Are you listening to the Voice of the Customer [Infographic]

How are are companies managing their VOC assessment and follow-up?

It's the fourth year that the Temkin Group has delivered their benchmarking report which has researched 218 companies in the area of the 'Voice of the Customer' (VOC).

What is VOC?  'Voice of the Customer is a market research technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs, organized into a hierarchical structure, and then prioritized in terms of relative importance and satisfaction with current alternatives. Voice of the Customer studies typically consist of both qualitative and quantitative research steps. They are generally conducted at the start of any new product, process, or service design initiative in order to better understand the customer's wants and needs, and as the key input for new product definition.'

The report highlights that 'Looking ahead, companies plan on focusing less on multiple-choice surveys and more on interaction history and predictive analytics. In terms of metrics, our analysis shows that satisfaction and Net Promoter Score work most successfully at the relationship level, whereas Customer Effort Score works most successfully at the transactional level.' 

Companies are still spending in this area and Temkin's maturity evaluation examines the companies capabilities across 6 Ds, as ranked below.

Source: Temkin Group

The infographic gives a flavour of the results which can be purchased online. It shares that 68% of American companies are benefiting from their VOC programs, though they are not actively using the customer feedback to make improvements.