer program in 5 steps.