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How to Run a Voice of the Customer (VoC) Program

Simplifying CX YouTube series episode on how to run a successful VoC program.

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Video Transcript

Hey everyone, Sara here from GetFeedback. Welcome to another episode of Simplifying CX. 

If you’re new to our channel, this series is here to provide you with straightforward answers to the biggest CX challenges. If that sounds relevant to you⁠—don’t forget to subscribe!

Today I’m going to go over how to run a Voice of the Customer program, which is the foundation of any successful customer experience initiative. 

First, I’ll explain what the Voice of the Customer is and why it’s important. 

Second, I’ll share with you the 4 steps you should take to run a successful Voice of the Customer program. 

Lastly, I’ll provide a few examples of how to take action on Voice of the Customer data. 

A Voice of the Customer program, VoC for short, captures, analyzes and reports on all customer feedback, such as expectations, likes, and dislikes, that is associated with your company.

In other words, it’s the customer feedback program of your company. 

A VoC program gives you real-time insight into your customers’ experiences.

From this feedback, you can identify trends and opportunities to improve customer experience. 

In fact, companies that invest in customer feedback programs grow 2-3 times faster than those that don’t.

Also, you should know that the term Voice of the Customer has other variations, such as Customer Voice, Voice of Customer, and Customer Feedback program, but they all mean the same thing.

OK, now onto the 4 steps you should take to launch and run Voice of the Customer program. 

First, assemble a group of leaders across your company that believe in your program and will advocate for it. These leaders should be from all levels of your company, not just the top. It’s also important that they understand the value of the investment and their role in this program. So make sure to discuss with them the ideal business outcomes of gathering this customer feedback.

Second, leverage this team of leaders to communicate the value of the VoC program across the entire company. Specifically, your team must clearly state how the program will help reach the overall goals for the company.

Third, you should understand the customer journey and identify the key touchpoints where you should be collecting feedback. A touchpoint is any point on the journey map where a customer interacts with your brand.

Fourth, the team should have a central place where all of your Voice of the Customer data is collected, updated and analyzed in real-time. This central hub, which is typically in the form of a dashboard, is a place for employees across the company to review and interpret customer feedback.

This is a lot of information, so if you asked me to summarize all of this, I would tell you to remember that a Voice of the Customer program should: Listen, Interpret, Act, and Monitor.

All right so let’s zero in on the “act” part of the program. 

Taking action on customer feedback can be an intimidating endeavor. Especially when it comes to acting on feedback from unhappy customers. 

To help you get started, I’ll share some guidelines for taking action on positive, neutral, and negative feedback. 

You should view positive feedback as insight that validates your customer experience initiatives. It should also guide what you prioritize and optimize in your experience program.

Neutral feedback is great for identifying and resolving minor issues before they turn into major problems. By tackling them, you might also turn neutral customers into promoters.

When it comes to negative feedback, the reality is that many customer complaints go unanswered. You’d think all brands would be on top of their social feed and customer service channels but that’s not the case. So, the best way to optimize on negative feedback is by simply reaching out to your unhappy customers. If you do this, you’ll have a chance to prevent customer churn and gather valuable insight.

Keep in mind these are just some initial ideas--there are so many ways to take action on feedback. 

The key thing to remember is that taking strategic action will deliver results.

And, over time, these results will help prove the value of your Voice of the Customer program. 

For more on Voice of the Customer, click on the link in the description section of this video.

Also, if there’s a topic that you’d like us to cover, tell us in the comments section! 

And make sure to subscribe now to see more videos that simplify CX.

Until next time!

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