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If your organization is like most, you are working hard to capture and leverage insights drawn from the Voice of the Customer (VoC).  Today, hundreds of organizations regularly conduct surveys and focus groups, solicit comments and complaints, scour social and consumer-generated media, and gather customer feedback from a variety of other sources.   A recent Forrester Research report indicates that nearly 60% of companies have formalized VoC programs in place.[1]   Furthermore, spending on VoC programs is on the rise.[2]    Almost without exception, the expectation is that insights drawn from VoC sources will enable these firms to prioritize, focus, and drive customer experience improvement efforts and desired business results.

But what does it take to build a successful Voice of the Customer program?

Here are ten keys to success.

Sponsorship and Support

Success starts at the top of the house.  That means that someone in senior leadership owns and champions Customer Experience and the Voice of the Customer.   She regularly and visibly reinforces the importance of customer listening, and using VoC-driven insight to focus and direct performance improvements.  He ensures that the necessary financial, human, and technological resources are committed to support a successful VoC program.  In addition, senior leadership regularly evaluates the current state of the VoC program to identify opportunities to refine and improve it.

Organizational Engagement

Senior sponsorship and support paves the way for everyone else to “get with the program.”  This requires efforts to ensure that all managers, employees, and partners understand and buy-in to the organization’s efforts to listen and respond to customers.  It also means that managers and employees regularly and frequently review VoC data and insights – both within and across departments and silos – to get a clear sense of what customers like about their experiences, and where there is need for improvement.

Listening Posts

Successful VoC programs listen to customers through many mechanisms and channels.   Customer feedback is solicited in both structured and unstructured forms, and customer-initiated communication also is captured and utilized.   Quite often, observations and feedback from front-line employees and partners are added to the VoC mix.  All data are captured regularly and frequently to ensure that the organization has a clear understanding of the total customer experience.

Metrics and Targets

Structured data captured through successful VoC programs include core measures of customer experience and loyalty (e.g., satisfaction, NPS®, etc.).    Measures that tap customer perceptions and evaluations of specific CX elements and touchpoints also are gathered.  Also, there is a formal process for setting targets for all of the above measures that is rooted in business objectives such as continuous improvement or customer experience leadership.  Thus, when managers and employees ask “how good are our scores?” there is a clear and defensible basis for answering that question.

Data Analysis and Integration

Getting the most from the Voice of the Customer requires (a) maximizing insight drawn from any given data source, and (b) making all VoC data sources “work together.”  Analyses must be formed to determine where customer experiences are going well, and where there is need or opportunity for improvement.  Analyses also must be performed that reveal how (and how much) different CX elements impact customer value and loyalty, and desired business results.  Successful VoC programs almost always include efforts to demonstrate the link between customer experience and financial or other key business outcomes.  In addition, such programs include analyses that can be used to align internal performance measures with customer expectations and requirements.  Finally, most of the above data analyses are performed at a company level, and for all key customer segments and business units.

Sharing VoC Data and Insights

Successful VoC programs rely on a combination of best practices and technology to ensure that data and insights are shared organization-wide.  Senior leaders regularly share VoC results and insights at company-wide events.  Each department or unit regularly reviews results and insights that are specific to that department/unit.

One of the most exciting developments of the last decade has been the introduction of technology that significantly boosts the speed with which VoC data can be captured, managed, analyzed, and shared.[3]   New VoC platforms have been specifically tailored to enable managers, employees, and partners at all levels and in all areas of an enterprise to access customer feedback in real-time and on-demand.   Not only can these end users of VoC data and insights use this technology to view scorecards and results, but in many cases, they can conduct analyses of their own using built-in tools.  Increased speed and ease of use encourage best practices in sharing VoC data and insights.

Managing Customer Relationships

Organizations having highly successful VoC programs offer a variety of channels to customers who want to provide feedback, make requests, ask questions, or register problems and complaints.  These organizations don’t just use these channels for customer listening.  In addition, they use them for the purpose of managing individual customer experiences and relationships.  Thus, for example, people and processes are put in place to respond to customers who call or email with questions, requests, or complaints.  A similar approach is used to respond to “hot alerts” triggered by survey feedback from dissatisfied customers.   Many organizations also monitor and attempt to follow-up with customers who share negative (or positive) experiences via social media.  If a customer has had a particularly good experience, the organization may encourage the customer to share his/her story with others via social media or testimonials that can be used in marketing communications.  If a customer has shared a problem or negative experience, the organization will take advantage of an opportunity to “make things right.”

Mentoring and Developing Employees and Partners

Customer feedback is used to coach and develop managers, employees, and partners, particularly those who have direct contact with customers on a frequent, regular basis.  VoC metrics are used to set performance goals for these managers, employees, and partners.  They are used to identify top performers, so that best practices can be defined and shared.  These metrics, along with other customer feedback, also are used to identify employees or partners who need additional help, training, or resources.   The over-arching objective is to leverage insights drawn from the Voice of the Customer to enable and empower the people who have a hand in shaping the customer experience.

Driving Systemic Improvement

In addition to customer relationship management and employee/partner development, organizations having successful VoC programs use customer feedback to drive systemic improvement.  Most have a formal process for translating data into action and improvement.  The process establishes ownership for specific CX elements that have been targeted for action planning and implementation.  It ensures that the owners clearly understand what customers want to organization to do differently.  The process also ensures that the owners target and fix the “right things.”  Most importantly, the process furnishes measures and criteria that can be used to evaluate the impact of actions taken.  In the end, organizations use this process to improve policies, processes, practices, and people so that customers have better experiences.

Sustainability

Certainly sponsorship and support from senior management is critical to sustaining a Voice of the Customer program, as are organizational buy-in and engagement.  In addition, organizations having successful VoC programs also tend to do the following:

• They tie incentives and compensation to VoC results and CX improvements.
• They recognize and reward top performers with regard to customer experience.
• They publicize and celebrate systemic improvement efforts that have had measurable positive impact on customer retention and business results.
• They continue, and in many cases increase, investment of financial, human, and technological resources required to support a successful VoC program.
• They continually look for opportunities to improve and refine the VoC program itself.

There undoubtedly are a lot of factors that play a role in determining the success and effectiveness of an organization’s VoC program.   I encourage you to examine your organization’s current Voice of the Customer approach in terms of the ten keys to success discussed above.  Also, I would love to hear from those of you who have additional thoughts about the keys to a successful VoC program, and I suspect others who read this would love to hear from you as well!

End Notes