Why Only 15% of Voice of Customer Programs are “Very Successful”

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voice of customer maturityOnly 15% of voice of customer (VoC) programs are considered “very successful”* by their managers, according to the Temkin Group’s State of Voice of Customer Programs 2016 report. What’s broken?

Just 34% say their VoC program is “good” or “very good” at making changes to the business based on VoC insights.

So why is it that two-thirds of VoC programs aren’t making a difference? 4 root causes:

You get what you measure. Emphasis on a survey index score focuses execs’ attention on what the customer is doing for the company rather than what the company is doing for the customer. Survey index scores are treated by most companies like SPC — statistical process control — where performance within a “safe range” means business-as-usual is okay. Instead, focus on action plan progress metrics.

You get what you ask for. VoC reports do not speak the language of managers. They do not translate survey averages and percentages into dollars represented by the customers with varying sentiments. When they do, it’s about revenue boost by adjusting customer-facing elements. That’s not about driving changes to the business. Instead, present sentiment in terms of customer lifetime value, or at least as a percentage of current revenue or profit.

You get what you aim for. Customer experience maturity models place organizational adoption and accountability for driving business change per VoC at the tail-end of the customer experience management effort. This reflects the unfortunate current reality, but it does not guide managers to set themselves up for success. Most customer experience technology providers, and many consultants, do not have personal career experience in driving business change — and their self-interest is elsewhere — so this critical success factor gets glossed over rather than placed at the outset. Instead, it’s essential to figure out how you want to drive business change before investing in VoC.

You get what you empower. VoC managers admit that they aren’t equipped to drive changes to the business. Their charter is to solicit and report feedback from customers. VoC technologies are designed to drive quick fixes for individual customers — not to drive changes to the business. Skills, authority, bandwidth of VoC managers — and company mindset — are not set up to make changes to the business based on VoC insights. Instead, set up VoC as a determinant of corporate strategy and a shaper and refiner of all business strategies, processes, policies, structures, and rewards.

Only 4% of of Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs are transforming customer experience.

More than half are stuck in analysis paralysis, according to the Temkin Group’s State of Voice of Customer Programs 2016 report:

  • 4% are VoC Transformerslinking customer insights to operational data and processes and strategic planning throughout the company.
  • 39% are VoC Collaborators — tailoring customer feedback to stakeholders who are diligently engaged in continuous improvement.
  • 41% are VoC Analyzers — spending the majority of their time finding insights from VoC data.
  • 14% are VoC Collectors — just getting started in selecting listening posts, questions to ask and metrics to use.
  • 2% are VoC Novices — in the early stages of developing their VoC approach.

The upper two categories are the necessary threshold for customer experience management (CXM) return on investment (ROI). The lower 3 categories are akin to analysis paralysis: they are not respecting customers by making things better according to their feedback.

In many cases the Collaborator level (as interpreted by Temkin’s respondents) falls short of making a dent in CXM ROI: escalated fixes for individual customers may use more resources than the value they achieve — it’s essential to make enduring improvements your whole customer base will reward.

The interesting thing is that there is no need to trudge through these categories. It is certainly possible, and highly recommendable, to plan your VoC strategy from the start at the VoC Transformers level.

This is what we did when I led customer experience transformation for many years at semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials. The first VoC results were discussed in-depth by the entire C-team in an all-day enterprise customer experience strategy offsite meeting. After they developed a shared vision for transforming customer experience company-wide, they decided that every business unit and account team should study their own cut of the data, in workshops where cross-functional participants read customer comments about a key driver of customer loyalty, to determine root causes and develop action plans to resolve the root issues.

In these annual workshops I guided them in identifying internal metrics to track the progress of their action plans, and my team collected their progress metrics quarterly for review by the C-team at the same time they prepared for the investment analysts’ call. The C-team focused on these action plan metrics in each business unit’s and account team’s bonus formula. My team scheduled our VoC reporting to coincide with early stages of the company’s annual planning process, and showed each functional area how they could use VoC to shape their work. By starting our VoC efforts in this way, we were able to provide results at the VoC Collaborator and Transformer levels the first two years and onward.

Lesson 1: Ensure the whole C-team has a shared vision and personal commitment for each of their respective organizations’ role in making a difference based on whatever the VoC findings may reveal. Do this first. Don’t wait to see what the data says.

Lesson 2: Present VoC findings in the language your stakeholders speak: size of business at-opportunity or at-risk, coinciding operational and sentiment shifts, precious resources wasted, opportunity to re-channel budget/resources by resolving root issues, and timely availability of insights for strategic direction-setting and decision-making. Involve stakeholder representatives in helping you do this before publishing/presenting.

Lesson 3: Expect action and accountability from everyone. If you want to be rewarded by your whole customer base, strive to prevent recurrence of chronic issues. This requires cross-functional collaboration. Set up systematic workshops and other routines to make it easier for people to build passion together in tackling silos and imperfect processes and policies. Set up incentives for specific behaviors — if you carefully identify the right behaviors the results will speak for themselves. Have this planned out before you invest in VoC — or before you make further VoC investments!

*63% say their VoC program is “somewhat successful”; the remaining 22% are relatively indecisive about their VoC program’s success.

Image purchased under license from Shutterstock.

This article was originally published by Lynn Hunsaker on LinkedIn as Solving the VoC Immaturity Conundrum and Fast-Track to Customer Experience Transformation.

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Lynn Hunsaker

Lynn Hunsaker is 1 of 5 CustomerThink Hall of Fame authors. She built CX maturity via customer experience, strategic planning, quality, and marketing roles at Applied Materials and Sonoco. She was a CXPA board member and SVAMA president, taught 25 college courses, and authored 6 CXM studies and many CXM handbooks and courses. Her specialties are B2B, silos, customer-centric business and marketing, engaging C-Suite and non-customer-facing groups in CX, leading indicators, ROI, maturity. CX leaders in 50+ countries benefit from her self-paced e-consulting: Masterminds, Value Exchange, and more.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Great article here Lynn, thank you for sharing. I agree, VoC is all about getting ownership across the organization and having a shared vision. It’s more about what’s done with the data. How can you take all of the data and insights and apply it to action.

    George

  2. Thanks for your comment, George. We all see the benefit of “outside-in” business management, yet we need to be much more ambitious in making that a reality. VoC should both inform and confirm all the company does. Doing whatever it takes to align the business with what customers are replying to the business’ questions for them is common courtesy as well as smart business management.

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