Setting the Record Straight on Voice of the Customer
It seems like marketers these days are taking liberties with a data collection method called Voice of the Customer (VOC). While born out of the quality movement in the 80s to improve product development, the process only recently has caught the attention of sales and marketing for data collection methods.
But companies today seem to use the term to refer to almost any type of market research—and it’s a bit of stretch.
Simply conducting customer satisfaction surveys and talking to customers doesn’t make one a VOC expert. VOC is much more encompassing, requiring a scope that extends beyond just the contact center. It’s about staying proactive with customers’ changing needs and requirements. It’s also about collecting feedback from a variety of sources from across the enterprise—field reports, focus groups, customer surveys, direct discussions, etc—centralizing the data, organizing it into a hierarchical structure, and prioritizing the information by customer or need. The ones deemed the highest importance should be acted on in real time or in a timely manner.
For VOC to be effective, departments must be aligned, the entire culture must be on board, and systems should be in place to analyze the data and deliver responses or recommendations in real time.
Rosa Sabater, senior vice president of American Express, spoke about her company’s VOC initiative at a recent conference. She said VOC has to be at the center of any company. “That’s the true gauge,” she said. Applying that philosophy, American Express has integrated all of its contact channels, and even has tied employees’ incentives to VOC. This means all employees, from executives to agents, are working together to ensure customer needs are continuously met.
Though extensive and sometimes complex, VOC, if done right, has its benefits. By next year, American Express intends to double its NPS score through VOC, which will make the company a world-class customer service brand like the Ritz-Carlton or FedEx.
Now that's VOC worth trumpeting.
