• May 25, 2021
• by fsadvertising

We always love happy customers, isn't it? We need to have a voice of the customer (VoC) program in place in order to understand if we are able to satisfy our customers or not. If you have an active and planned VoC program, you can gauge the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts and can thereby improve your products or services.

So let us understand what VoC is and how it will improve customer relationships.

What is the voice of the customer and why is it important?

Voice of the customer is a market research terminology used for the process of collecting, analyzing and implementing customer feedback data. The data collected from surveys and reviews will be analyzed and sent to various departments. The voice of the customer program is advantageous because multiple departments can understand their customer better and can make changes to their product and customer experience. For example, a car manufacturer might want to know what colour their next car would be. With the help of a VoC program, the company can collect data from customers on their preferences which would help the company make an appropriate decision.

What are the 3 main stages of a successful VoC program?

In order to understand the customer mindset, you need to ask the right questions. The questions may vary according to the department's needs.

Let us try to understand the various stages of the voice of the customer.

VoC stage 1: Collection

Yelp and TripAdvisor are some of the platforms from which you can learn about your customer experience by collecting feedback. You can also collect feedback by conducting surveys and customer interviews. But one thing to be noted is that your customers are not just present on one platform but are on multifarious platforms and hence you must try exploring and finding out about it in detail. You need to do some research and try to find out where your customers are voicing their opinions and which platforms they are engaging on.

VoC stage 2: Analysis

In this stage, you merge purge the collected data and do a detailed analysis of it. The respective department then looks out for commonalities within the collected data. After they thoroughly go through the data, they draw conclusions and further plan to improve their branding or marketing or might even think about making certain tweaks and changes to their existing product/service.

VoC stage 3: Implementation

Once you have collected the data and analyzed the data properly, now you need to make decisions or create a plan for implementation. You can create social media personas by analysing customer behaviour. From the collected feedback, you can even think about making changes to your product or service.

Voice of customer data collection techniques

There are multiple ways to collect VoC data. We might have come across these methods at various instances wherein we might have shared our opinions and feedback about any products or services. But now with the help of modern technology, collecting data has become easier. Collecting data instantaneously when the customer experiences are fresh in the customers' minds helps companies to get honest and genuine results. For example, if you want to know how a movie or an event was for an attendee, you need to collect data using survey forms which will help you get immediate feedback which is more effective than doing the survey at a later period of time. You need to take immediate follow-ups in order to get the most appropriate and relevant results.

Social Listening and Social Media

Social listening is nothing but observing and monitoring the conversations and trends happening around your brand. With social listening, you can understand the needs and wants of your customers, monitor your competitors etc. Social listening helps you make informed decisions. There are advanced tools for social listening which will help you get deeper insights into your customers' needs and preferences.

Surveys

A survey is a method used to research and collect data from a predetermined group of people in order to gain information and insights about a topic. Surveys can be conducted in a lot of different ways and it depends on the methodology chosen and the study's goal. It is a process where you ask people for information through a questionnaire either online or offline.

Online customer reviews

Online customer reviews are very important for brands and their reputation because reviews help people understand how good or bad the brand is. Reviews need not be on your official website but could also be hosted on external review sites. For industries like mobile phones, electronics, food and beverage and hospitality, reviews are extremely important and companies strive to build a reputation today.

Live Chat

With live chat, your customers can communicate with customer service representatives in real-time. Rather than having a telephonic conversation, your customer can chat and interact with your agent on your website in real-time. Live chat is a convenient and easy option and you can get solutions and troubleshoot your problems real quick. It is a great alternative to phone calls and emails and you only need to type the message inside the chatbox and send it to which you will get an instantaneous response with a solution or suggestion.

Customer interviews

If you want answers to specific questions, you need to conduct customer interviews. You just need to pick the customers you want to ask questions and you need to analyze their answers in order to make important business decisions.

The satisfaction of your customers is important for the success of your brand. You can solicit responses from your customers even if you don't have a customer care support team in place. There are several ways to get responses and we have discussed it here. Futurescape advertising can help you set up chatbots or automated messaging for your business.