Are you having trouble retaining customers? Are you trying to figure out how to increase your bottom line?
The solution to these problems might be simpler than you think. You just need to listen to your customers.
There are correlations between customers who feel valued and higher retention and sales. That’s why it’s important to know what your customers are looking for, why they need you, and what you can do to help them.
You can get all that information through a Voice of the Customer, or VoC, program. Keep reading to learn all the basic facts you need to know about Voice of the Customer.
What Is ‘Voice of the Customer’?
Voice of the Customer is a term used to describe the process of collecting and understanding customer feedback. VoC helps your business understand how individual customers feel about your business. It gathers information related to customer experiences, expectations, preferences, and aversions.
VoC places an emphasis on “closing the loop” with your customer. This means responding to your customers in a way that proves their feedback has been incorporated into your products or services. Ultimately, VoC can help you create a stronger customer experience.
VoC Benefits
Voice of the Customer programs are proven to help companies understand the customer experience to drive change. In addition, VoC programs can lead to a number of other benefits that include:
Edging ahead of your competitors
Customer expectations are constantly changing, and in today’s world, you’re not just compared to your direct competitors. Customers will compare you to any experience they’re having. By listening to your customers and understanding what they want, you can improve your product and stay ahead of your competition.
Managing your brand
Getting feedback on how customers perceive your brand will help you maintain a positive reputation. By directly getting feedback, it limits the likelihood of customers giving negative reviews on social media.
Reducing risk
By understanding what your customer wants, you can reduce the risk of launching a new product or service. Before launching, you’ll be sure that your new product or service meets some needs of your customer.
Increasing revenue
By using customer feedback to improve the customer experience, VoC helps your bottom line. VoC helps reduce customer churn and puts you in a stronger position to attract new customers.
How to Capture VoC Feedback
VoC data can be used for a variety of purposes that deliver value to your organization. In order to reap the benefits of VoC, first, you need a way to capture the data. Below are a few proven methods to capture the data your company needs:
Customer Interviews
Customer interviews are used to get a particular customer’s perspective related to a product or service. Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or through email. You can also choose to target an individual customer or a group of customers that share common attributes.
In-person interviews are the most expensive way to solicit customer feedback but are also the most useful. Customers perceive this interaction as more personal. It helps foster a more trusting customer relationship.
Customer Surveys
Customer surveys are a great way for you to better understand your customer and the issues they face. It’s easier to address their issues when you have a thorough understanding of them.
It’s important to put a lot of thought into the design of your survey and survey questions. If you’re not asking the right questions, you’re not going to get the type of data you want.
Social Listening
Social media platforms give businesses direct and unfiltered feedback from customers. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter give companies the ability to listen in on real-time conversations. Social listening is a good way to gather feedback and look for trends.
Website Behavior
Analyzing customer behavior on your website is another strong method for data gathering. Website clickstream data and purchase history are just a couple of the many data points you can gather.
Online Customer Reviews
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Your online reputation has a huge impact on your business and it’s critical you pay attention to your customer reviews.
While it’s important for your company to get positive reviews, it may be even more crucial to appropriately respond to negative reviews. These negative comments can have a detrimental impact on your business. Replying to all your negative reviews in a timely manner will help your reputation. Online reviews are a great way to check the pulse on your online reputation.
VOC Tools
Gathering the Voice of the Customer data is a huge undertaking. It requires a lot of time and effort to figure out the right questions to ask, the requirements to identify, and how to gather the data. On top of all that, once the data is collected you need to actually collate and analyze the data to understand what your customer is saying.
Luckily there are software applications on the market that can help make the process a little bit easier. These tools gather customer opinions, views, and feedback. They make it easy to collect and analyze data so you can start making more customer-centric decisions. Some of these tools include:
- Decibel
- SentiSum
- Medallia
- ResponseTek
- Clarabridge
Incorporate a Voice of the Customer Program Into Your Business
Are you ready to increase your customer retention rates and get ahead of your competitors? Incorporating a Voice of the Customer program into your business will help you get the customer feedback and insights you need to improve your business performance.
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