The road to a Voice of the Customer program that is totally successful involves the presence of the proper corporate culture, internal champions, and cross-functional collaboration. Everything starts at the top. Companies that put customers first have top management engaged in and driving customer-centric activities across the board in areas including sales, customer service, accounting, marketing, product development, and customer success.
When creating a VoC program at a more operational level, the following are some crucial themes that need to be taken into consideration:
Identification Of Customer “Listening Posts”
According to the McKinsey article “From touchpoints to journeys: Seeing the world as consumers do,” customers form an impression of a company’s product or service only after several interactions with that business. Some ways that people could learn about a business include via word-of-mouth, advertisements, or online searches. It’s probable that they were initially made aware of the company through blogs or online reviews. After then, they may have made purchases through the company’s website or brick-and-mortar stores before contacting support. The mapping out of the customer journey and the identification of the various touch points that will make up to the total customer experience with the business are the initial stages in the execution of a VoC program.
Data Gathered From Customers
The second step is to gather feedback at these checkpoints, or “listening stations.” If it is badly constructed, a VoC program has the ability to rapidly develop friction for consumers by means of long and intrusive questionnaires, as well as by demanding work on their part, which runs opposite to the program’s core purpose of bettering the entire customer experience. The establishment of effective voice of the customer (VoC) programs starts with the selection of a lightweight survey format that is appropriate to the customer engagement that is presently taking place.
Analysis Of Information Gleaned
Beyond the gathering of feedback and data on the customer experience at numerous “contact points” with the customer, effective VoC initiatives go one step further. They make use of the mountain of data and comments received to draw conclusions that can be put into practise. Text analytics software that is powered by AI is a beneficial tool that is available to organisations. This program may let organisations analyse millions of open feedback comments in real time and highlight repeating trends in areas that need to be changed.
Taking Measures
The greatest VoC programs will provide business executives and employees with the information they need to make informed decisions. The best programs will have this characteristic. When employees inside an organisation are made fully aware of the issues that need fixing, they are better able to take the initiative to do it on their own.
