Not getting the results out of your Voice of the Customer (VOC) program? Curious what pitfalls to avoid when creating a new VOC program. Have a look to find out 5 key mistakes that I see when clients and other companies have considered VOC programs.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Rick Denton - EX4CX: [00:00:00] Hey, so today I want to talk to you about five reasons why I have seen voice of the customer programs fail. Sure.
There's probably a bevy of other reasons, but these are five that hit me right off the top. And I see it so many times at clients and other companies as to why their voice of the customer program fails. So, number one, these aren't in any particular order, but the one that I see often is. They say voice the customer, but they mean survey.
The reality is the customer's voice comes at you in many different ways. It is not just a survey. Are you listening to social media? Are you listening to the calls or other contact mechanisms that the customer is reaching into your company? Chats emails? Are you talking to your frontline? Voice of the customer is more than survey.
And so if you're hearing that your voice of the customer program is a survey, that's a key red flag. That'll tell you that it's possible that this voice of the customer program is at risk.
The number two reason that I see no tie to [00:01:00] business results. And I realized that customer experience, voice the customer. Sometimes it can be very tricky to do that, but I'll give you an example, using your voice of the customer program to reduce your cancel rates by X percentage will result in Y revenue dollars.
That is an important part of tying the voice of the customer program to the business results. Now, to claim that VOC is going to deliver a hundred percent of the results, that's highly unlikely. But what percentage of that is a reasonable, every business forecast is model based. So voice of the customer should be no different.
Your voice, the customer model should have a business result component to it, and you should be able to tie those to business results. If you aren't doing so. And you're hearing well, no, the voice of the customer program will help our NPS go up by X percentage points. Well, is that at the business results?
No, that's an indicator to, abusiness result, but what does that NPS tie towards. Tying your voice of the customer program to business results is going to be a vital part of making sure that it succeeds and doesn't fail.
The number three reason. I see...No [00:02:00] process that it is an ad hoc approach to voice the customer. Someone gets an itch. Somebody feels that something's going the wrong way. Somebody hears some complaining or sees that reviews are going in a particular direction. Let's get a voice of the customer program sent out.
Usually what that means is send out a survey, go back to reason. Number one. Having a process in place to, in a disciplined way, listen across all of your customer, listening posts, take that information in, analyze that information and then do something with it, actually act upon it. That action requires a process.
If you don't have a process, your actions are going to be ad hoc and unlikely to be repeatable and beneficial to the customer, which is the whole reason that you're doing the voice of the customer program. So with that in mind, if you see that there's not a process behind the voice of the customer program, watch out that could be an indicator that this program is not set up for success.
Only focusing on the big things. It is so tempting and a voice of the customer program to look for the big themes, the big initiatives going after the really large [00:03:00] items that you may be hearing your customers voice say, but the reality is your voice of the customer program is gonna expose a whole lot of small things.
That are a lot easier to implement a lot easier to fix a lot easier to focus on go after those small things, that little incremental win that you gain is such an important part of pushing that fly wheel and getting that fly wheel, moving to where the voice of the customer program is just an ongoing, spinning mechanism of success.
So if you see that the voice of the customer program is only focused on big items, watch out. That could be another indicator that it is not set up for success.
Item number five, ignoring the employees, a total voice of the customer program. Yes. Listen and act such an important part of it. It's part of a little phrase that I say stop survey and score, start listening and act, but and act, a lot of times people are thinking, how can I react to the customer? So what is my external closed loop feedback?
That's good. How can I improve my company? That's internal closed loop feedback. That's good. But they're forgetting about the value of voice, the customer for the employee and the employee experience and the employee engagement. Are you using voice of the customer to coach? Are [00:04:00] you using it to inspire? Are you using it to celebrate?
If you aren't leveraging voice of the customer to build into your employees, build into your employee experience. That's another reason that your voice of the customer program may be set up to fail.
Let me tell you a key bonus item here. And it's one to really watch out for when it sneaks in there, because it's usually done with good intentions and that is watch out for how you are incenting. And I am saying capital I incentives with dollars or lowercase i incentives with motivation with celebrations, whatever that looks like inside of your company, how you incent
the behavior is coming out of the voice of the customer program is vital to avoiding gaming of that program so that we don't see those. Hey, make sure and give me a five star. And if you can't give me a five-star, let me know why before you sell, fill out that survey or even worse people that are on a call deleting emails so that there can't be a survey going out to that customer.
If you have put undue incentive and influence and pressure, and people are fearing for their job because of the voice of the customer program, you're not going to be able to get the gold, [00:05:00] which is the actual. Representation and understanding of the customer's experience. So watch out for how you're incenting and what you're doing with the influence and around your voice, the customer program.
So those five plus the bonus, those are some of the biggest reasons why I see a voice of the customer program fail. What are some of the ones that you've seen? I'd love to see your thoughts there in the comments that have gone beyond the five and the bonus eager to see what your thoughts are.