I recently met with a company that has been a client of ours for the last five or six years. During that time, there have been personnel changes on our team and on theirs. As a matter of fact, none of the original players on either side is involved any more. As we talked through our account review, it became painfully obvious that it was time to scrap what had been designed long ago and start over. It’s time for a refresh.
When was the last time you and/or your VOC partner took a long, hard look at what you’ve been doing for years to figure out if it’s time for a major overhaul or a redesign?
Well, it might be time for a refresh if you…
- Don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing
- Don’t know/remember the original objectives
- Haven’t achieved said forgettable (or original) objectives
- Have nothing to show for the feedback you have collected
- Have seen a drastic drop in response rates
- Only use the feedback to report one or two numbers; the rest of the data isn’t looked at or acted upon
- Only have one person (yourself) looking at the feedback, and even at that, it’s infrequently at best
- Have had major staffing changes within your organization
- Work with a vendor who has had staffing changes on your account team
- Have experienced staffing changes within both your organization and the vendor’s
- Have acquired new companies and brands
- Have rebranded your products
- Have changed your product focus or your audience
- Have changed your business/business model
- Are not collecting feedback in the mode preferred by your customers
- Have new competitors
- Haven’t had any actionable results in years
- Notice that recommendations for improvement haven’t changed
- Aren’t making improvements based on the feedback
- Discover that what you are currently doing is not/no longer working
If you’ve been doing the same thing for umpteen years, seriously, it’s time for a refresh. Data collection methods have changed. Respondent preferences (for completing surveys) have changed. VOC has changed and now includes more than just surveys. Key metrics for your business may have changed. There are a lot of things that have changed over time; but if your approach to VOC – not just the way you capture feedback but also the way you distribute, analyze, act on it, and communicate improvements – has remained stagnant, you’re not only wasting money, you’re doing your customers and your business a huge disservice.
Go now! Review what you’re doing. Does your VOC initiative suffer from any of the symptoms listed above? If so, it is definitely time for a redesign!
The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing. -John Russell, President, Harley Davidson
