VOICE OF CUSTOMERS (VOC)- WHY SHOULD IT MATTER TO YOU?

WHAT IS VOC?

Today's consumers are demanding more than ever before, thanks to the era of instant gratification. In order to meet customer expectations, brands are increasingly investing in Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs.

Voice of the Customer (VOC) refers to what customers have to say about a business, product, or service - which includes the Bad, the good and the Ugly.

Customer voice (VOC) is a way to describe what your customers think about your products and services, and how they experience them. Customers' needs, expectations, understandings, and product improvement are the focus of this process.

Getting a better understanding of and meeting customer needs and expectations can help businesses make better products and services. A Voice of the Customer program provides insight into customer preferences, complaints, and problems. Customer loyalty and satisfaction can be improved by identifying and responding to the Voice of the Customer.

In technical terms VOC refers to a complete set of customer wants and needs:

• Expressed in the customer’s own language;

• Organised the way the customer thinks about, uses, and interacts with the product and service;

• Prioritised by the customer in terms of both importance and performance.

BENEFITS OF UNDERSTANDING THE VOICE OF CUSTOMER

VOC has been a popular addition to how a company operates and develops its products and services to adjust to the customer's actual needs. Here are the top 7 benefits that you can expect as a company :

• Faster improvements in your customer experience

• Proactive reputation management

• Innovate faster than your competition

• Create brand advocates and superfans

• Improved retention

• Increased ROI on marketing

• Vastly better employee retention

WHY VOC?

When implemented correctly, a Voice of Customer (VOC) program can:

• Identify and alert you to dissatisfied customers who are likely to leave

• Lead the way to future growth

• Encourage employees to frame their decisions with a "customer first" mentality

• Create a private feedback system for customers, and prevent negative feedback from going public

HOW TO USE VOC?

VOC is an effective tool for product development and quality assurance. Voice of Customer (VOC) programs can identify dissatisfied customers and those who may leave immediately, act as a leading indicator of future growth, and help employees make decisions from the "customer first" perspective. There are several ways you can implement a VOC framework into your company depending on how your company functions. Here is a simple 4 step VOC program outline you can apply right now is

1. Gather customer data and measure them using NPS scores. Also include qualitative data from live interactions or other survey events.

2. Analyse the score and detect what is satisfactory to the customers and what is not.

3. Act on the analysis and deploy corrective actions through your product/service development team to rectify product/service flaws. Call customers for suggestions for improvement.

4. Communicate the changes to your employees as well as customers and monitor the improvements.

ENGAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES

Getting a new customer costs an organisation five times as much as keeping an existing one. We can't emphasise enough how important it is to retain existing customers over acquiring new ones. Understanding your customers is a methodical, in-depth process. Here are a few techniques you can use:

• Net Promoter Score® (Surveys)

• Customer Interviews

• Online Customer Surveys

• Online Customer Reviews

• Dedicated Feedback Form

• Website Behaviour

• Recorded Call Data

• In-Person Surveys

• Focus Groups

• Emails

• Live Chat

• Social Media

• Ethnographic study and more…

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE METRICS

To understand customers various procedures have been formulated and are still being formulated to adapt to the changing consumer market and technologies. Here are some metrics that are calculated to quantify the consumer experience:

• Net promoter score (NPS)

NPS = % promoters - % detractors.

• Customer Loyalty Index (CLI)

CLI= NPA+RPR+ UR / 3

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

CSAT = Cumulative Score/ Total number of respondents

• Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR)

RPR= Customers who repeated their purchase / Total customers

• Upsell Ratio (UR)

UR= Customers buying more than one type of product/ Customer who brought one type of product

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV= (Avg. Purchase value - Avg. purchase frequency) *Avg. Customer lifespan

• Customer Engagement Score

Customer Engagement Score= % input / Total occurrences

• Redemption Rate (RR)

RR=Total coupons redeemed / Total coupons issues

• Active Engagement Rate (AER)

AER= Number of customers who engaged / Total customers

• Participation Rate (PR)

PR= Number of loyalty program members/ Total customers

• Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES= Cumulative customer effort scores/ Total responses

• Customer Churn Rate

Customer Churn Rate= (Customers at month start- Customers at month end)/ Customers at month start

• Customer Retention Rate

Customer retention rate = (Customers you have at the end of the period - Customers during that period)/Customers you have at the start of the period

WHY NPS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT METRIC IN VOC?

NPS among all others is the most popular and important metric. It provides insight into the most wanted information regarding customers, that is- How many of the customers will sell their products for them by word of mouth and recommendations. Although it has a certain gravity to it in the VOC world it cannot be used everywhere. Here are few advantages and disadvantages of NPS :

Advantages of Net Promoter Score (NPS):

• Using NPS, you can determine whether or not you will receive repeat business.

• A brand or organization can use it to understand its direction for change and improvement.

• The implementation of an NPS survey is quick and cost-effective.

Disadvantages of Net Promoter Score (NPS):

• The NPS question does not allow the organization to understand the reasons behind the responses of customers.

Even though NPS surveys ask a customer about their likelihood of recommending a brand, it does not necessarily mean that the customer will remain loyal. It is here that CES comes into play to analyze customer loyalty, but that's a separate story.

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

To gather the data from the customers, questions need to be formulated that helps to capture customer experience in as short a time as possible. To obtain this the right questions need to be asked to the consumers. Here are some question examples to include in your survey:

• [NPS]: How likely are you to recommend this solution to your peers?

• [NPS]: How likely are you to recommend this store to your friends or family?

• [CSAT]: How satisfied were you with your onboarding experience?

• [CSAT]: How satisfied were you with our checkout process?

• [CES]: The website made it easy for me to compare options.

• [CES]: The support reps made it easy to get my questions answered.

• [CLI]: How likely are you to recommend our services?

• [CLI]: How well do our customer support team answer your questions?

As you’ve gathered, you should start by asking yourself the question:

What’s the goal of my customer experience strategy?

1. Asking customers for CSAT feedback every step of the way when you're undertaking an overhaul of your products and services can help you decide in real-time whether the changes are worth making.

2. If you wish to understand customer loyalty and how your brand is perceived in general, you can use NPS or CLI.

3. In order to identify and improve areas of customer friction, CES is the way to go.

It is important to use a combination of these methods in order to gain the most comprehensive picture of customer sentiment. Occasionally, you may need to experiment with multiple metrics to determine which provides the most insightful, actionable feedback for your business.

ENDNOTE

VOC is a very important tool for today's high growth companies. Getting live feedback on what customers need, helps companies to make better products and provide faster resolutions. The frequent update to the products thus help companies to earn more and reduce losses faster as compared to pre VOC times. Rising popularity of social media platforms have made consumers feel entitled to better services. Companies now have changed their strategy to releasing an MVP and then creating an update plan that takes into account the feedback from the customers over the lifetime of the product. It is highly expected for VOC to be given more importance in the future as it has the scope to work intimately with the development process of any product or services that may develop in the future. A business cannot run if there are no buyers for it and for the buyers to buy a product/service, the product/service should solve the problems of the buyers. It is that simple. It opens up a clear line of communication between the seller and the user and thus, in no logic, has an expiration date.