Customer experience is increasingly becoming an organisational focus for corporations and government departments alike, but many companies simply do not have the insights or tools to address the complex world of meeting customer expectations. Voice of customer (VOC) programs are designed by market research companies to gather customer insights and translate these into positive business outcomes. A high-quality VOC program will guide your business strategy and support your operational goals.

The importance of a VOC program

Focusing on the voice of your customers can offer ongoing benefits to your organisation, including:

• Improved customer experience – Gain valuable insight into the customer journey using real feedback. With a focus on customer satisfaction, processes can be developed to meet expectations.
  
• Informed decision making – Decision making can be better informed and based on return on investment due to improved insight. Customer experience becomes the priority.
  
• Focus your resources – Resources can be allocated more mindfully according to client needs. Avoid unnecessary spending on areas which don’t benefit the customer.
  
• Better brand management – Understand how the market perceives your brand to support continuously improvement in trust and brand loyalty across the customer experience.
  
• Targeted product and service development – Products and services can be developed in line with what your customer base wants and the reaction to new developments can be monitored.

The four components of a VOC program

• Design – Collaborative and agile working practices which are designed to be in line with your key business objectives. Provide channels for real time customer feedback to be captured across the customer journey with strategic metric alignment.
• Process – Create a closed loop framework which informs how to use customer feedback to drive change. The four loops to close include immediate response, correction action, continuous improvement and strategic change.
• Technology – Automated and engaging technology to allow insights into customer experience in real time.  Metrics and text analytics, sentiment analysis, and scorecards provide important data and ability to interrogate through a centralised reporting hub.
• People – Use collated insights for continuous improvement of the customer experience through ongoing training and support, relevant and meaningful content, and alignment with broader employee engagement programs.

Integration of customer feedback

Understanding the customer journey is key in developing insights and organisational change for optimal growth. The various channels of customer feedback do not exist in isolation – rather, feedback from multiple sources are collated into one central hub to provide integrated data. The various avenues for customer feedback include:

• Customer surveys
• Social media, blogs, reviews and forums
• Call centre/phone transcripts, emails, letters
• Complaints and compliments, general feedback

The integration of customer feedback can help you to identify the patterns within the customer journey, develop solutions to smooth the experience, remove unnecessary processes, meet customer expectations and monitor new initiatives.

Inspiring big ideas and continuous growth

Kantar Australia is one of Australia’s largest customised market research companies with 30 years of experience in the industry. Comprised of a team of senior qualitive and quantitative research experts, we work with a range of clients to help deliver better products, services and communications. We’re passionate about making a difference for our clients and with over 100 specialists across Australia, we know how to provide evidence-based insights that deliver better strategies and results.  In a rapidly changing world, we inspire big ideas and profitable growth.

Contact us today to learn more about the innovative solutions Kantar Australia can bring to your business.