Practical VoC
How to Start a Successful Voice of the
Customer Program in Your Organization
September 2012
WHITEPAPER
Practical VoC
How to Start a Successful Voice of the Customer Program in Your Organization
Introduction
Smart companies have always been interested in hearing what their customers have to say. And
customers, for their part, have generally had plenty to talk about. By gathering voice of the customer data,
companies are able to tap into a rich source of information and insight, which they use to solve problems,
improve processes, develop better products and services, and generally create a more positive customer
experience.
But it is only recently that companies have consolidated their listening efforts to systematically capture,
analyze and apply VoC from across multiple sources. Prior to the late 1990’s, different types of feedback
were gathered by various departments for their own purposes, but the information was seldom brought
together to provide a comprehensive view of the customer experience. Satisfaction surveys were
managed by the Market Research Department, customer calls were evaluated by the call centers, and
comment cards were handled by the stores. Few companies centralized the process in support of an
enterprise-wide customer experience strategy.
Leonard Berry, one of the founding fathers
of the modern service quality movement,
Until recently, few companies
threw down the gauntlet in a 1997 article
titled, Listening to the Customer – The
consolidated their listening efforts and
Concept of a Service Quality Information
centralized their VoC process
System 1. Berry advocated using “multiple
research approaches to systematically
capture, organize, and disseminate
service-quality information to support decision making.” He was describing what is now referred to as an
enterprise VoC program.
Berry’s manifesto was particularly well-timed; it came out just as an explosion of new technology was
about to make his vision possible. Customer surveys suddenly became cheaper and faster with the
introduction of hosted survey software. CRM systems allowed companies to capture and analyze
customer contact and account information more easily. Customers calls could now be recorded and
stored digitally for deeper analysis. Emails provided a source of instant customer feedback, partially
replacing the slow and cumbersome comment card. Computer-based, interactive reporting could be
accessed at every level of the organization, replacing dense, book-style research reports. And more
sophisticated data management allowed companies to begin integrating VoC from across a wide range of
1
Sloan Management Review, Spring 1997 v38 n3 p65(12)
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listening posts.
Despite the proliferation of new tools and technology, one essential piece of the picture was still missing:
word-of mouth, where customers talked about their experiences with other customers or with friends and
family. Word-of mouth was like dark matter; companies knew it was out there, and that there was a vast
amount of it, but they couldn’t see it and they couldn’t measure it.
That situation changed within a few years, when customers started bringing their conversations onto the
Web - on consumer feedback and rating sites, on user forums, and on blogs and social media. Suddenly,
word-of-mouth became accessible; companies could eavesdrop on customer conversations and hear
what was being said about them. At the same time, more sophisticated text and voice analytics software
emerged, making it easier to analyze large amounts of unstructured data. Now, at last, the full range of
VoC could be brought together and used to evaluate and improve the customer experience.
Although all of the necessary components are available to create a centralized Voice of the Customer
program, many companies are struggling to define an approach that will provide optimal value for their
organization. In this paper we will take a practical look at VoC, answering basic questions about the
subject and offering guidance for putting an effective program into place.
VoC Definitions and Sources
We define VoC as anything that customers say to an organization or about an organization. It doesn’t
matter how or where they choose to say it – whether it’s responding to a survey, making a phone call,
sending an email or posting a review on Yelp. The challenge is to capture this information, interpret it
appropriately, and apply it in a way that benefits both the organization and its customers.
VoC covers a lot of territory, but it’s helpful to think of it as falling into three main categories:
• Organizations reach out to customers - through surveys, focus groups, customer panels and
other traditional market research methods.
• Customers reach out to organizations - by calling, emailing, filling in comment cards or sending
letters.
• Customers reach out to other customers – or to potential customers. This includes community
forums, social media, rating sites and blogs.
Each of these categories provides valuable insight and information, but none of them reveals the whole
picture. Only by bringing VoC data together from a variety of sources can organizations develop a
comprehensive understanding of what their customers are telling them.
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VoC CATEGORIES
Function of the VoC Program
In recent years, many companies have hired teams and launched programs to centralize and manage
their VoC efforts. These programs generally have four main functions:
• Gathering feedback from multiple VoC sources;
• Analyzing the information to identify relevant customer issues, needs, preferences and trends;
• Communicating findings to internal stakeholders, using a variety of reporting methods; and
• Advising stakeholders on how best to use the information to achieve their business goals.
Thus, VoC programs are not just responsible for data collection and analysis, they’re also invested
in making sure that the information is communicated throughout the organization, and that it is used
effectively to improve the customer experience and the performance of the business.
Uses of VoC
Given the sheer volume of VoC data available to many companies, it can be a formidable task to make
sense of the information and apply it in an effective and systematic manner. The first step toward
managing this process is to identify the specific business objectives that the VoC program will drive, as
well as the stakeholders it will serve. The VoC data and reporting can then be systematically funneled to
support these targeted outcomes and groups.
Although there are numerous ways in which VoC can be applied, we will focus on six of the most common
uses.
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PRIMARY VoC APPLICATIONS
Monitoring. Most companies monitor a few key VoC metrics, which they review on a periodic basis.
This is a good way to keep a pulse on the health of the customer relationship, to spot emerging trends
and track their progress, and to see how customer feedback relates to other key business metrics, like
sales volume and market share. It’s also a good way to compare the company’s results to competitive
benchmarks and industry norms.
It is common to display
VoC monitoring information
The first step is to identify the specific business
in the form of a dashboard,
where several key metrics
objectives the VoC program will drive and the specific
can be easily viewed side
stakeholders it will serve.
by side in graphical form.
These dashboards are
typically used by executives
and strategic leaders as part of their oversight of the business. In many cases, dashboards are also
shared with line managers, showing just the information that pertains to their level in the organization.
VoC dashboards generally combine high-level indicators from a variety of sources, such as surveys, calls
and social media, as well as a few operational and sales indicators, such as complaint volumes, first call
resolution rates, customer retention, and new accounts.
Alerts/Service Recovery. Many companies use VoC to identify specific customers with unresolved
complaints or problems, so that a representative can contact them and attempt to solve their issue.
An effective VoC alert system has several essential components: First, it identifies dissatisfied customers,
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along with their contact information. Second, it quickly relays the information to someone in the
organization who is accountable for following up. Third, it records and tracks the details of the follow-up
to make sure that some action was actually taken. Finally, it records the outcome of the action, so that the
company can continuously learn and improve its service recovery process.
A 2012 study by The Aberdeen Group reported that companies using automated alert systems
significantly out-perform their peers in the areas of customer retention, satisfaction and winning back lost
business. In fact, the study found that automated alerts was the single most effective use of VoC data,
based on its strong correlation to company growth.
Rewards and Recognition. VoC programs frequently supply data for employee rewards and recognition
as a way to encourage effective and consistent action on behalf of the customer. It creates accountability
for ensuring that customers are satisfied and encourages employees to go the extra mile for customers
when the opportunity arises.
VoC can be used for rewards and recognition at every level of the organization. Executives may have
high-level VoC metrics included in their key performance indicators, with a link to their bonus pay-out.
Mid-level line managers are often accountable for VoC results within their area of control, which may be
regions, districts or individual stores or contact centers. And it is becoming increasingly common to see
front-line employees held accountable for VoC results; with the use of transactional surveys, customer
feedback can often be attributed directly to individual employees.
Continuous Improvement. Another common use of VoC is to support disciplines such as LEAN, Six
Sigma and TQM. Collecting VoC is an integral part of all continuous improvement methodologies, and it’s
generally called for at every stage in the process. It is used to identify critical-to-customer requirements,
to uncover opportunities for process and product improvement, to provide data for pilot projects and test
labs, and to measure customer impacts from changes that are made to systems or services. It’s also used
as a control measure for monitoring customer satisfaction after a project has launched.
Training and Culture Building. VoC is used extensively in company training and internal
communications to help reinforce a customer-centric culture. Sometimes quantitative measures are used
in this context, but more often the actual words and stories of customers are shared in order to bring their
experiences to life for managers and employees. Customer feedback is regularly used in training content,
on-boarding documents, internal publications and intranet sites, team meeting guides, coaching sessions
and company promotional materials.
Insights and Deep Dives. Finally, VoC is used to develop a deeper understanding of what customers
want, how they think, and how they can be persuaded to do more business with the company. VoC data
can be used to test hypotheses, conduct root cause analyses, reveal emerging issues and trends, and
support post-mortem analyses. When linked with operational and financial data, it can also reveal the
relationship between customer experiences and business performance.
The VoC Team
These applications serve a wide range of stakeholders in every part of the organization. For this reason,
the teams that manage VoC programs tend to reside in corporate departments that have an enterprisewide scope. VoC teams often report to the Chief Customer Officer or Chief Experience Officer (CXO),
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a position that is becoming increasingly common as organizations create comprehensive customer
experience strategies. They may also reside within Corporate Services, Operational Excellence, or some
similar broad-based function.
The size of the team depends on the size and complexity of the
company, on how much data are available to work with, and on
the maturity of the program (VoC teams tend to get bigger over
time, as the demand for their services grow and they take on
more work). In a small company, the VoC function may be run
by one or two people. Bigger companies may have 20 or so,
although a range of 5 to 7 is more common.
Regardless of its size, an effective VoC team will encompass a
variety of skills and backgrounds. Some team members may be
able to fill several roles, but the group as a whole will need to
cover the entire skillset.
First, the team will need one or more data analysts. This role is
often filled by people with a market research background, as they
tend to be proficient with a variety of research methodologies and
familiar with consumer issues and language.
Second, someone will need project management expertise.
VoC teams tend to be involved in multiple projects and change
initiatives, either as leads or as subject matter experts.
Basic VoC Toolkit
On-line survey system
Busness Intellingence software
Dashboard tool
Statistics package
Desktop publishing / Graphics
software
Text analytics program
Client management skills are also important. This requires
the ability to understand the internal customers’ business practices and accountabilities, as well as to
learn their language. It also requires the ability to set realistic expectations and manage a pipeline of
stakeholder requests.
Next, it’s essential to have a technology expert on the team. This person should be able to access data
from many different sources, and put it into a usable form for the analysts and report writers. He or she
may also be asked to automate processes involving data management, analysis and report production.
It helps if this role is filled
by someone who already
has good relationships
VoC programs require a lot of political astuteness –
with other systems and
they ask for action and change, but have
data professionals in the
organization, as this makes
no real authority
it easier to build partnerships
with internal data suppliers.
The team will need to produce compelling reports for its customers, which means it will require someone
with journalistic skills. Old-style research reports were fine when most of the data was quantitative and
most of the readers were analysts. But nowadays VoC reports must take a more journalistic approach
to reach a wider audience and to bring the customer voice to life. For this reason, it is useful to have
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someone on staff with training in writing, layout and graphical design.
Finally, it’s important to hire someone with good diplomatic skills. VoC programs require a lot of political
astuteness, largely because they ask for action and change from their stakeholders, even though do not
hold any real authority. Relationships need to be forged, approvals gathered, and buy-in obtained from
stakeholders. The diplomatic role is often filled by team members with backgrounds in HR, organization
development or facilitation.
Organizational Alignment
Centralized VoC programs are served by a wide range of internal data suppliers, and they serve a wide
range of internal customers. Sitting between these two constituencies, the VoC team is a conduit through
which disparate, messy, and often confusing customer input is transformed into focused information that
is used to drive better business performance and improve the customer experience. To be successful, the
team must be able to obtain cooperation from its suppliers and buy-in from its customers.
VoC teams seldom directly manage all of the data sources they use in their work, and in some cases
they do not manage any of them. Rather, they are responsible for identifying the various data owners
within the company, and arranging to extract the information they need on a regular basis. Each of these
suppliers collects information for its own purposes, so the data may not be in a format that is easy for
the VoC team to use, or in a system that’s easy to access. It is thus essential for the team to build strong
partnerships and negotiate clear service level agreements with the various internal suppliers to ensure
that the data are delivered in the right format and at the right time.
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Ultimately, the success of the program will depend on having satisfied internal customers, which means
using VoC to help them meet their business objectives. One-size-fits-all reporting is not effective for
VoC; different customers will have different objectives and will need different information and insights.
Some will be accountable for increasing sales or market share, others for reducing complaints, improving
processes, or developing new products and services. VoC can help drive all of these outcomes, but the
analysis and reporting need to be appropriate for each internal customer.
Getting buy-in from stakeholders is essential. One way to do this is to conduct pilot projects in order
to provide proofs of concept. As stakeholders see clear evidence of the value of VoC, they’ll align
themselves more closely with the VoC team and become supporters of the program.
Path to Maturity
Every program is different, but there are some common characteristics of VoC programs in their early
stages, versus those that are more mature.
In early-stage VoC, it
is common to focus on
In the early stages, the team may spend most of its
surveys, and to produce
fairly simple reports using
time comiling data and updating reports, rather than
spreadsheets and charts.
directly helping stakeholders apply the information.
The team may spend
most of its time compiling
data and updating reports,
rather than directly helping stakeholders apply the information. The way that VoC is applied may be
limited to monitoring metrics and conducting service recovery. And early-stage programs tend to push
information out to the organization, rather than responding to requests for information from stakeholders.
As they mature, VoC programs begin to incorporate additional sources of data – from calls, emails, social
media and on-line rating sites. And as they begin to weave together information from new sources, the
reporting evolves from tables and charts to a more narrative, story-telling approach. Mature VoC teams
PROGRAM EVOLUTION
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often structure themselves as internal consultancies rather than report factories, and they begin producing
a wider range of research reports, internal communications, training materials and management tools.
Over time VoC is applied in new and different ways, often at the request of internal customers. And finally,
in mature VoC programs the dynamic shifts from push to pull, as the demand for information increases.
Keys to Success
Launching an enterprise VoC initiative requires significant effort and on-going commitment by
stakeholders throughout the organization. Following are a few points that may help to ensure a successful
effort:
• Start simple. Put a few key components in place and build from there. Over-complication is
one of the most common causes of early failure in VoC programs.
• Prove the concept. It helps to run pilots and gather success stories before rolling out a major
VoC initiative. Instead of launching with a big bang and creating unrealistic expectations, it is
better to have some solid wins in place first.
• Don’t let the tail wag the dog. Buy systems that meet well-defined VoC objectives, rather
than investing in the flavor of the month and then figuring out what to with it.
• Avoid whack-a-mole. It is easy to over-react to random bits of VoC information at the expense
of understanding the bigger picture – a risk that increases as you look at more unstructured,
text-based data, like social media. It takes discipline and clear priorities to make sure that the
team isn’t swept away by the sheer volume of incoming information.
• Expect the program to evolve. It is common to find that as stakeholders get used to having
high-quality VoC data, they will start asking for new types of information and reporting. It is also
common for VoC ratings to flatten out after a while, creating a need to find new ways to keep
making progress. It is best not get too tightly locked into a specific process, but rather to plan
for the program to change and grow over time.
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Summary and Conclusions
VoC Program Hallmarks
Centralized. An enterprise-wide
scope, serving a wide range of
internal customers.
Unified. Multiple sources of VoC
data are combined to provide a
complete view of the customer
experience.
Multi-purpose. The data are
applied in a variety of ways
to drive specific outcomes for
different stakeholders.
VoC is a fast-evolving discipline, driven by easier
access to customer feedback, better tools for
consolidating and analyzing data, and a growing
emphasis on customer experience strategy. To some
extent, the ability of organizations to manage and apply
VoC has not kept pace with the technological resources
available to them; many are still experimenting with
the most effective approach. The trend, however, is
clear: In the coming years VoC programs will play an
increasingly important role in the business practices of
successful companies.
Consultative. VoC teams are
invested in helping stakeholders
make the best use of VoC within
the context of their business
environment.
Journalistic. VoC reports bring
together multiple points of view
to tell a compelling story with a
clear call to action.
About the Author
Peter Gurney is a noted VoC expert, author and Senior Director of VoC Solutions at NetReflector. Mr. Gurney has more
than 25 years of experience and has held senior level customer experience and service roles at a variety of major
retailers and financial institutions. He is also a widely published author on the topic of customer care and experience,
and has been featured in articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Call Center Magazine, and others.
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