When you are making decisions without customer feedback, you are usually relying on assumptions, internal opinions, and a little bit of hope.
Voice of the Customer (VoC) market research replaces guesswork with clear, measurable insight into what customers want, expect, and value most.
In this guide, we break down what VoC is, why it matters, the most common research methods, and how businesses can turn customer input into practical improvements. You will also see a real-world VoC case study that shows what this process looks like in action.
Voice of the Customer (VoC) refers to the process of capturing, understanding, and analyzing the opinions, preferences, needs, and expectations of customers regarding a product, service, or brand.
In simple terms, it is a form of market research designed to better connect with customers.
VoC market research blends both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to deliver complete insights.
That’s why Voice of Customer is commonly a formal market research process structured to ask questions, collect feedback, tabulate results, and take action based on customer data.
It is strategic, intentional, and tied to measurable business outcomes.
There are several reasons why Voice of Customer (VoC) is valuable for a business or organization, but the biggest is that it helps build a stronger foundation for strategy.
VoC is often used early, before a marketing plan is created or a new initiative is rolled out, because it brings clarity to what teams might otherwise rely on instinct to guess.
In other words, market research helps quantify the gut feeling.
Leaders may have strong assumptions about who their customers are, what motivates them, or why they behave a certain way, but without input from real customers, you cannot be fully confident those assumptions are correct.
That is why VoC supports a simple truth: whoever understands the customer best tends to win. 🏆
In a competitive landscape, customer feedback is not just helpful, it is a strategic advantage. It gives you a direct line to what people want, need, and expect, so those insights can be woven into decisions across the business.
Ultimately, Voice of Customer research helps ensure your decisions stay aligned with the people who matter most. And when decisions are built on evidence instead of guesses, you reduce uncertainty and lower risk.
The first is profiling and segmentation. Not all customers purchase a product or service for the same reason.
Collecting VoC helps you understand the demographics and behaviors of your 3 types of best customers, 5 types, or 12 types.
Understanding why customers buy, what makes them loyal, and why they choose your organization over other companies is critical data. VoC market research gives you an inside look into the mind of your customers.
Another benefit is using VoC to guide your budget.
What if you knew how many of your customers were on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. Or, how many watch TV, use Google search, listen to the radio, etc.
Also not just usage but you can also understand and predict more of your customer lifetime value, which can further refine budget usage by focusing resources on the most valuable customer segments.
It becomes much easier to dice up your marketing dollars accordingly.
An emerging benefit of VoC is to build content. Many organizations conduct industry surveys and decide to share the results in infographics and other press releases to share nuggets of information with news outlets.
This type of content can position your brand as a thought-leader in the space.
The last benefit is KPIs. Google Analytics and big data do a great job of explaining the “what” of the data.
VoC surveys or focus groups are an excellent way to provide depth around the “why”. It provides additional detail and context for your marketing campaigns.
Voice of Customer studies can measure awareness, satisfaction, perceptions, likelihood to purchase, and many other key performance indicators.
Types of VoC include both qualitative and quantitative market research.
Qualitative market research is aimed at exploring while quantitative is aimed at measurement.
While the two most common forms of VoC are surveys (quantitative) and focus groups (qualitative), there are other methodologies available to measure customer experiences.
Common forms of Voice of Customer market research include:
Online surveys are structured questionnaires designed to gather specific feedback from a large number of customers.
They typically include closed-ended questions with predefined response options, allowing for easy data analysis and quantification of customer opinions, preferences, and satisfaction levels.
Focus groups involve small groups of customers who participate in guided discussions or activities facilitated by a moderator. This qualitative research method allows for in-depth exploration of customer perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors.
Focus groups provide rich, nuanced insights into customer motivations and preferences, helping businesses understand the “why” behind certain opinions or trends.
VoC interviews are one-on-one conversations designed to uncover deeper context behind customer experiences, needs, and decision-making.
Unlike surveys, which are built for scale, interviews are built for depth. They give customers space to explain what happened, why it mattered, and what they wish had been different.
Because the format is flexible, interviews are especially useful when you need to explore topics that are complex or emotional, such as why customers churn, what drives loyalty, how they evaluate alternatives, or where friction shows up in the buying journey.
Recommended Reading: How Do VoC Interviews Work?
Intercept surveys are conducted in real-time, usually at the point of interaction between the customer and the business, such as in-store or on a website.
These surveys capture immediate feedback from customers about their experience, satisfaction levels, and any issues encountered.
Intercept surveys are valuable for capturing spontaneous reactions and addressing concerns promptly.
In-home usage tests (IHUTs) involve providing customers with a product to use in their own homes over a specified period.
Customers then provide feedback on their experience, usage patterns, likes, dislikes, and any issues encountered.
IHUTs offer a realistic environment for assessing product performance and acceptance, particularly for consumer goods and household products.
Geofencing surveys use location-based technology to target customers within a specific geographic area, such as a retail store or event venue.
When customers enter the designated area, they may receive prompts to participate in a survey or provide feedback via mobile apps or other digital platforms.
Geofencing surveys enable businesses to gather insights from customers in real-world contexts and tailor feedback requests based on their proximity to certain locations.
The Voice of Customer process is fairly straightforward. It is highly engineered and task-oriented moving from Step 1 through Step 6.
These are the key steps our VoC research company follows when executing a study for our clients.
All great things start off with a kickoff, even the Super Bowl. Here we get your stakeholders together to discuss objectives, expectations, and what types of action you would like to take from your results.
This becomes your driver’s manual for the project. We develop a workplan that highlights the timeline, tasks, and responsible parties. This is important to keep everyone in the loop throughout the process and help people involved in the VoC to understand where everything stands.
This is the most important step of the process. This is when you or your choice of market research company takes all of the feedback from the kickoff and translates the objectives into survey questions.
The survey design addresses flow, logic, skip patterns, and eliminates bias. If your VoC survey is not professionally written, your results will suffer. But, if you are conducting the study in-house, here are Must-Have Voice of Customer (VoC) Survey Questions.
Once the survey document is finalized, it is then programmed into an online survey software. The programmed version is often shared with the client for testing. The survey also goes under extensive testing with the VoC market research partner.
Once the survey is programmed, tested, and finalized, your next step is a test drive or soft launch. We recommend taking 1% of your customer sample or at most 100 contacts and sending the invitation to the survey to test return. Here you can head off any issues and make corrections before you open up full fieldwork.
The last step is after fieldwork is closed. Then the fun begins with the analysis. Cases often have to be cleaned up and edited for completeness and quality.
Once the data file is ready, the VoC market research company prepares charts and graphs, creates a themed executive summary, and most importantly, adds interpretation, insight, and recommendations from the analytics.
This is dependent on your needs. You have several options for longevity of the program. Here are 3 examples.
Ad-hoc VoC is a one-time market research project.
Perhaps you have a new product launch and you need to receive feedback on likelihood to use, price, and use some conjoint questions to understand the appeal of packages.
This would be an ad-hoc project that is conducted once before product launch to address specific objectives.
The easiest example here is conducting a customer loyalty survey on a yearly basis or every 18 to 24 months.
Following a periodic timeline ensures you are reaching out to your customers on an infrequent yet regular basis to understand Net Promoter Score (NPS), drivers to loyalty, ease of doing business, and likelihood to switch.
These customer satisfaction metrics must be measured regularly without over-surveying customers.
Continual VoC would be classified as transactional surveys or monthly surveys. These pop-up as part of a large CX program at a company.
Transactional surveys are defined as surveys sent out after a sale occurs, after a shipment arrives, or after you place a call to a customer service representative. These transactional surveys are sent out to continually measure and monitor the customer experience.
Another example here is monthly satisfaction surveys at a bank or credit union. Here the financial institution sends a survey to any new account holders or those who open a new loan.
A manufacturing company partnered with Drive Research to run a new Voice of Customer survey, picking up where a prior study left off the year prior.
Since that first project, the team had made real changes to operations and the customer experience.
The question was whether customers noticed and where the biggest gaps still remained. They also wanted a clear re-read on key performance indicators (KPIs) so leadership could make decisions with confidence instead of relying on assumptions.
The project centered on three practical goals:
Just as important, the company wanted an honest third-party perspective.
By gathering feedback through an independent research partner, they could trust that the results reflected what customers truly think, not what internal teams hoped to hear.
The outcomes were intended to guide decisions across operations, marketing, and broader strategy.
To reach customers efficiently and capture a strong volume of feedback, we recommended an email-based online survey. This method is typically faster and more cost-effective than phone or mail, and it still delivers reliable, decision-ready insights when designed and executed well.
The final deliverable did more than summarize results. It was designed to make the findings usable across teams.
The report included background and methodology, an executive summary of themes and recommendations, an infographic, customer personas, and suggested next steps for follow-up research. A detailed appendix provided a question-by-question breakdown for teams that wanted to dig deeper.
The findings helped answer questions such as:
The most valuable part of a VoC study is what happens after the data. Here are examples of how a manufacturing company can turn these results into action.
1. Turn drivers of satisfaction into a focused improvement plan
Use the data to identify the few factors that have the biggest impact on satisfaction and loyalty. Then prioritize improvements around those items first. This prevents teams from spreading effort across “nice to have” changes that do not move customer experience.
2. Fix ordering friction with targeted process updates
If customers flagged ordering as difficult, break the process into steps and pinpoint where confusion, delays, or rework happens most often. Common actions include simplifying forms, improving quoting and reorder workflows, setting clearer lead-time expectations, or adding better self-serve tools for repeat customers.
3. Align marketing and sales messaging with what customers value most
If customers consistently choose the company for a specific reason (speed, reliability, responsiveness, quality, problem-solving), make that benefit the headline across the website, sales collateral, and outreach. Use customer language from the survey to describe the value proposition in words that feel credible and familiar.
4. Reallocate marketing spend to the channels that actually drive awareness
If the survey pinpointed top sources of awareness, the company can double down on what is working and reduce spend on low-performing channels. This is often one of the fastest ways to improve ROI from marketing.
5. Identify expansion opportunities for new services or add-ons
If customers asked for additional offerings, translate those into a short list of testable concepts (for example, new support options, delivery models, reporting, training, or complementary products). Then validate demand with a follow-up concept test before investing.
A strong VoC research program requires the right mix of strategy, methodology, and execution. As a full-service VoC research company, we help organizations build customer listening programs that deliver clarity and direction. Contact us below for a free consultation.
