In an increasingly broad, competitive and volatile environment, orienting business strategies and processes to meet the needs of our customers has become a priority. How can we provide customers with exactly what they need? We talk about the Voice of the Customer (VoC) method.
Digitalisation and the vibrancy of the market have contributed to the increase in offer, meaning that today's customers have many more options to choose from. They also have more information, not only about the products and/or services offered by brands, but also about less tangible aspects related to companies' image, values and background.
All this outlines a scenario in which consumers have higher standards and companies must strive to meet the new demands of their clients, which go far beyond the quality of the products or services purchased, giving greater importance to the customer experience (CX).
Fortunately for businesses, customers are not the only ones to enjoy a wider range of information. Organisations also have more information about their customers, multiplying their chances of providing them with what they need and increase satisfaction levels.
Today, not responding to customers' needs, pain points, demands and aspirations has no excuse. By actively listening to the voice of our customers (VoC), we can refine our commercial proposition, meet customer expectations and establish avenues for continuous improvement.
"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." - Bill Gates.
In business, the voice of the customer (VoC) refers to the expression of concerns, doubts, complaints, wishes or suggestions by consumers in relation to a brand or company.
Listening to the voice of the customer is a business research methodology that encompasses the application of multiple techniques aimed at detecting and describing our clients' needs, complaints, preferences, concerns and expectations, whether they are existing or potential customers.
Today, customers have many communication channels through which they can express their opinions. Obviously, organisations must pay attention and respond to the messages formulated by customers directly —through comments or reviews, for example— but the voice of the customer (VoC) method goes a step further and includes processes that aim to gain a deeper understanding of customer concerns through the active search of information that contributes to the improvement of both the commercial offer and the customer experience.
Active listening to the voice of the customer merges quantitative and qualitative research. A clear example of quantitative research is the collection of customer data, data analysis and its transformation into insights.
In this sense, capturing, integrating, processing and analysing consumer data is the first step of the VoC method.
Today, practically all companies comply with this part of listening to the voice of the customer (VoC). However, in order to obtain optimal results and increase customer satisfaction rates; once the data has been processed, we should complement the information obtained from the data analysis with qualitative techniques such as surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, etc.
On the other hand, the voice of the customer (VoC) revolves around a series of core questions that companies should be able to answer through the aforementioned techniques and market research. Some of the most significant are:
Answering these and many other questions translates into the identification of variables that foster the creation of avenues for development and increased customer satisfaction, as well as many other competitive advantages that we explore in depth below.
In a context where more and more companies are striving to be customer-centric —putting the customer at the centre of business decisions and strategies— knowing the customer better is already enough of a benefit in itself.
However, companies invest time, resources and effort in this method because, in addition to promoting other customer-centric practices such as customer segmentation, the generation of intelligence from VoC serves many other purposes.
According to research by Aberdeen Group, companies that listen to the voice of their customers increase their annual revenue 10 times more than companies that do not.
What else can the Voice of the Customer (VoC) method do for us?
1. Customer retention and loyalty
Customer retention has become one of companies' big concerns, since experts confirm that acquiring a new customer is 5 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer.
In relation to this, actively listening to what our existing customers have to say and responding to their warnings, adapting our offer and customer experience to their demands or suggestions is one of the most effective ways to increase their satisfaction and, consequently, increase our customer loyalty and retention rate.
No matter how wide the market offer is, it is highly probable that a satisfied customer loyal to a corporate identity will not leave a company, even when the competition offers a lower price.
2. Improving corporate identity
Nowadays corporate identity has more to do with brands' real values —those that translate into concrete, demonstrable actions— and customer experience than our logo or the values we have on our website.
As we pointed out in our article on marketing strategies for the new mass audience, millennials, younger customers give great importance to brand identity, purpose and social values.
Therefore, paying attention to these aspects and worrying about finding out what values and concerns move the customer is the key for organisations to start adapting their identity to the new times while building a stronger relationship with their audience.
3. Identifying changes in consumption patterns and customer behaviour
Listening to the voice of the customer enables organisations to gain valuable qualitative and quantitative information about the consumption patterns and behaviour of their customers. This, in turn, reduces the time it takes for a business to adapt to change and allows companies to better adapt their business strategies to new customer trends.
4. Personalised offer and customer experience
Listening to the voice of the customer actively encourages the personalisation of the products and services we offer, as well as the customer experience we provide to customers, or the content and marketing campaigns.
The personalisation of content and experiences is one of the main strategies of today's brands.
5. Early detection of a potential brand crisis
Talking to customers, analysing their behaviour and worrying about the things that bother them is the first step to early detection of any negative aspects that we may have generated in order to solve them as soon as possible and avoiding a possible brand crisis or losing clients.
Paying attention to the customers' pain points and the frictions they encounter during the purchasing process is as or more important than paying attention to the elements that make them happy.
Listening to the voice of the customer (VoC) is the basis of the customer-centric perspective. Caring about customers and taking into account their needs, problems and desires goes far beyond data analysis and is embodied in a research method that includes numerous techniques, both qualitative and quantitative. All of them pursue the same goal: to offer the customer what they want, how they want it, through an optimal experience and generating great satisfaction.