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When customers feel heard, they feel valued. This develops a sense of trust and loyalty towards the brand. By actively gathering feedback and acting upon it, you can demonstrate your commitment to improving and delivering a great experience at every interaction.
VoC strategy can help you nurture long-lasting relationships with customers and thrive in the competitive marketplace. In this article, we’ll look into several Voice of Customer examples and some common mistakes you should avoid maximizing the impact of the VoC program.
What is Voice of Customer ?
Voice of Customer, or VoC, is the process of gathering customer feedback in an attempt to identify any existing gaps between customer experience and customer expectations. The data gathered in VoC allows businesses to identify where customer grievances lie so that such gaps can be filled.
VoC programs are conducted differently in different organizations and there isn’t one correct way on how to conduct them. To reflect this, we’ve provided four examples to reflect how different organizations leverage their Voice of Customer program in a distinct way to reap the most benefits.
Examples of Voice of Customer
In order to better understand the concept of Voice of Customer, let’s take a look at a few examples of how different industries organizations in different industries leverage VoC to understand their customers and their expectations.
1. VoC in Subscription-First Ecommerce: Subbly
Subbly is a subscription-first e-commerce platform that successfully used VoC for product refinement. Subbly did so by creating an online page that is dedicated to gathering feedback from their customers. They often run surveys on pricing to understand how customers feel about their subscription plans. By constantly gathering data to hear their customers’ voices, Subbly is able to shape their product roadmap and decide which features to release.
2. VoC in Banking: Johannesburg Bank
The banking industry is a highly competitive space and banks must constantly change to keep up with customer expectations and rival banks. In this sector, it is very hard for organizations to keep their churn rate low due to competing organizations constantly introducing new and innovative ways to poach customers.
In order to remain competitive and reduce their customer churn rate, Johannesburg bank decided to use VoC and perform a comprehensive analysis on customer feedback across all their official channels, as well as social media. To do so, they used a hashtag-based campaign to gather feedback from customers regarding what they loved and hated about their bank. This campaign was able to generate two million pieces of feedback, which was sifted through to create custom categories that divided the feedback based on what bank service they were regarding (mobile banking, fees and charges, etc). Named Entity Recognition, or NER, was then used to conduct sentiment analysis by allocating sentiment scores to the different comments. These scores allowed the bank to identify which areas and issues needed their attention most.
3. VoC in Primary Healthcare: Nahdi Medical
Nahdi Medical is a major healthcare provider in Saudi Arabia. They leveraged a VoC program using survey documents and the feedback gathered from online forums. Once the data was gathered, sentiment analysis and text analytics were carried out to identify the different categories of feedback. After the feedback was clustered into different categories (by quality, convenience, price, etc), the result acquired was a highly detailed picture of Nahdi’s performance. This allowed Nahdi medical to identify gaps in CX and customer pain points so that these could be addressed effectively.
4. VoC in Insurance: Lawley
New York-based insurance firm Lawley used a Voice of Customer program by collecting customer feedback through NPS® (Net Promoter Score®) surveys. They used relationship NPS® surveys to measure customers’ overall perception of their brand, which enabled them to benchmark their NPS® score across different regions. By doing so, the organization was able to identify many different issues within the customer journey. They used this information to identify pain points and follow up with clients on their grievances before they could lose a large number of accounts. VoC helped Lawley improve customer service and prevent customer churn.
Voice of Customer: 6 mistakes to avoid
VoC strategy can be incredibly valuable for your business, but there are common mistakes that you should be aware of. We have listed down six such errors you should avoid to maximize the effectiveness of the Voice of Customer initiative.
1. Lacking clear objective:
Most often, brands don’t have a clear objective for their VoC program. A clear goal helps you guide the strategy effectively and efficiently, to align every step to the ultimate goal. Without a clear grasp of what you want to achieve by gathering customer feedback, you won’t be able to gather meaningful insights.
2. Not segmenting customers:
You might serve a broader audience, but ignoring customer segments can be a fatal mistake. You should leverage the feedback to segment customers based on preferences, needs, demographics, purchase behavior, etc. This will enable you to tailor surveys and feedback mechanisms to cater to specific segments. You can ensure that all the initiatives address the diverse needs of the customer base.
3. Relying on only a single feedback channel:
You should not over-rely on a single feedback channel to gather customer insights. This can limit your knowledge of customers and the overall population. Conduct focus groups to engage customers in discussions and gather their feedback via mobile offline surveys. Use phone survey software to conduct interviews. Leverage data from customer support interactions.
Make sure to use multiple channels to gather customer feedback and data to get a comprehensive understanding of the Voice of Customers.
4. Not closing the feedback loop:
This step involves communicating with the respondents how you plan to use their feedback and what actions to be taken. Brands often overlook this step. However, closing the feedback loop helps demonstrate your commitment to making meaningful changes.
It’s a best practice to share improvements, resolutions, and updates with the survey respondents and keep the communication transparent.
5. Not acting on the feedback:
You need to show customers how their feedback has made a difference. Customers put effort and dedicate their time to offer you their insights, not taking action based on those feedback will show them that you don’t care about their opinion. Ignoring taking action can lead to a loss of trust.
Use survey software that enables you to analyze data, uncover insights, and act on them in a timely manner.
6. Failing to involve employees:
You need to share the voice of customers across the entire workforce and not just among the leaders. Every employee can benefit from customer insights and optimize decision-making to drive customer-centric initiatives.
Not involving or engaging employees in your VoC program will hinder the organization’s ability to align internal and external business processes.
Avoid these mistakes to improve customer satisfaction and drive business growth using a robust VoC strategy. Listen, act, and engage your audience and boost loyalty.
Takeaways
VoC analysis can be leveraged by organizations in many different ways, using many different techniques, to understand customer sentiment. When conducted effectively, Voice of Customer analysis can provide organizations with actionable insights that can be used to meet customer expectations and effectively reduce churn.
It is a strategy that offers a direct channel for customers to express their opinions and for you to listen to their unfiltered experiences. By leveraging survey software and data analysis tools, you can gather and analyze vast amounts of customer feedback to align your offerings with customer preferences and deliver a great experience.
FAQs on Voice of Customer
What is the voice of the customer?
The VoC process or Voice of the Customer refers to the strategy of gathering customers’ feedback and opinion regarding a product, service, or brand. The strategy involves actively listening to what customers are saying and using the insight to take effective initiatives that improve customer satisfaction.
What are examples of VoC products?
Some examples of VoC products or methods are:
- Surveys
- Interviews
- Focus groups
- Customer feedback
- Customer journey mapping
What are the 4 types of customers?
The four types of customers you may come across in the business are:
- Loyal customers – Those who choose your brand consistently.
- Price-sensitive customers – The customers who make purchase decisions based on the price.
- Impulsive customers – Buyers who make spontaneous purchases.
- Nedd-based customers – Consumers who purchase depending on their needs or problems they want to address.
What are the 4 main customer needs?
The four main customer needs generally include the following:
- Functional need – Buyers need products/services that resolve a problem or meet a specific function.
- Emotional need – Consumers seek products that evoke positive emotions.
- Social need – They desire services and products that help them fit in and meet social expectations.
- Personalization need – Customers want their experience to cater to their unique needs and preferences.
What is the purpose of VoC?
The purpose of the Voice of Customers program is to listen, understand and meet customer expectations. The strategy enables you to make informed decisions and prioritize improvements based on customer feedback. This allows you to develop customer-centric strategies that boost customer satisfaction, drive loyalty, and gain competitive advantage.
What is a Voice of Customer interview?
A Voice of Customer interview refers to a one-on-one conversation between a company rep. And a customer. The aim is to gather detailed insights about the customers’ experience with the brand and its offerings.
The interview provides and opportunity to dig deep into the concerned topics, understand customers motivations and pain points that can help you share your business strategies.
