Voice of Customer (VoC) research is an important trend in the market research industry.
I recently attended a webinar titled, "How to Maximize ROI From Your VoC Program". The webinar discussed several different tips and strategies on how to increase the value of VoC research. The post below summarizes key tips from the webinar.
Wondering what VoC research is?
VoC research consists of gathering feedback from customers through market research. The methodology for VoC research can vary but typically includes interviews, focus groups, or surveys. Oftentimes, surveys prove to be the ideal method to get feedback from many customers rather than a select few participating in qualitative research like interviews and focus groups.
Use the tips below to learn more about how to increase the ROI of VoC research.
7 Tips to Increase the ROI of VoC Research
Tip #1: Harness the Power of Journey Mapping
Organizations need to understand customer journeys in detail. Journey mapping helps organizations understand how customers interact with the brand.
What leaders perceive the customer path to be is not always the case. Journey mapping gives organizations a clear view of the customer journey including what initiated the customer interaction to the purchase process.
Tip #2: Share the Data with Employees
Organizations should share the results of the VoC research with everyone in the organization including front line staff.
The data shared should be relevant to each specific job and easy to understand. Moreover, organizations should not just share the entire VoC report and leave employees to dig through it on their own.
Leaders of the organization should help employees understand the purpose of the research and walk them through the results so they can better understand the data and put it to use.
Tip #3: Share How You Plan to Use the Data with Customers
Organizations need to use the data gained through VoC research to implement data-driven strategies and better understand the customer experience. Doing this separates customer-centric organizations from those that are not.
After a VoC research study is completed, a message should be sent to all customers to thank all of those who participated and to highlight key findings and next steps. This ensures the time and feedback given by customers who participated was valued, but also encourages those who did not participate to do so next time.
Check out how big brands like Starbucks and McDonald's have utilized VoC research.
Tip #4: Continually Evolve
Once the data is being used and new strategies are implemented, organizations will need to make improvements, update the survey, continually conduct the VoC research. VoC research is not a "one and done" study. Depending on the size of the organization this research may be done quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.
Tip #5: Benchmarking
It's important to benchmark the results of KPIs against competitors, the industry as a whole, and to the organization itself over time. This gives better insight into each KPI score to understand how well the organization stacks up against others and how it has progressed.
Here's more information about what KPIs your business should be measuring.
Tip #6: Understand Best Practices
Before implementing VoC research, organizations should work with market research professionals to better understand best practices when conducting research. Factors like the research invite, question format, question phrasing, length of the research, and more all play a key role in how successful a VoC research project will be.
Here's our ultimate guide to Voice of Customer (VoC) research.
Tip #7: Use an Automated Closed Loop VoC Process
If a problem is recognized through VoC research the sponsoring organization should leverage that information and follow up with the customer quickly to fix the problem. Automating this process makes it easier to gather data and follow-up with customers that have a problem.
For example, a VoC survey can be sent to customers every 6 months. If a customer reports a problem with the organization in the survey, the issue along with the customer information can be sent to leaders via email as soon as the survey is submitted. Also, an email letting the customer know the sponsoring organization is looking into the problem can also be automatically sent once the survey is submitted.
Here is why you need a closed loop survey process.
Contact Our Voice of Customer (VoC) Company
Drive Research is a Voice of Customer (VoC) market research company. Our company is based in New York but works with organizations around the world with custom market research needs. Learn all about our the market research services we offer.
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