It is well known that if a business wants to know its bottom line, it must first assess the current performance of its business. Based on that, businesses get comparative statistics against the future results of their business. Which basically makes it easy to understand the needs of customers, market conditions and end product requirements. Through which the business can improve its products. But it is also important to understand what the business has?
Businesses may have a lot of information about customers, or they may have little information.
Both of these situations are similar, meaning that there is a challenge for the business.
How much information? It is not important, how meaningful and actionable the information is.
Hence the voice of the customer, which allows us to directly understand the customer’s needs, preferences, and end application requirements. Which can be known from general data and analysis.
What is Voice of Customer (VOC)?
In simple words, this is a method through which the business checks the needs and expectations of the customers and understands what needs to be improved in the product. In this, the business interacts and communicates directly with the customer, in which the actual experience of the customer interaction will be recorded. Which will be a complete graph of the current requirements and feedback received from the customer.
“A Voice of the customer (VoC) is a product review in the form of feedback from a customer, including the customer’s requirements for the end application, and their Point of view about product.”
Voice of the Customer (VOC) helps in understanding and analyzing not only current needs, but also potential future needs. Analysis is necessary to keep up with the changing situation, new technologies and market dynamics. Using Voice of the Customer:
The Voice of the customer (VOC) refers to the process of obtaining customers’ opinions, needs, and perceptions through various means, such as surveys, customer interviews, and focus groups.
This information is used by organizations to improve their products, services and overall customer experience.
VOC may also refer to feedback and comments provided by customers through various channels such as social media, customer service interactions and product reviews.
The goal of VOC is to understand the customer’s perspective and use that information to drive business decisions and improvements.
- We can clearly understand all types of needs of every customer.
- Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of every business, it is natural that by understanding the needs of the customers, the business determines its priorities and goals.
- As with any for-profit business naturally requires understanding and determining customer needs.
In short, a business needs to first listen to what the customer has to say and act on the feedback they give.
What are the methods for VOCs?
Herein, Several methods are used to collect the VOC, including:
Surveys:
In today’s digital age, more emphasis is placed on surveys online. A VOC can also be conducted over the phone or in person. A wide range of topics, such as satisfaction with the product, likelihood to recommend it to others, and overall experience can be designed to gather information.
Interview:
Customer interview, you can do in any way – you can arrange to interview individual or group of customers if you want. When interviewing a customer, try and insist on gathering more and more in-depth information.
Discussion with a small group of clients:
In this type of collection, business customers are invited, small groups of customers are formed and a specific topic or product, service or other issue is discussed. Especially creating groups that have similar experiences of customers, and collecting feedback from customers.
Social Media:
With the rise of social media, many organizations now use platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get feedback and comments from customers.
This type of VOC allows organizations to gather real-time information on what customers are saying about them. In particular, it can be used to identify trends and patterns.
Once all the data is collected, it is very important for the business to analyze the data. VOC can be used to improve products, services and the overall customer experience by identifying patterns and trends in the analysis of this data and making decisions based on that information. Overall, VOC is an essential process for organizations that want to understand their customers and improve their business.
How to create a strategy for Voice of the Customer?
When you think seriously about the voice of the customer, you realize that there must be an accurate and solid strategy that can turn the voice of the customer into decisive and important results at every stage of the planning process. Under these schemes businesses will collect the voice of customers and use it to make improvements based on their feedback. The main components of all these processes are as follows:
Goals and Objectives
Naturally, in the core of any plan, the goals and objectives of that strategy are displayed. Because it is very important to understand in which direction the business will actually go and which improvements will lead to customer satisfaction.
Information gathering
This is also an important process in which the business does not have to perform significant tasks. It is also important to understand what and how information is to be collected from the customer. Redundant information affects the results of the analysis. Planning This part emphasizes the methods of gathering business information and strategizes accordingly.
Analysis and interpretation of data
In fact the analysis and interpretation of data is also directly linked to the data gathering part. Because, when the business collects and analyzes the information, the necessary information has to be organized. Also one has to analyze and interpret various groups of information. In which specific types of metrics, KPIs, as well as analysis for customer satisfaction are considered important.
Action plan and implementation
The strategy here is to create an accurate profile based on the information collected. In which important decisions have to be made. Such as, based on which information, which processes need improvement, or which product changes are required. Along with that, if the business wants to put a new product in the market, then based on this part, it can make necessary changes in it.
Continuous improvement
One thing to understand is that the strategy should include a plan for continuous improvement, so that the effects on the product or other processes, customer satisfaction and any necessary changes can be implemented on a regular basis.
Communication and Collaboration:
It is very important for any business to be constantly connected with customers. So that accurate information about the changing needs of the customers, and their attitude is regularly received. Also to ensure through which means and which persons will carry out these processes.
Overall, the VOC strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how the organization will collect, analyze, and act on customer feedback to improve the customer experience and drive business growth.
What is voice of the customer and voice of the process?
Here, understand the difference & similarity between both VOC and VOP, given below:
| VOC | VOP |
|---|---|
| Focuses on gathering the voice of external customers. | Focuses on gathering feedback from internal customers such as employees, partners, and internal stakeholders. |
| VOC is focused on understanding the customer’s perspective. | VOP is focused on understanding internal processes and identifying opportunities for improvement. |
| Information from customers is used by businesses to improve their products, services, and overall customer experience. | The feedback obtained in this is then used to identify areas of improvement in internal processes, procedures, and systems. |
Both VOC and VOP are really important for a business. Because they take into account the interests of external customers and internal customers based on the understanding of both perspectives.
The information obtained through this makes it easier to use the information to make business decisions and improvements.
Based on information from both VOC and VOP, businesses can gain a comprehensive view of customer experience and processes, making it possible for them to identify and address problems and opportunities for improvement.
How is VOC beneficial to business?
Voice of the customer is a practical system, taking the business out of its assumptions, thoughts and beliefs to present a real picture of what the customer expects from the business. In my view, Voice of the Customer is a critical method to understand customer needs.
- Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of every business. It is likely to be accomplished only if the needs of the customers are well understood. Customer satisfaction can only be achieved by developing relationships with customers, through which customers have good perceptions of the business and benefit from “word of mouth advertising”.
- By this you can increase the retention rate.
- Whether you want to improve a product or launch a new product in the market, it is important to understand what the customer wants. Obviously, business is for profit, so business decisions are facilitated by VOC.
- If there is a complete understanding of what the customer wants, can the business also understand what we have to do? In short, a business can make its internal processes more reliable and efficient.
Analysis of customer requirements
- A group of customers. By this the business can easily understand what type of user, how and where their product is being used. This makes it easy to analyze the various needs of the customers.
- Customer information. Here the customer information is collected, which is categorized by the types of information and information obtained through different sources.
- Using the Kano method. In fact, it is a tool by which to understand what characteristics the customer has towards the product, which is really meaningful.
- Critical to Quality (CTQ) – Facilitates how customer requirements are converted into product or service characteristics.
A group of customers
When you are analyzing the voice of the customer, it is extremely important who is being analyzed. That is why segmenting each customer into groups gives a true picture of the situation as each customer is different. which establishes distinct values for the business.
Let us take an example here, where a steel pipe manufacturing company segments its customers as illustrated in the table below:
| CUSTOMER GROUP | ZONE | SEGMENT | PRIORITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| AHT | South | Boiler Tubes | Low |
| MSS | South | Heat Exchanger | High |
| MST | North | Boiler Tubes | Medium |
| SST | North | Condenser Tubes | Low |
| MM | North | Boiler Tubes | Medium |
The objective behind this process is to determine which group actually brings the most value to the business. Here we can clearly see in the above example, the highest value is found in the hit exchanger segment. Thus, the business becomes clear as to which group needs to focus more.
This is just a general example, but the actual analysis can be more complex than this, which can be difficult to understand and analyze. So, for segmentation a few points have to be understood. like:
- Group each group according to its characteristics, and understand the effects of how this group of consumers perceives the product.
- If necessary, also group products that are similar.
- Prepare an outline of each segment, which will help in this task.
- The business should describe the representatives of each segment engaged in.
- Document the results obtained which may be useful for analyzing other products or a second time.
Customer information.
Collecting information about customers is an important task, which should be combined with sales information to provide in-depth information about customer interaction, feedback, and their final application.
The source of information can be any such as interview, phone call, online feedback form etc… It is not necessarily how you collect the information; it is important what is in the information? And how to analyze it. Because this collected information can be used to understand what the customer actually wants.
Using the Kano method.
Kano’s model is an analysis process that analyzes the product based on customer information to ensure that a product is not offered with overrated features that are not really important to the customer. Which is important to reduce the risk. In this method, customer needs are grouped into three categories. A Mandatory Requirements, Variable Requirements and Specific Requirements. About which you can get complete information on the article about KANO model.
Critical to Quality (CTQ).
First of all, it should be understood that what is important for quality? This describes the characteristics required for quality to address customer needs that point to factors that are characteristic and measurable factors.
To do this we first have to collect information from the customer, and convert that information into deliverables. Along with this, using affinity diagram to shorten the information, and to make the information socially usable by rotating it as needed. with that:
- Defining customer requirements.
- Setting measurable goals and tolerances.
- It should be ensured that there is no gap left.
- Understand that the information is directly related to the product.
An example of voice of the customer?
Here we will take an example of Voice of Customer (VOC) in action, assuming a business that manufactures and sells hair oil.
A business conducts a survey to get feedback from consumers who use hair oil.
The survey may ask questions about the customer’s hair type, the overall effectiveness of the hair oil. At the same time, it can also know whether the customers will recommend the product to others about their oil or not.
Based on the results of the survey, the business can find that customers with dry hair are not satisfied with the hair oil, so they can easily make decisions to improve the product to better suit the needs of those customers.
Businesses can also conduct focus groups with customers who have used the hair oil, to get more in-depth feedback on their experience. This type of discussion can provide more qualitative information about the hair oil, such as how consumers feel about the scent, stickiness, and packaging.
They can also review their social media accounts and websites to see what customers are saying about the oil.
They can see if customers are unhappy with the price of the hair oil, so they can decide to adjust the price or offer a promotion to make the product more affordable.
Overall, using VOC data, businesses can make informed decisions about how to improve their hair oils, better meet customer needs, and increase customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Voice of the customer is helpful in keeping customers engaged with the business. By this the preferences and needs of the customers can be understood easily and accurately. Yes, the business has to do some exercise that pays off in the long run. In particular, listen to customers, collect information, analyze information and improve products, processes or necessary locations based on that information.