The Voice of the Customer (VOC) program and its role in improving customer experience (CX)

The Voice of the Customer (VOC) program and its role in improving customer experience (CX)

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If a company wants to improve its bottom line and increase repeat business, it must listen to its customers. They must connect with the customer's concerns and pay attention to the customer's voice. According to market research data, by establishing a strong customer voice (VOC) program, companies are achieving the following business benefits:

 
 
10X
greater increases in annual revenue
55%
greater rates in customer retention
23%
decrease in customer service costs
292%
greater rates in employee engagement
 
 

Since a product or service’ success is wholly tied to a happy customer, the impact of voice of customer research, that includes thorough and repetitive analysis, ensures that every aspect of customer experience is served.

Companies in every industry across the globe are working towards increasing brand loyalty and sales since the market is expanding, rather over pouring, with competition. Customers are seeking more than just the end product or service. To ensure stable growth in both these factors, brands are taking customer experience management (CXM) head-on. According to research, terrible customer experience (CX) costs US businesses approximately $83 billion per year in lost revenue due to defections and abandoned orders. People are also twice as likely to talk about a negative experience as opposed to a good one. Customers solely own the power today and customer experience hits two touch points – the people and the product to please them.

CX and CXM lead by carefully crafted CX strategies are constantly updated and worked upon using multiple metrics such as:

  • Customer Effort Score
  • Customer Complaints
  • Customer Churn Rate
 
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • Customer Journey Touchpoints
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS)
 

The research data, by global research and advisory companies, given below demonstrates why customer experience across multiple channels is important to businesses.

  • A company incurs a loss of $289 average annually when a customer relationship is lost to a competitor or abandoned
  • Poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 Billion loss by US enterprises each year because of defections and abandoned purchases.
  • +40% Customers who engage with companies over social media spend 20% to 40% more money with those companies than other customers.
  • 89% consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.
  • 73% of firms trust recommendations from friends and family, while only 19% trust direct mail.
  • 63%  of online adults are less likely to buy from the same company via other purchase channels if they experienced a problem with a transaction on their mobile phones.
  • 86% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience.
  • 50% Of consumers give a brand only one week to respond to a question before they stop doing business with them.
  • 46% of customers were pleased when an organization responded to their negative comments.
  • 24% of customers that had unsatisfactory service interactions shared their experiences on social media platforms.
  • 94% consumers will buy products from a company that they read or hear good remarks about from others.
  • 26% of companies have a well-developed strategy in place for improving customer experience.

Customer experience management helps in analyzing customer satisfaction survey results, identifying the rate of and reasons for customer churn, directly asking customers for product/feature requests, analyzing customer support ticket trends and other factors which essentially reach the root cause for discrepancies. Among other techniques in customer experience, the Voice of Customer (VoC) is a research method that is used to collect customer feedback. VoC research helps brands find out what customers feel about their services, products and business in general; giving you a healthy insight on what can be changed for a better customer experience. VoC ensures that customer needs, customer satisfaction and product improvement are focused upon based on the customer’s feedback.

The Voice of the Customer program uses sentiment analysis, textual analytics and technology with enormous amounts of data from customer feedback to improve how a customer interacts with a company and work on effective communication that builds a positive image. The various stages of VoC program includes capturing customer feedback, analyzing the sentiment, visualize the data through reports and acting on the recommendations . VoC has become a core strategy for businesses across the globe all in the need for decoding the complex decision-making process of a customer. 8 out of 10 companies say that they lose sales because of bad customer engagement.

Why is Voice of Customer necessary for your business?

Customer experience management, specifically the voice of customer is more than vague surveys that are taken to tally out tasks. The VoC program actually listens to every need of the customer and while it expands on the aspects that customers enjoy it also gets to the root of the issues that the customers are facing. The lack of a VoC strategy directly impacts the future of the company because of the competitive markets that surround us today. Not following the VoC program results is increasing churn whereas adapting to it brings in not only happy customers but also potential customers.

Through VoC, companies can engage and connect with customers the way they want to be connected and engaged with. It also helps you spot crises at its birth, evaluates new ideas and solutions, customizes add-ons/products/services, increases customer retention and serves the customers with the solutions they need. It is imperative that companies know how their consumers feel and talk about the company and based on that provide stronger customer experience for which VoC is an unavoidable touchpoint. VoC customer feedback shifts its focus from age-old collective data to individual data acknowledging each customer and the change that they are looking forward to. It brings forth a strategy that includes the entire company and all its silos to work towards a single goal. It is a coordinated outlook to improve customer experience, solving challenges and driving maximum results to the company’s goals.

The end goal of a company or brand irrespective of its product or service is Customer success. The voice of customer program pays specific attention to customer success which helps customers achieve their desired results while using a product. The feedback that a customer provides is valuable and will directly resonate to whether or not they will buy it again based on what they were expecting. VoC finds a credible place in customer success because it is important to give the customer a satisfactory journey from the start to the finish – sales to marketing to product development. VoC eventually enhances customer success because the individual approach towards customer feedback helps Customer Success Managers (CSM) work effectively towards their goals.

Our CX solutions are focused on transforming the total customer experience through surveys, metrics, analytics and auditing by using the CXM framework to combine physical measurements with digital Platformation™ capabilities. We are committed to finding the right customer experience strategy that can lead to a competitive advantage.

Sonata GBW is a global technology company specialising in customer experience CX measurement, platform-based digital transformation, supporting businesses to become connected, open, intelligent and scalable. Global coverage of more than 105 markets with over 27 years of market leadership through extensive measurement capabilities, powerful and intuitive reporting and analytics platforms give us the leverage to improve customer experience. It has presence across USA, Canada, EMEA and APAC regions. If you would like to know more about how we can assist you, please fill out the business enquiry form below.