With a solid VoC initiative underway and having firmly established their guidance as critical to their organization’s success, many mature VoC teams are turning to more sophisticated analysis, reporting and forecasting. They are looking for opportunities for continuous improvement. I applaud these efforts and will be thrilled to see what 2012 brings to these VoC pioneers and their programs. 

Remember to Sweat the Small Stuff 

This is a reminder, however, to continue sweating the small stuff. Specifically, I mean reacting to tactical customer feedback in a prompt fashion: Addressing customer concerns and complaints swiftly and sincerely with empathy, and responding quickly to customer compliments to reinforce their enthusiasm. 

That’s right. No fancy predictive modeling, no sponsored conference presentations, nothing to earn the kudos of the c-suite. Just plain old customer responsiveness. Actually picking up the phone to say “I hear ya” customer collaboration. It’s not glossy, but it’s simple and effective, and builds the bread-and-butter foundation to a solid, comprehensive customer voice program. Allow me to share a recent example. 

The Power of the Prompt Response 

Background: I had a large volume of “construction debris” and a broken-down pickup truck rendered me unable to remove this debris alone.  I called a national junk removal company, unsure of what to expect. 

Here is how events unfolded on pick-up day. 

Timeframe:  

9:30 AM:  Thirty minutes before arrival, the movers provide a “courtesy call” to remind me they are on their way.

10:00 AM:  Promptly at their scheduled time, the movers arrive in a clean, tidy truck.  They are neatly dressed and well groomed and greet me in a very professional manner.

10:20 AM:  My junk is loaded in a truck and we are finishing paperwork and payment.

10:31 AM:  A very delighted Sarah logs a short compliment on the junk remover’s website under the “contact us” link. 

I just used your service for the first time. Your movers were polite, courteous, professional and prompt. They quickly eliminated a bunch of junk we had collected. I am so pleased with your work, happy to have our junk gone, delighted with your customer service, and certain to recommend you to our friends and family. KUDOS! 

10:57 AM:  The junk hauler replies to Sarah’s commentary! 

Hello Sarah,
Thank you very much for taking the time to provide your positive feedback for the service you received today. We have shared your feedback with “Mitch” and “Rico” who helped remove your items today. We are extremely happy that we were able to assist you in cleaning up your home and look forward to providing service to you in the future.

Thank you and have a great day!  

Wow! Count the time elapse. Thirty-six minutes to reply to my website comment. That’s responsive customer service. That’s being open to customer feedback and passionate about providing the best experience for the customer. That’s taking a simple event and leveraging it to make a happy customer a delighted customer. This company could have just stopped at doing a good job with their core service (showing up and taking my junk away), but instead they went the extra mile to follow up on my commentary and prove they are a customer-focused, listening organization. In the weeks following this interaction, I told everyone with ears about this experience with this junk hauling company and recommended them with enthusiasm. 

Bottom Line: Keep Focused on Tactical Wins

As your VoC initiative seasons and matures, you may find yourself increasingly focused on big-picture design and strategy. Through this maturity process, don’t forget to also focus on tactical customer wins. In other words, don’t get your head so high in the war that you begin losing day-to-day battles.

If a junk-hauler’s front-line staff can get me promoting their services to anyone who will listen, just imagine what your company can do.

From our experience working with them, here are nine habits that make them successful:

1. Well-defined goals and objectives: Successful VOC managers know what overall business objectives are at stake, why they are collecting the data and how they are going to use that data to make decisions.

2. Executive buy-in and internal support: Successful practitioners work alongside the executive team in communicating and sharing important customer feedback and VOC program goals and objectives with all employees.

3. A formal VOC program: Managers who follow best practices set up multiple communication channels for customers to communicate with the company. They help create and implement formal processes to support customer feedback data collection and management efforts.

4. Centrally collected and managed customer feedback: Top managers use technology to not only centrally collect, store and manage feedback, but to also design and conduct surveys.

5. Customer advocate throughout the feedback process: Leading VOC practitioners rapidly and courteously respond to customer feedback. Serious complaints and unhappy survey responses are automatically escalated to the right senior person.

6. Communicate/share customer feedback with others: Best practices include quickly distributing real-time customer feedback and sharing reports and survey data findings with others in the organization—from the c-suite to top line managers and employees.

7. Collect real-time, ongoing feedback: Successful customer feedback managers make it easy for customers to submit feedback at virtually every interaction point and regularly conduct surveys to monitor customer needs and concerns.

8. Customer feedback is integrated into the business: Top managers also work with other departments throughout their organization to ensure that the customer feedback they collect is incorporated into the company’s strategic planning and goal setting efforts.

9. Tie customer feedback programs to business outcomes: The best VOC managers measure and monitor customer-related metrics such as customer retention, average number of products purchased, likelihood to recommend the company’s products or services, likelihood to purchase again, etc. They also benchmark their programs against other industry leaders.

Regardless of whether customer feedback is managed by a single person or multiple people in an organization, or even a third-party provider, companies need to ensure that they are putting the right VOC programs and processes in place to support their organization’s collection, management and use of that data. A well-organized VOC program will demonstrate a measurable improvement to the corporate bottom line.

Chris Cottle is EVP of Marketing and Products for Allegiance.

• Ability to leverage CRM to the Voice of Customer.
• Integrate multiple sources across customer communication channels, so that social surveys, e-mails etc., are able to be pulled in, in an integrated fashion. 
• A better way to ensure smart dissemination of information so that the data isn’t sliced and diced down to levels that don’t make sense. 
• Access to applications that go beyond surveys and reporting. 
• Higher ease of use especially, as we work with champions who aren’t analysts. (Apple-ize it.) 
• Rolling up both the transactional and loyalty data that we’re collecting over time into some sort of cold, warm, or hot type of flag for sales.  
• Automated way to have the system go through segmentations and give something at the end that says “this went up, this went down” instead of having to go through the same charts every quarter to figure it out. 
• In those cases with very targeted feed back systems on accounts, we need a way to audit who was surveyed and when, and flag inconsistencies. 
• Being able to prepare the 360 degree view of the customer. “I don’t want an account rep to go out on an account, not armed with information that is in the transactional survey aboutan issue that has been brewing for 6 months.” 
• Consistent tool set to eliminate all the manual work and eliminate bias.  (Different people code the same thing differently, based on their bias.) 

Allegiance conducts these regularly to gain feedback and incorporate it into our product planning. How about you? What is on your VOC wish list? Please share your thoughts.

Chris Cottle is EVP of Marketing and Products for Allegiance.

Actionable data is data that you can use to improve the operations of the company.  It goes beyond answering “what” to understanding “why.” 

VOC programs fail most often because they provide just scores, changes in scores, or data that is only part of the solution. This only tells business managers that their SAT scores are down this month without telling them the reasons why or pointing out comments and stats to help them see the impact of fixing the problem. 

If you present your VOC results as broader business story, rather than just a VOC/SAT report, success will skyrocket. It is hard to do, and requires thinking big, being ready to tackle processes beyond your job scope, and thinking like an executive. 

Unfortunately, many VOC practitioners place their efforts on the collection side, improving surveys and feedback mechanisms. They need to think more strategically about VOC data.  More surveys are not the answer, but more strategically designed feedback mechanisms that yield actionable data is what is needed.

How does data become “actionable data”?

Actionable data actually points to a specific condition or state within a customer’s experience that the company could have an immediate impact on, such as a specific product problem. Another example is an issue with an operational procedure or policy that causes some customer frustration, or perhaps a poor interaction with a customer service agent regarding a refund. These are specific types of insights that can point to specific actions a company can take to keep customers from leaving or to directly increase loyalty and satisfaction.

To have the most impact, actionable data needs to be shared with others in the company. However, many companies are collecting VOC and operational data solely on a departmental basis. They may be using several different tools that are not integrated, which causes them to have an incomplete view of customer experience. If you are able to combine VOC and operational data, you not only have what customers feel and say, but you can compare it to what they actually do. This gives you the most complete understanding of customer intelligence. 

What types of VOC data should be included?  

The optimal VOC solution is able to incorporate and process both structured and unstructured VOC data. When you combine structured data with unstructured data, such as freeform replies to open-ended survey questions or comments on the Internet, you add another layer of depth that can give you a complete picture. For example, you can see what customers are saying about a poorly performing product, why customers in a specific region for a specific type of product and for a specific time period are unhappy, and what were the key issues that drove low satisfaction. Text analytics is the key to understanding these questions. 

Incorporating text analytics into a VOC program helps companies understand the meaning of the comments and suggestions coming from customers so that they can effectively act on them. VOC systems are available today that provide a dashboard for analysis and reporting of structured data from call centers and customer surveys. The best approach is to treat text data just like structured data. This allows you to automatically process and analyze it, instantly seeing the top ten issues, suggestions or reasons customers left the company, and more. 

Making VOC data more actionable should be the focus of any successful VOC program. Incorporating structured and unstructured data, using strategic thinking in designing feedback mechanisms, integrating with operational data such as CRM, and sharing the data throughout the company will ensure the greatest positive impact for your organization.

Chris Cottle is EVP of Marketing and Products at Allegiance

For Voice of Customer data, the combination of data mining and text analytics provides the best analysis method. Text analytics turns comments on social media or the web into structured data that can be analyzed. Data mining can be applied to uncover the hidden value of the information or link it to other sources to compare trends and relationships. 

Ideally, the variables culled from text analytics are used alongside structured and transactional data from many other databases (such as customer satisfaction scores, geographic data, demographics, purchase and usage histories, product-feature data, etc.) 

Through data mining, we can identify and refine patterns and trends among the hundreds, even thousands of variables that often come with “big data.” We can then make predictions based on information obtained from analyzing and exploring this data. 

For example, a successful software company gleaned some surprising insights after analyzing text and data from multiple sources, including NPS scores, structured survey data, demographics, customer experience data and freeform answers to open-ended survey questions. After completing the text analytics phase, all the data were merged into a data mining model. In addition to identification of highly concentrated subgroups of customers, the company discovered: 

• Those customers who mentioned “feature set” within their freeform answers were six times more likely to be a “promoter” of the product and company.
• Those customers who made a negative comment about “reliability” were most likely to be non-promoters.
• Of the variables found to be most predictive of the NPS score, the least important predictor was the number of times a customer had used the software in the previous three months.

In short, text analytics/data mining solutions help us connect “big data” to business practices and obtain insights that will make a difference. The results are insights that can be acted upon to achieve specific business goals in the areas of operational efficiency, customer engagement, product innovation and more.

However, this time, I thought I would let you hear what a couple of leading practitioners in the VOC space are saying. 

Some time ago, Allegiance began hosting weekly broadcasts (that turn into podcasts) on BlogTalk Radio.  Yes, talk radio on the Internet.  The topics have ranged from survey design best practices to social media, and I have to say, Allegiance is gaining quite an audience.

Recently, at the Allegiance Summit, I took the opportunity to host some interviews of some of the leaders and trendsetters in the VOC world. So this month, rather than read my blog post, I’d like you to listen to my blog post.

1. Arkadi Kuhlmann: Chairman, President and CEO of ING Bank.   http://tinyurl.com/64veskq
2. Jim Bampos: Vice President of Customer Quality at EMC corporation. http://tinyurl.com/6z4t6q8 

This is what they are saying; what led to their success(es).  I invite you to take a listen, take good notes, and learn from those who are actually doing it, not just pontificating about it.

Oh, and by the way, tune in to Allegiance Radio on BlogTalk radio each week. It’s free and it’s a lot of fun engaging, learning and sharing best practices for success.  And by the way, if you would like to appear on our show, please feel free to email me at jeff.olsen@allegiance.com.

Here are some highlights from today’s speakers:

Adam Edmunds, President and CEO of Allegiance

• Enterprises are spending $80 billion on market research each year to understand customers, but only 10% of the data is being used.
• Business Intelligence, CRM, VOC, CE, EFM and Social Media are all part of managing and improving customer interactions. The ultimate goal is customer intelligence.
• Voice of Customer data combined with operational data is the best way to uncover true insights that can be turned into actions that impact revenue and sales. 

Arkadi Kuhlmann, Chairman and CEO of ING DIRECT USA 

• ING DIRECT recognized customer frustrations with banks and set about to simplify financial products.
• It is important to not only engage with customers, but to engage with the right customers. Not everybody is the right customer for your business.
• Create an emotional connection with customers. Start simply by answering the phone, responding to email, and make a good impression.
• Define your principles and open up a conversation within the company. Create a culture of service. 

Bonny Simi, Director of Customer Experience & Analysis, JetBlue Airways 

• JetBlue focuses on bringing humanity back to travel. The company says it doesn’t know what is right, only its customers know what is right.
• The four elements of the JetBlue VOC program are: Listen across multiple channels, measure Net Promoter Score, apply robust analytics and create actionable insights.
• JetBlue combines solicited survey responses with unsolicited feedback from email and social media to create actionable insights that make a difference in the customer experience. 

Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner, Temkin Group 

• Traditional market research is obsolete. Data provides no value unless it leads to action.
• Deep analysis is not required, one data point can lead to a positive change in customer experience.
• Customer experience directly relates to customer loyalty.
• Six out of 10 companies surveyed say they want to be the leader in their industry in customer experience. 

Jim Bampos, Vice President of Customer Quality, EMC Corporation 

• In setting up a VOC program, know who your stakeholders are and what is important to them.
• Customer metrics are as important as financial and operational metrics in measuring the success of a business.
• Don’t try to produce data to meet everyone’s needs. Instead focus on what is most impactful to customers and turn data into actions.
• Learn what your customer loyalty drivers are and measure your success against competitors in your industry.
• Create a forum for stakeholders to provide feedback, including the executive and operational levels.

Thanks to all the great speakers and attendees for making this event a success. Next year’s event promises to be bigger and better than ever. Hope you can join us in 2012 in Las Vegas for VOCFusion at the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

When your customers are surveyed in a disjointed, illogical and inconsistent manner, both your VOC initiative and your customer relationships suffer. Some examples include:

Over-Contact

• With no method of controlling the frequency of contact, customers are overburdened with survey invites, especially highly sought-after research participants.
• Furthermore, lack of a survey contact strategy can lead to over-representation of certain respondents or response segments, skewing results.

 Poor Design

• When non-researchers send surveys, they may unfortunately make rookie mistakes that reflect badly on your company and weaken your brand. These missteps may include:
  • Simple operational mistakes like lack of quality assurance review that lead to dead-end links and spelling errors.
  • Use of a rudimentary survey design tool or lack of access to graphics and branding expertise, resulting in a survey that looks “cheap” and doesn’t positively promote the brand.

 Questionable, Scattered Data

• Lack of survey design experience can result in methodologically weak surveys that yield data of suspicious validity and water down overall VOC data quality.
• Variations in survey design, for instance differences in scale, mean results across the organization are incomparable and sometimes contradictory.
• Data stored throughout multiple databases is difficult to locate, share and leverage.

 It’s frustrating for a VOC expert to know rogue surveys are compromising your VOC initiative and your brand voice. You may feel helpless in countering these negative forces, but you’re not. 

Here are two methods you can employ to bring this matter under control.

Central Command

If unsanctioned surveys are a serious detriment to your VOC initiative in particular and your relationship to the customer overall, it may be time to announce “no more Mr. Nice Guy” and take control with a firm hand. Establish ground rules for surveying customers (who, what, when, where and why) and communicate these rules. Let it be known that your team and your team alone owns the process of gathering feedback from your customers and that all surveys, no matter the size or scope, need to be approved by your team to ensure adherence to your VOC strategy, methodology and sampling plan.

Best Practices Consultation

Perhaps resource constraints or corporate culture make a collaborative, consultative approach more appropriate. Proactively offer your expert services of survey design, survey media/method selection and sampling and contact frequency planning to your coworkers. Communicate to them that you have a VOC strategy in place that you would like them to follow and work with them in a positive, constructive fashion as internal clients to guide them to feedback program design excellence.

A good VOC initiative has set objectives in place and a plan to meet these objectives.  Rogue surveys undermine your strategy by squandering valuable customer feedback opportunities, collecting data that does not map back to VOC objectives and polluting your data. While the approach taken to control wayward feedback initiatives will vary from one organization to the next, there is no better time than the present to bring rogue surveys to heel.

Each customer experience affects your customers’ beliefs and perceptions – their realities.  The changes can be subtle, unrecognizable at first; but they will continue to evolve in a positive or negative direction until they manifest into tangible change. 

The slow evolution of customer relationships can be out of your control to a great extent, which is why it’s imperative to your B2B company’s success that customers are given a consistent voice.  Proactively engaging customers to understand their realities through Voice of the Customer insight enables companies to have more control over their customer relationships.

Issues and misconceptions are normal because we’re all human, and communication breakdowns happen frequently as the intended message communicated is not heard and understood as expected.  Add to that the barrage of uncontrollable external influences that by their nature you are unaware of their occurrence and impact on your customer relationships.

Without a voice, issues and misconceptions can be left undiscovered.  Seemingly small infractions accumulate and aggregate into larger issues, disappointments and resentments.  Left unspoken and unresolved they become time bombs threatening to annihilate customer relationships and their long-term revenue streams at any moment. 

Can you afford the risk of not capturing your customers’ voices on a regular and consistent basis? 

How do you determine your objectives, and what are some of the red flags or pitfalls to avoid? VOC objectives are intended to understand your customers’ needs and prioritize their importance. Providing well-executed VOC objectives will result in actionable insights that will help your customers have a great experience with your organization. 

There are a couple of red flags to be aware of when determining your VOC objectives. First, know the DNA of your customers and why they continue to use your organization or buy your products. If your current VOC program satisfaction scores have not increased for years, this could be an indication that the current objectives need an overhaul. Another red flag is seeing the satisfaction reports in your organization, but not seeing anything being done with them. If an organization is going to ask for information, it’s imperative to act on the information so that customers see changes and improvements. 

There are many things to consider when developing your VOC objectives.  For example, it’s important to develop objectives that match your company culture and make sense to implement. Be sure to develop VOC objectives that can be realistically implemented throughout the organization.

No matter what level of sophistication your VOC program is at today, the important thing is to do something now to make incremental improvements. As you understand your customers more, you can continue to look for ways to improve, tweak or update your VOC objectives.

Bret Butler is Enterprise Program Manager for Allegiance.