Voice of the Customer Analytics

What is Voice of the Customer Analytics?

Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a research model for collecting customer feedback. VoC helps you bridge the gap between what customers expect from your business and the actual experience they receive. VoC analytics is the systematic method of examining that feedback to unlock business value. You can use VoC analytics to spot trends in customer behavior, purchasing patterns and more. This can help you build a closer bond with your customers to boost retention.


VoC analytics helps you:

  •   Assess the customer experience via defined metrics.
  •   Optimize business decision-making and operational processes.
  •   Improve customer interaction across different platforms.
  •   Understand how customers feel about your business, product or service.
  •   Drive revenue growth.
  •   Improve customer service management.

The Components of Voice of the Customer (VoC) Analytics

There are four key components to any successful VoC analytics program. You need to factor these into your planning, data gathering and analysis to drive the best results.


Customer Needs

The ultimate goal of any VoC analytics program is to improve the customer experience. Customers interact with your business in many ways. Your VoC program can therefore reach customers through various channels. Incorporating data from each stage of the customer journey creates a holistic picture of patterns and trends, including satisfaction and loyalty.


Hierarchical Structure

Once the data has been gathered, it can be helpful to group customer responses into different categories. You can base these on the importance of the feedback to key business objectives. Items at the top of the hierarchy will likely impact factors such as strategic direction, marketing and purchasing choices.


Priorities

Categorized data can be used to establish new corporate priorities. It can also be used to inform further VoC research and additional refinements to your strategy. You should look to prioritize the voices of loyal customers who bring the most value to your business.


Perception of Performance

After conducting your VoC survey and gathering and filtering the responses, you can then examine your performance ratings. This will help you visualize the gap between customer expectations and the actual experience they get.

A carefully orchestrated and curated VoC analytics program will identify areas for improvement, establish marketing strategies, inform research and development efforts and provide competitive insights.


Key Questions to Ask

Asking the right questions is essential. It’s important to strike a balance between collecting information on specific business areas and discovering how the needs of your customers are changing. Consider the following:


What Is the Problem We Want to Solve?

To benefit the most from VoC analytics, start with the main thing you are trying to address. Are you trying to prevent customer churnf? Spot what features customers think are missing from your product? Or something else entirely? Focusing on the issue at hand will help make customer feedback more actionable.


Who Is the Customer?

It’s essential to know who to target. The problem you’re trying to solve will affect which customers you want to poll for their opinions. This is much easier if you create a clear picture of the customer you want to get feedback from. This customer profile will become the starting point for your VoC program.


What Are the Customer’s Needs?

By tailoring questions to the needs of your customers, you’ll avoid making assumptions. This also helps reveal where your current processes fail to meet customer expectations.


Gathering Results for Voice of the Customer Analytics

The next step is reaching out to your customers. You can use a number of customer analytics types, techniques and technologies for your VoC analytics program.

These include:

  •   Phone or web surveys.
  •   Blogs and forums.
  •   Customer comment cards.
  •   Mystery shopper audits.
  •   Social media monitoring programs.
  •   Recorded customer service phone calls or chats.
  •   Customer focus groups, interviews and advisory councils.
  •   Net Promoter Score® (NPS).
  •   Email responses.

Drawing Conclusions

Once the results have been gathered, you can analyze the data to draw conclusions. Tagging, filtering and categorizing feedback will help you spot themes and trends. Once you’ve identified recurring themes, this insight should be given to the relevant team so action can be taken.

Using advanced AI analytics makes it much easier to deliver, measure and optimize the customer experience. Choosing a partner that offers advanced analytics services can enhance the outcomes of your VoC programs.


Why Voice of the Customer Analytics Matter

Gathering feedback from customers through VoC analytics lets you make informed changes that add value to your business brand, and its products and services. It also provides an avenue to communicate through when you make changes, boosting loyalty and customer engagement further.


Examples of Voice of the Customer Analytics

VoC analytics is used in many industries. These include:

  •   Healthcare. VoC analytics can help evaluate and improve patient experience and care. For example, these insights can help monitor side effects from treatment.
  •   Banking. Banks can use VoC research to identify customers most at risk of churn, and to gather feedback on different products and services offered.
  •   E-commerce. Showing VoC data directly on product pages can encourage purchases.

Troubleshooting Challenges with Voice of the Customer Analytics

Understanding where your VoC analytics program could fall short will help you ensure its success:

  •   Set your goals. Structure your campaign so you gather data in areas where the company is ready to make changes. Avoid asking questions about issues the company is unable or unwilling to improve.
  •   Implement the program across the organization. An effective VoC program must integrate into your business functions to strengthen customer success, operations and product development.
  •   Use the appropriate channels. Be prepared to collect and analyze solicited and unsolicited feedback from all channels where customers interact with the business.
  •   Make it easy. Customers are more likely to respond when it is easy and not inconvenient.
  •   Ask the right questions, Decision tree-based question paths direct customers to questions that are appropriate to their situation, reducing friction. This helps prevent survey abandonment.
  •   Act quickly. Asking customers for feedback but taking a long time to address it is an easy way to spike churn. Direct VoC results to the appropriate teams to ensure issues are addressed expediently.

Building a Voice of the Customer Analytics Program

You can build the right foundation for your VoC program with the following tools:


  •   A maturity model framework: Assess your current strengths and areas for growth.
  •   A customer journey map: A visual guide to the interaction path your customers take with your company.
  •   A conversation analytics tool: Examine customer interactions with your support team.

Getting Familiar with Voice of the Customer Analytics

Effective VoC campaigns must be based on solid strategies, with buy-in across the entire organization. Some helpful suggestions for crafting a successful, outcome-based VOC strategy include:

  1.   Ensure the company’s overall approach to VoC aligns with business values, goals and competencies.
  2.   Implement feedback across departments to inform product development, improve customer support and hone marketing campaigns.
  3.   Gauge the impact of the VoC cycle (feedback-improvement-feedback) by assessing key metrics and customer engagement rates.

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