Allegiance Blog

Voice of the Customer (VOC) objectives are vital for any organization and provide roadmap to a successful VOC program. It’s like going into a new city and trying to navigate without a map or GPS. Without having clear directions to the address, you can spend a lot of time, resources, and energy trying to get to your destination. The same applies to your VOC program objectives.

Many VOC professionals have realized that in order to add value to the organization, they must spend less time telling a VOC story and more time telling a business story. Think of this new approach as a fundamental mental shift starting with the VOC leadership team. You must ensure that the data you collect is actionable and relevant to other business leaders in the organization. The best way to do this is by asking leaders what they really want from you instead of giving them what you think they want.

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The focus of VOC is not to gather more surveys and data; it is to create actionable business intelligence that moves the needle. VOC practitioners are not great at this second part today, but getting better, and quickly. This is the reason VOC programs are gaining quick adoption now when they have stalled in the past. VOC best practices require a shift from data gathering, creating charts and reports, to providing prescriptive and predictive outcomes that support a business story.

After months of client meetings, focus groups and quantitative studies, one thing stands out: data is everywhere, and VOC pros want help making decisions from their mountains of data. That’s why we are committed to accelerating the delivery of actionable business intelligence from VOC data. It’s not about gathering more survey data, it’s about the insights business leaders need to move the needle.

Here at Allegiance, we continue to see more companies choosing to rescue customers in real time rather than wait months for the results of a large customer satisfaction survey. These businesses are embracing a new approach to traditional customer research that gives companies the ability to collect feedback from social media, engage customers in real time and use advanced analytics to understand what makes customer tick and predict what they’ll want.

It’s important to put all of VOC scores and feedback into the broader context – how well do you do stack up against your competitors? I’m talking about benchmarking, which means making comparisons to help you understand the perception of your business relative to the competition in the minds of your customers.

A brand promise is the expectations you set with your customers. It’s a combination of the brand purpose and the reality of what the brand can deliver. It defines the benefits a customer can expect to receive when experiencing your brand – at every touchpoint. Customers will select your brand because they know that, every time they choose your brand, they will have the same experience.

Getting executive buy-in is crucial to any successful VOC program. Here are three main points to keep in mind when working with your executive team.

Transactional surveys are a great way to capture customer feedback immediately following a transaction or event. Companies can use them to gain a better understanding of a customer’s experience and perceptions of service quality.