Mastering Your Voice of Customer Program Strategy
Over the years, companies used to receive feedback via ad-hoc surveys, and they considered this a defensive mechanism. The voice of customer program (VoC) is however a paradigm shift. It is a continuous, systematic process that organizationally gathers, analyzes, and acts on customer feedback through all touchpoints.
This is a strategic science that converts raw data into actionable customer intelligence, which is the key secret to unlocked product development, excellent customer experience, and long-term loyalty.
Learning how to master your VoC strategy, you have to put the eyes of the customer in the centre of all your business decisions.
What defines a Voice of Customer Program, and why is it essential for modern business?
A voice of customer program is not a survey instrument; it is an obligation of the organization. It is characterized by its broad coverage, merging both the data provided by solicited feedback (surveys, interviews) and unsolicited (social media, reviews, call center interactions).
The reason why it is essential lies in the fact that it creates objective information regarding the customer in terms of pain points, preferences, and expectations.
The institutionalization of the listening practice enables a VoC program to transform a company that relies on assumptions into the one that makes a well-informed decision, which, in its turn, minimizes the number of customers that leave and raises the lifetime value of the client base to the urgency of the customer-focused modern market.
What channels and methods are used to capture the true voice of the customer?
To get the actual voice of the customer, the multi-channel approach is necessary, and it should match the customer’s journey. There are normally three types of feedback methods direct (surveys, interviews), indirect (reviews, social media), and inferred (behavioral data, web clicks).
To achieve the greatest success, organizations chart their selected channels to important customer journey touchpoints where they send relationship surveys (NPS) after the interaction, or transactional surveys (CSAT) after a support ticket has been closed.
Also, unstructured data (such as open-ended text or call transcripts) processing technologies, such as sentiment analysis, are essential in order to provide more insights into customers, including emotion and context, through high-volume feedback streams.
How does a successful VoC program ensure action is taken on customer feedback?
The crucial difference between collecting data and driving change lies in implementing closed-loop feedback. A successful voice of customer program treats every piece of feedback not as a historical record, but as a trigger for action.
The closed-loop feedback process involves four key steps:
1) Capturing the feedback
2) Routing it immediately to the responsible employee or team (e.g., a critical issue goes straight to a manager)
3) Taking tangible action to resolve the customer’s issue or implement a requested change
4) Following up with the customer to confirm the resolution.
This continuous cycle ensures accountability across the organization and is the mechanism that transforms data into demonstrable customer experience improvements.
Which key criteria should guide the selection of a VoC technology platform?
The choice of the proper platform is the key to the continuation of the voice of the customer program. There are seven key points on which the decision can be made. The most important thing is that the platform will allow managing closed-loop feedback and guaranteeing timely resolution of issues and follow-ups.
It should also have the capability of integration, which will enable the VoC data to be passed freely in the pre-existing CRM and support tools to have a complete picture of the customer.
In addition, the platform should have powerful analytics, such as sentiment analysis and text analytics, to swiftly sort and rank unstructured data insights. Lastly, the tool must be scalable and be able to track feedback throughout the entire customer experience and all the touchpoints, including social media to mobile apps.
Conclusion
The adoption of a strong voice of customer program is a characteristic strategic step which will bring your business to an entirely new level of transactions. With feedback mechanisms that are systematic to collect feedback, analyze it, and act on it, you are guaranteed to make all decisions that are based on customer insights.
Such long-term commitment to listening and responding is not only one of the drivers of customer satisfaction, but the ultimate road to constant improvement and sustainable competitive advantage.