Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

The customer received a lengthy email explaining that the company doesn't accept "outside" suggestions. In an age where staying in business requires listening to customers and understanding their needs and wants, this experience surprised me. When companies have a formal voice-of-the-customer program, the company wins from gaining valuable insight and the customers win because they feel that the companies value their opinions.

So to inspire Subway to adopt a voice-of-the-customer strategy, I decided to highlight some top-of-mind companies that are operating successful voice-of-the customer programs and are experiencing positive benefits.

Microsoft Windows 7: The "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" ads boast that Windows 7 was built the way users wanted. The campaign makes users feel special, listened to, and part of a larger community.

Chick-fil-A: Began a billboard program more than 12 years ago, which has evolved into a co-branding program with customers. Customers can print their own online messages on the cow's sandwich board, put cow spots on just about anything, and collect Chick-fil-A plush cows. Customers put their own personal stamp of ownership on the campaigns and share their creations with their marketsphere. As a result, the Chick-fil-A brand does well because it's embedding the brand at the top of customers' minds.

iRobot: By conversing with customers, the company unearths valuable pieces of data that would otherwise go undiscovered. Maryellen Abreu, director of global technical support, hosts a monthly voice-of-the-customer meeting where executives review customer feedback that reps have collected. They address the top five issues and make hundreds of changes to products over a course of a year as a result of the feedback.

Overstock.com: Stormy Simon, senior vice president of marketing and customer care, says that Overstock.com considers its customer care the most important part of the organization and is referred to as the "Greek temple" by CEO Patrick Bryne. Customer service reps know that it's their job to ensure that feedback gets to the right department so they can fix it. This process has helped the company turn a profit in the fourth quarter of 2008.

World Wildlife Fund: Two years ago the organization launched a customer feedback program to gain actionable insight from its members. The organization created public user forums for members to interact, using an online community. The organization also taps into the community aspect of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Its Facebook page has more than 200,000 friends, and the WWF Twitter profile counts more than 16,000 followers while following 2,800 others. "Online communications is about conversation, about listening and interacting. It is not and should never be treated like a one-way only channel of information," says Fernando Zarur, online content specialist for WWF International. In addition the WWF studies survey feedback to gauge the effectiveness of its website. "We take all this feedback very seriously and use it as a basis for improving the site to better meet our visitors' needs," Zarur says.

Results of the customer listening program so far have been positive. The biggest impact has been user engagement, measured by the amount of time users spend on the site. It jumped 130 percent from October 2008 to October 2009, from an average of 2 minutes 34 seconds to 5 minutes 46 seconds.

These organizations are just a sample of companies doing voice of the customer. Can you think of any companies that leverage customer feedback effectively? We'd like to hear their stories.