The Change Dude’s Blog

2011 Voice of the Customer (VOC) Trends

Collecting, analyzing, acting on and integrating customer feedback into the strategic decision making process of many companies has reached fever pitch.  Over the past few years gathering and analyzing customer feedback has become increasingly important and cost effective as user friendly technologies with built-in analytics are introduced. 

Assisting my clients in growing their proficiency in taking the gigabytes of customer feedback data from survey result to strategic action is a significant part of my practice.  Trends in Voice of the Customer (VOC) proficiency improvement are moving from learning to keep score to the next levels of proficiency around connecting the results to business outcomes for strategic decision making.

What’s HOT in 2011

In preparation to support out clients my colleagues and I reviewed and evaluated a variety of sources that forecast VOC trends as well as canvassing our clients about what key trends they see emerging.

Our work revealed one key theme, the community must “Move from rear-view mirror scorecards to forward looking dashboards.”  The challenge in the marketplace continues to be integrating VOC analysis into the strategic decision making process.

Specifically we found 5 Trends that are white hot in 2011:

1. Crash Data Silos – In order to make VOC analytics relevant throughout the business it’s crucial that this data be “mashed up” with operational data.  Business intelligence must integrate VOC data in the mix.
2. Closed Loop-Processes – Follow the bouncing ball…until it stops.  Development of closed-loop processes that take VOC information from it’s initial collection through actions taken and into business outcomes resulting.
3. Employee Engagement – Employees are back.  Over the last few years business leaders have taken a see-no-evil approach to what employees were feeling.  Conventional wisdom has been that employees were not doing well. 2011 has seen a rebirth of interest in measuring the Voice of the Employee (VOE).  The key trend for the VOC community is to relate VOC and VOE information.  Collect VOE data more frequently than annually and evaluation the relationship between VOE and VOC.
4. Point of Contact Feedback – Gather VOC data that can be directly related to a particular employee or point of contact is crucial.  Bringing data and feedback to the individual level is crucially important to positively effect the customer experience.
5. Text Analysis – Dealing with unstructured data that comes to the organization from listening posts, verbal feedback and social media sits at the top of the “must have” list.  Technology that can make sense of thousands of pieces of text on a daily basis is invaluable to determine issues and trends for both customers and employees.

Customers an business leaders depend heavily on VOC professionals to serve up actionable insights linked to demonstrable business outcomes.

February 17, 2011 - Posted by thechangedude | Uncategorized