VOC

There are many voices you need to listen to when developing your customer experience strategy.

You listen to your customers and to your employees. You do listen to them, right? Both of them?

Back in 2001 – while an incredible talented, young, and successful Gartner analyst – I wrote a research note introducing  the concept of Customer Feedback Systems.

What's the cost of listening to customers?

Someone asked me recently about the percentage of revenue that customer-focused companies spend on their VOC initiatives. Although they wanted some guidance on what to spend on a VOC solution, I thought it was a fair question but one for which I don't have the answer. That didn't bother me much because I do have an answer, just not the one he was looking for.

Criticizing Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs is like speaking out against motherhood and apple pie. The last time I criticized VOC programs, someone left a comment chastising me for presuming that a bank could know what its customers wanted without asking them.

Today I'm pleased to present another guest post from Sarah Simon.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." -Nelson Mandela

I originally wrote this post for Delight's blog on April 29, 2013.

I started a CEM Toolbox series a year ago and only dabbled in it a couple times. Today I'll pick up with a post that was published on Delight's blog and will strive to add to the toolbox a few more times this year.

What is your VOC approach? Are you listening to customers, or still/only asking?

As part of the CX Day celebration earlier this week, I moderated two Google Hangouts, one for Australia and one for the Pacific Time Zone. In the former, we discussed the state of customer experience in Australia, while in the latter, our topic was the shift in VOC efforts, from asking to listening.