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Voice of the Customer

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Voice of the Customer: Market ing mind reading at i ts best

They buy your products. They use your services. They drive your business, and

without them your business would be toast. You know who we’re talking about—

your customers. And you should know more about them. So let’s get inside their

heads, and learn what they really think about your brand. You need to know

what keeps them buying and what turns them away. Stop the guesswork and

tune in with a little marketing mind reading.

It’s called Voice of the Customer (VoC), and while not new to the marketing

landscape, it’s receiving greater attention and is changing the customer

experience (CX) landscape. The VoC method synthesizes all customer feedback

and provides a complete picture of customer desires. This qualitative and

quantitative feedback is then used to enhance customer experiences and build

better customer-brand relationships. The goal is to gather all customer feedback

from departmental silos so it can be viewed from a holistic organizational

perspective and through a customer-centric lens. Insights can be used to drive

change, break down customer barriers and solve problems.

So what’s the bottom line with VoC? When an organization’s cumulative customer

feedback is analyzed and acted upon, it can have tremendous, transformative

power. Tuning into customer wants and needs can drive business, and some

big players are taking notice. Companies like Jared® and Kay® Jewelers, Tommy

Bahama®, Delta Airlines®, Starbucks® and 7-Eleven® have incorporated VoC into

their business practices. And the 2011 State of Customer Experience Report by

Forrester found that half of large North American companies are implementing

VoC strategies1.

VoC is turning heads and gaining recognition as “the pulse of a company”2. In its

new seat as a marketing “must-have,” Gartner™ is predicting that VoC’s insight

and value will lead to increased growth and revenue3. And back in 2013 Gartner

predicted that within the next five years, VoC would be a top strategic business

investment4.

1 Burns, Megan, Harley Manning, and Jennifer Peterson. The State Of Customer Experience, 2011 Companies Have Lofty Goals But Aren’t Doing What It Takes To Reach Them. Rep. Forrester Research, Inc., 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 13 Aug. 2014. <http://www.forrester.com/The+State+Of+Customer+Experience+2011/fulltext/-/E-RES58635>.

2 Santos, Mike. “Mobile And Social Input Impacts Voice Of The Customer Strategies.” Retail TouchPoints. N.p., 11 Dec. 2011. Web. 06 Oct. 2014. <http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/in-store-insights/1215-mobile-and-social-input-impacts-voice-of-the-customer-strategies>.

3 Ibid.4 Ibid.


Where should VoC be put to use? Our answer: Everywhere. It can transform your

organization from the inside out, and it has huge implications for marketing. VoC

synthesizes organizational data from any and all channels, so it only makes sense

that VoC strategy can be used to collect data and enhance customer experience

through multiple channels. Potential channels include mobile, email, SMS (short

message service), social media marketing, store-front, service enhancements,

product improvements, kiosks and a more engaged team, to name a few5. We

will touch on all of these multiple channels in this Blue Paper® but the focus will

be on mobile.

Why focus on mobile? Because what other channel can you be in your customers’

pockets, their cars, their workplace, next to their beds and on their Web browsers

all at once? Mobile is a great fit for VoC because you can collect multiple forms

of VoC feedback through various mobile platforms, and then use that data to

strengthen your mobile presence. And mobile’s importance is growing, too. It is

estimated that U.S. adults will spend 23 percent more time using a smartphone

in 2014 than the year prior6. The rising usage of smartphones and other Internet-

connected mobile devices makes a strong mobile strategy more important than

ever. In fact, a 2012 study from OpinionLab™ and Tealeaf™ found that over 80

percent of marketing and customer experience professionals say that managing

mobile customer experience is just as or more important than improving customer

experience on fixed websites7.

VoC is gaining momentum due to mobile’s data collection capabilities and

because it packs potential for serious return on investment (ROI) that makes it

worth your time. Below are four ways VoC can make a difference.

1. Customer retention: Keep your current customers by demonstrating that

your company cares about their needs and wants8.

2. Attract new customers: Improvements to products/services championed by a

strong VoC program will intrigue potential customers and drive new sales9.

3. Increase efficient decision-making: VoC heightens the awareness of your

customers’ wants to facilitate customer-centric decisions10.

5 Demou, George. “2014 Top Initiatives in Customer Experience (CX).” Avtex Blog: The Point of Interaction. N.p., 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 1 Oct. 2014. <http://blog.avtex.com/2014/02/07/2014-top-initiatives-in-customer-experience-cx/>.

6 “Mobile Continues to Steal Share of US Adults’ Daily Time Spent with Media - EMarketer.” E-marketer. N.p., 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 27 Aug. 2014.

7 “Study by OpinionLab and Tealeaf Identifies Mobile Experience as Top Priority in 2012 – OpinionLab –OpinionLab – Omnichannel Digital Feedback Management – Voice of Customer Feedback Anytime, Anywhere™.” OpinionLab. N.p., 31 Jan. 2013. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. <http://www.opinionlab.com/press_release/study-by-opinionlab-and-tealeaf-identifies-mobile-experience-as-top-priority-in-2012/>.

8 “Voice of the Customer - Medallia.” Voice of the Customer. Medallia, n.d. Web. 09 Sept. 2014. <http://www.medallia.com/voice-of-the-customer/>.

9 McInnes, Andrew. “Allegiance Blog.” How Voice of Customer VoC Programs Really Deliver ROI Comments. Allegiance, 21 Nov. 2013. Web. 09 Sept. 2014. <http://www.allegiance.com/blog/how-voice-of-customer-voc-programs-really-deliver-roi/8298>.

10 Ibid.


4. Build employee engagement: Implementing a VoC strategy empowers

employees to solve customer problems and re-connects the team to your

company’s mission11.

Let’s embark on our mission to master VoC, or marketing mind reading as we

like to call it. In this Blue Paper we’ll breakdown the VoC cycle into five phases:

plan, collect, interpret, react and monitor. In each phase we’ll highlight creative

integration of VoC and mobile with case studies. We’ll also give you a leg up by

providing takeaways for your own VoC program.

Phase 1: VoC program planning

Set yourself up for success. When building a VoC program, a strong foundation

is essential. Keith Schorah, founder of VoC software firm SynGro®, cautions all

would-be VoC users: “It is fundamental the VoC program has a clear, focused

strategy which is directly aligned to the organization’s commercial goals and is

designed to permeate all aspects of the business. If it doesn’t, the VoC program’s

success will be limited and most likely temporary.”12 Starting with a strong,

focused VoC strategy, provides an opportunity to gain a single view of the

customer, and the ability to re-engineer operations using root-cause analysis. This

can drive fundamental change13.

With those wise words from VoC experts, we have a checklist of seven steps for

completing the VoC cycle planning phase.

1. Audit your existing data14—Define what customer feedback data you

have, what data you are collecting and where it comes from. It doesn’t

make sense to start the collection phase if you don’t know what customer

feedback data you already have. Ask yourself and your team: What

customer touch points do you collect data from? What data is coming in

and what departments “own” it? And where is current data being stored.

2. Plan for data integration—The most impactful VoC programs integrate VoC

data and all other business data. VoC data can be used to spot trends in

existing business data that might not have been apparent if data was siloed.

In planning your VoC strategy, start by having conversations about best

methods for integrating new and existing data. Also, consider integrating

11 Robson, Andrew. “Employee Engagement: An Undervalued Source of VoC ROI.” Customer Interactions Blog. NICE Systems, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Sept. 2014.

12 Davey, Neil. “Listen Up: How to Build a Voice of the Customer Strategy.” My Customer. N.p., 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. <http://www.mycustomer.com/feature/experience/listen-how-build-voice-customer-strategy/164752>.

13 Ibid.14 Ibid.


VoC data with existing customer relationship management (CRM) programs

to empower your sales staff.

3. Get buy-in from key execs—Don’t forget this crucial step. Getting executive

buy-in helps get all departments on board, and even more importantly it

helps ensure that the final strategy aligns with business goals. VoC can only

drive change when it aligns with and contributes to business level goals15.

4. Make it someone’s job—Utilizing VoC to its full potential can be a

complicated undertaking. Do yourself a favor and appoint a responsible

VoC manager. The VoC manager keeps everyone on track and keeps VoC

initiatives moving forward.

5. Map the customer journey—Get a better understanding of your customers’

experiences. Start by looking at your customers’ mobile context and then

map the entire customer journey16. Mobile context includes:

a. Customer location when they use your mobile services;

b. Customer user preferences;

c. Situations users face while interacting with your organization;

d. Customer history;

e. Any personal decisions shared with you or social media networks17.

Mobile experience can be enriched using a context profile to deliver

relevant content. Delta Airlines’ app, for example, provides examples of

customer context in action. At Delta, a frequent flyer can access his or

her real-time placement on an upcoming flight wait-list18. The customer’s

situational factors such as current location and local environmental

conditions are also considered. When a flyer launches the Delta app,

Delta delivers a countdown to departure time19.

Customer context is a helpful first step in mapping the journey. Completing

a customer journey map provides the full picture of how customers

complete a transaction with your company20. Your customers’ journeys

may be complex. They might involve multiple channels and devices. Some

times customers’ experience touch areas that we, as marketers, may not be

15 Ibid.16 Hammond, Jeffrey. “9 Challenges To Your Mobile App Strategy - InformationWeek.” InformationWeek. N.p.,

30 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. <http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/9-challenges-to-your-mobile-app-strategy/d/d-id/1109754>.

17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Davey, Neil. “Listen Up: How to Build a Voice of the Customer Strategy.”My Customer. N.p., 10 Apr. 2013.

Web. 15 Aug. 2014. <http://www.mycustomer.com/feature/experience/listen-how-build-voice-customer-strategy/164752>.


aware of. Using customer immersion tactics can help uncover any hidden

touch points. Listen to real customer calls from your call center or call into

your own call center without revealing who you are. Have your team watch

customers in one of your retail locations. Go out and purchase your product

and watch for roadblocks. Take notes on your experience and ask yourself:

a. Was my problem resolved?

b. How long did I wait?

c. What frustrations did the customers around me experience?

d. What positive attributes did my fellow customers express

as I listened?

These customer immersion exercises can help reconnect your team with

your primary audience—your customers. With a fresh perspective on your

customers, you’re ready to complete the customer journey map and add any

new touch points you discovered. The journey map matters because you will

want to monitor, measure and report on customers’ experiences at every

touch point along the way21.

6. Create an effective strategic objective—Once everyone is on board and

you have completed your customer journey map, you can define your VoC

objective. There is no point in investing resources and collecting all of this

new data without a strong objective that is both actionable and directly

tied to business goals22. Doing so helps the entire organization see the

value of VoC. A clear objective helps all departments visualize how they

can support the program23.

7. Eliminate “action loops”24—Don’t collect the data if there is not an activity

planned to test your findings. Do something with your findings and make

sure your strategy has action baked in.

Get started tip: As you work through the VoC cycle, time and time again, you

won’t use all of these planning phase tips each time. Your due diligence will

have paid off and your program will be up and running. However, we caution

you not to overlook the planning phase entirely. Each new VoC initiative will

require careful planning to make sure you are collecting the correct data for your

intended action.

21 Ibid.22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid.


Phase 2: VoC data col lect ion

Get the insights you want from customer feedback by understanding what the

data entails and making the right data collection decisions. Let’s break down

what’s inside customer feedback. Upon collection, customer feedback becomes

a detailed set of customer needs and wants in their own words25. We’ll use

hypothetical customer feedback from a restaurant, a clothing boutique and a

consumer product goods company to illustrate this concept.

Restaurant example—“I enjoyed the meal, but service was slow and the wait staff

lacked personality.”

Clothing boutique example—“Loved the colors you put out this season, but

when I was in the store I had trouble locating my size. Luckily, your great sales

staff was available to help me out.”

Consumer product goods example—“Product worked well, but it took me

a while to figure out how to use it. Great packaging though!”

In just one to two sentences, we learned about the quality of a meal, personality

and helpfulness of wait staff/sales staff, store layout and product placement

effectiveness, product functionality and product-use learning curve. We didn’t

just learn about products and services, we got a glimpse of the customers’

expectations, needs and requirements.

So what data do you need? It depends on your VoC goals. Use your data audit

and customer journey map to determine what information you are missing?

You also want to consider what data might be helpful in executing current or

future initiatives.

Once you decide what data you need, it is time to determine what collection

methods will produce the desired information. Think about the collection

method and the collection channel. And don’t forget about mobile. Your mobile

presence can provide the data you are looking for. Mobile technology gives us an

entirely new venue for collecting VoC feedback from customers via social media

monitoring, enterprise feedback management, website interactions, surveys,

speech analytics, text mining and Web analytics to provide a holistic view of your

customer’s voice26.

25 Gaskin, Steven P., Abbie Griffin, John R. Hauser, Gerald M. Katz, and Robert L. Klein. “Voice of the Customer.” (2011): n. pag. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Web. 21 Aug. 2014. <http://web.mit.edu/hauser/www/Papers/Gaskin_Griffin_Hauser_et_al%20VOC%20Encyclopedia%202011.pdf>.

26 “Voice of the Customer (VOC).” IT Glossary. Gartner, Inc., n.d. Web. 13 Aug. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gartner.com%2Fit-glossary%2Fvoice-of-the-customer-voc%2F>.


You can get creative in your data collection, too. Supplement traditional

interviews by asking social media followers to participate in Skype® or Google+®

interviews. Considering surveys to collect feedback? Use online surveys via

your mobile website or app. Data from your Web analytics and social media

interactions provide essential data at other touch points, too. In the interpret

phase we will discuss tools to help you dissect your data.

Signet Jewelers, owners of both Jared and Kay Jewelers, gives us a peek at how

the right VoC data can make a difference for multiple marketing initiatives. A few

years ago, Signet embarked on its own VoC journey—unsure what they would

discover. Using customer segmentation analysis, surveys and in-store observations,

the team, in partnership with IBM Interactive®, identified opportunities to

replicate the in-store experience in an online environment27. Using this new

customer data, Signet designed and developed an intuitive website experience for

customers. New social media profiles and a mobile website were also launched28.

Customers can now compare items side-by-side, talk to a sales representative and

check their credit balance no matter where they are shopping from—inside the

store, online or via mobile29. The company is head over heels in love with the VoC

strategy because following launch, 2012 holiday sales increased 49 percent over

the same period in 201130.

Get started tip: Base data collection on the customer journey map you created

in the planning phase to ensure that you are capturing data at as many touch

points as possible. Can’t hit all of your touch points? Start by gathering data

that helps support your VoC objective.

Phase 3: Data interpretat ion

You’ve been collecting data. Now what? First, data organization and then, data

prioritization. Random categorization doesn’t get us very far in understanding

what the data means. But luckily, Griffin and Hauser, VoC research pioneers,

created a customer feedback analysis framework to help. In this framework all

customer needs are categorized as primary, secondary and tertiary31. Primary

needs are composed of the ten top-level needs articulated by customers32. For

example, if you were on the marketing team for a local restaurant looking to

incorporate the VoC into a marketing plan, your customers’ hypothetical primary

needs could be:

27 Berg, Neal. “The Omni-Channel Retail Experience, or How Kay and Jared Jewelers Upped Sales 49%.” MarketingProfs. N.p., 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. <http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/10473/the-omni-channel-retail-experience-or-how-kay-and-jared-jewelers-upped-sales-49>.

28 Ibid.29 Ibid.30 Ibid. 31 Griffin, Abbie, and John R. Hauser. “The Voice of the Customer.” Marketing Science 12.1 (1993): 1-27. JSTOR.

Web. 25 Aug. 2014.32 Ibid.


• Restaurant selection

• Getting to the restaurant

• Food options and menu

• Restaurant building

• Restaurant interior

• Restaurant experience

These needs may carry enough weight to be used in setting a strategic

organizational or marketing direction. Secondary needs are considered tactical

because they expand the primary need, and provide an approach for satisfying

the primary need. Using our sample restaurant again, secondary needs could

resemble the following:

• Restaurant selection: Easy-to-access menu information online and

table availability

• Getting to the restaurant: Good location and accessible, safe parking

• Food options and menu: Food quality, entrée specials and menu options

for diners with dietary restrictions

• Restaurant building: Outdoor signage and indoor traffic flow

• Inside the restaurant: Clean restrooms and great atmosphere

• Restaurant experience: Helpful, friendly wait staff and a fun experience

Looking only at the restaurant selection category, the secondary needs reveal why

customers might choose the restaurant over another if it is easy to access menu

information online and they can get a table. Our restaurant team can then use

those requirements in their efforts to drive restaurant traffic.

Moving on to the third category, the tertiary needs. These needs are more

operational in nature and provide details for making physical changes to the

product, service or surrounding messaging33. Back to our restaurant again,

a tertiary need might be an updated, mobile-friendly website or customer

experience training for wait staff.

Want even deeper analysis and interpretation? Many VoC vendors provide tools

to increase your mind reading power with deeper analysis and interpretation.

Many of the online survey tools you are familiar with have some interpretation

capabilities built right in. Graphical representation of your data results is common

and some track your customer satisfaction score over time34. Text mining is also

a great tool for increased richness in survey data and other Web content. These

software tools identify themes and relationships between survey text and other

33 Ibid.34 Beard, Ross. “9 Customer Feedback Software Tools: Comparison & Review.” Client Heartbeat Blog. Client

Heartbeat, 14 July 2014. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://blog.clientheartbeat.com/customer-feedback-software/>.


content. Social media monitoring tools are helpful for interacting with customer

thoughts in the social sphere. Additional tools embedded within a monitoring

system vary by vendor, and some offer sentiment analysis or opinion mining.

Accessing the feelings behind a tweet, comment or review, gives you more

profound understanding of your customers’ thoughts and intent. Depending on

the complexities of your in-office data analysis procedures you may also want

to run this data against existing business data to identify new opportunities or

confirm trends.

No team can tackle all customer needs at once, nor would they want to. And not

all wants and needs carry the same weight. After you complete categorization

and any interpretation, all customer needs can be prioritized. After prioritization,

the recently interpreted VoC data is ready for use in the reaction phase.

Getting started: Great news! You don’t have to purchase expensive interpretation

software programs. Uncover the meaning in VoC data by organizing customer

feedback by primary, secondary and tertiary needs. Look into additional

interpretation tools, and make sure to incorporate any data analysis capabilities

your team has. Before partnering with vendors offering VoC data interpretation

solutions, use caution. It is acknowledged that this market is still young and that

marketers should be careful when choosing vendors.

Phase 4: The react ion phase

You’ve collected and interpreted your data, and wow—you’ve learned a ton

about your customers. What’s next? It is time to put what you’ve learned to

use. This phase is two-fold because your team will use your data to implement

actions baked into the VoC process during the planning phase. You may also be

reacting to surprises that emerged from the data during the interpretation phase.

Be prepared to tackle both planned and unplanned action. When executing

planned initiatives or reacting to a customer issue the data uncovered, both are

opportunities for your team to improve overall customer experience. And that is

the real beauty and power of the VoC cycle—a force that pushes your company to

become increasingly customer-centric with every pass through the cycle.

This phase is a chance to utilize your team’s creative juices. Your brand is

one-of-a-kind, and you solve problems for your customer in a completely

organic way. And if you haven’t been, the use of VoC is the perfect opportunity

to start. Your customers have an organic perspective about your performance.

And your team knows your organization like no one else. When using VoC to

improve customer experience, let the data guide you to creative solutions for

eliminating pain points. Help your customers have a fun, engaging and organic

brand experience.


Sound a little intimidating? No worries. You are now reading your customers’

minds … to some extent. You’ve got this. But we wouldn’t leave you without

some tools to help facilitate these creative solutions. Tommy Bahama is one brand

using a Customer Experience Management (CEM) tool to react to any unexpected

VoC data in the moment. With the goal of improving the overall in-store and

online shopper experience, Tommy Bahama installed “listening” kiosks connected

to its CEM tool throughout the store in the second quarter of 201435. These

kiosks allow customers to provide feedback without seeking a sales associate.

The feedback is then provided in real-time to the store teams who can jump in

and resolve issues before the customer leaves the store. This real-time reaction

approach is helping Tommy Bahama improve brand loyalty.

Speaking of brand loyalty, many of us have earned a gold star or two by

paying for delicious frothy beverages with our Starbucks app, and Starbucks

is using VoC to facilitate an in-app loyalty program and in-store experiences.

Starbucks uses their website, www.mystarbucksidea.com, to collect masses of

VoC data. Customers submit ideas for improvements, and then the Starbucks

team continuously reports on how those ideas make an impact. One recently

implemented “My Starbucks Ideas” is being used to improve customers’ mobile

experience. The new feature sends app users email reminders of their earned

free drinks within the loyalty program36. This example demonstrates how

creativity can influence data collection and reaction within the VoC process.

7-Eleven is another example of a company using multiple tools and creativity

to collect and react to VoC data. 7-Eleven wanted to build greater emotional

attachment among customers to boost customer engagement and sales. To reach

this objective they launched real-time CRM technology tied to a customer loyalty

program within their mobile app37. The company crowd-sourced VoC research,

and discovered that many customers have favorite Slurpee™ flavors, but didn’t

know what flavors were available in each store38. Once this was identified as a

pain point for customers, the 7-Eleven team started collecting daily flavor data

from franchise locations and rolling the data into the mobile app for customer

use. This new functionality cost the 7-Eleven team very little to develop, but it

solved a big pain point dealing with one of their most popular products. 7-Eleven

demonstrates that all organizations can get actionable customer feedback even if

customers spend little time or money in the company’s physical and digital space.

35 Floretta, Alicia. “Tommy Bahama Collects Real-Time Feedback With Medallia - Retail TouchPoints.” Tommy Bahama Collects Real-Time Feedback With Medallia - Retail TouchPoints. Retail Touchpoints, 11 July 2014. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. <http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/retail-success-stories/tommy-bahama-collects-real-time-feedback-with-medallia>.

36 Starbucks Coffee.” Ideas In Action Blog. Starbucks, 7 Aug. 2014. Web. 03 Sept. 2014. <http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/Customer/default.aspx>.

37 De Haff, Michelle. “How the Voice of the Customer Is Driving Strategy Inside 7-Eleven - Medallia.” Medallia. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2014. <http://blog.medallia.com/customer-experience/voice-of-the-customer-driving-strategy-inside-7-eleven/>.

38 Ibid.


Getting started tip: The action your team takes in this phase will vary based on

what the data reveals about customer pain points and satisfaction. Take this

opportunity to better your company and please your customers. Feel inspired by

the examples above in that a dose of creativity can go a long way in improving

the experience you offer up to customers.

Phase 5: Monitor ing

Time to demonstrate the value of your VoC program with mind-reading

measurement and analysis. In this phase we see the importance of tying your

actions to overall business goals. As you monitor data being collected and

customer response to your customer experience efforts, metrics are a must.

How else will you measure whether or not your action is improving the

customer journey?

Many of the collection, interpretation and reaction tools we discussed include

dashboards to help you monitor data and progress at all times. Before launching

your VoC program, make sure to use existing respondent data to benchmark

against new data and metrics. Benchmarking should help you visualize progress as

your VoC program takes off.

Wondering how to decide what metrics matter and how to prove the worth of

your VoC program? It isn’t so complicated. Use metrics that match your overall

strategic objective and tie the program to key business goals. Without overall

objective measurement, you cannot really demonstrate your program’s impact.

When aligning metrics with business goals, remember that money talks and

that it is always important to continuously demonstrate ROI. Consider including

commercial measures such as average customer spend, share of wallet, account

profitability etc. Including these financial elements may help your VoC program

prove its worth39.

Additionally, embedding measurement at every customer touch point can help

your team identify specific pain points and systemic problems. When trying

to quantify the overall customer journey, go beyond customer satisfaction.

Measure customer expectation. Why? Customer satisfaction does not prove

customer loyalty. The myth that customer satisfaction equates to customer

loyalty was debunked back in 1995 by a Harvard Business Review® study. The

study looked at satisfied bank account holders compared to unsatisfied account

holders. Researchers, Thomas and Sasser, found that in one year, 5.8 percent of

unsatisfied customers closed their accounts and 6 percent of extremely satisfied

39 Ibid.


customers closed their accounts40. This demonstrates that satisfied customers

don’t guarantee loyal customers. Therefore, customer expectation might be a

more helpful metric. Asking your customers if your service line or new feature

implemented during the reaction phase meets their expectations is more telling

than customer satisfaction metrics41.

In the digital realm, Google® Digital Marketing Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik,

recommends metrics in at least the acquisition, behavior and outcomes touch

points of a customer’s digital journey42. In each phase Kaushik recommends the

metrics outlined in the following figure.

Figure 2. Metrics in three phases across the digital customer journey43

There are so many metrics available. The important thing is to find out what

matters to your business and measure, measure, measure.

Getting started: Demonstrating value and ROI of a VoC program is no small task,

but let your overall objective, business goals and customer journey direct you and

help choose the right metrics to monitor your VoC progress. Remember this is by

no means a definitive listing of metrics, but instead a listing of some metrics that

could potentially be helpful.

Ready to implement your own VoC cyc le?

As you analyze results from your monitor phase, your team can now take

everything you learned throughout the VoC cycle to start the cycle anew. Working

through the cycle time and time again can help create more engaged customers,

a staff connected with your organizational mission and continued organizational

transformation in your quest to become a customer-centric company. You might

not be a VoC expert yet, but you are now equipped with the knowledge to

40 Jones, Thomas O., and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. “Why Satisfied Customers Defect.”Harvard Business Review. N.p., Nov. 1995. Web. 28 Aug. 2014. <http://hbr.org/1995/11/why-satisfied-customers-defect/ar/1>.

41 Beard, Ross. “Customer Satisfaction Metrics: 6 Metrics You Need to Be Tracking.” Client Heartbeat Blog. N.p., 2 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Aug. 2014. <http://blog.clientheartbeat.com/customer-satisfaction-metrics-6-metrics-you-need-to-be-tracking/>.

42 Kaushik, Avinash. “Best Metrics For Digital Marketing: Rock Your Own And Rent Strategies.” Occams Razor by Avinash Kaushik. Google, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 28 Aug. 2014. <http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/best-web-metrics-digital-marketing-own-rent-strategies/>.

43 Ibid.


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start some key conversations that will help your company determine if

implementing a VoC program is a good fit. Remember that VoC is not the

silver bullet for organizational and mobile improvement. However, with

increasing technology, the consumer voice is louder than ever, and the

use of consumer feedback for continuous improvement can help guide an

organization into the customer-centric future if implemented correctly.

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