Are You Listening to Your Customers?

Voice of the customer, VOC, is a common term and when I speak at industry conferences it is a common topic of conversation in the world of customer care. I think we all understand the importance of hearing how your customers view your brand, your products and your services but all too often this translates into, "What did our survey say?" Surveys, while important, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to customer feedback. Customer centric organizations use a variety of data points to understand not only how a customer feels but what challenges their customers face and the impact of those challenges have on their business. Here are some of the data points you might think of when you broaden the scope of the VOC view.

- Complaints and Praises (broken down by products, geography, customer value, brand impact, channel)

- Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, blogs, direct messages, competitor breakdown)

- Interaction volumes by channel

- Customer Effort scores

- Employee comments (Blogs, Intranet posts, eNPS surveys

- Service Desk tickets (Volume, criticality, timeframes,)

- Call / Chat recordings - (how customers sound when they encounter different issues)

- Waivers / Returns

- Review sites (Yelp, google)

- Key service indicators - ASA, AHT, Recalls,

- Product defects

The list goes on and on. The point is that at the cross section of all of these data points is tremendous visibility in your customers journey that can help your leadership team and the entire business focus on fixing (or maintaining) the things that matter most to customers.