What is the voice of the customer and how to build a VOC program

The voice of the customer (VoC) refers to the opinions, needs, and expectations of a brand’s customers. 50% of consumers will decrease or entirely cut spending with a brand after a negative experience. Cumulatively, bad customer experiences put $3.1 trillion in annual consumer spending at risk. 

By listening to the voice of the customer, you can avoid these bad experiences, identify areas for improvement, and develop new products or services that meet your audience’s needs.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of the VoC and help you develop a methodology for capturing it. We’ll also provide examples of companies that have successfully implemented VoC programs, boosting customer retention and significantly improving customer service.

Jump to section: 

• How the VoC can help your business
• How to build a successful VoC program
• Easy ways to gather VoC data
• Examples of companies that successfully use the VoC

How the voice of the customer can help your business

Here’s how the voice of the customer can help you build a better business:

1. Build better products and services. Businesses can identify areas for improvement in their products or services, leading to a better customer experience and an improved customer journey.  
2. Increase customer satisfaction and retention. The best way to understand what customers like or dislike is simply by asking. Addressing common problems leads to better user experience and increased satisfaction.
3. Target your marketing campaigns better. Analyzing the VoC can help businesses tailor their marketing efforts and messaging to better resonate with real audiences.

How to build a voice of the customer program

Creating a strong voice of the customer program will help you understand, among other things, what your customers are looking for, what their interests and behavioral patterns are, and what you can do to provide real value to them. 

Here are a few tips to help you build a successful voice of the customer program and ultimately exceed customer expectations:

Use multiple channels

To get a well-rounded view of the customer experience, it’s important to gather feedback through multiple channels (email, phone, social media, text, online reviews, focus groups, etc.)

Leverage data to improve your program

Collect and analyze data from multiple sources to identify trends, patterns, and potential issues. The type of data you should look into includes feedback (reviews, social media, NPS, CSAT, etc.), HotJar and Google Analytics data (time on page, exit rate, click behavior), and A/B testing info. 

Choose the right tools and software

The easiest way to capture interaction data across all communication channels is with the help of multi-channel communication software. Helpful tools include MonkeyLearn, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Clarity, and Open Web Analytics.

Involve the right team members

Include members from different teams to get a complete understanding of the full picture. People that directly interact with customers (e.g. support, sales) will have unique, actionable information that your product or marketing team might not.

Do your research

Identify your key competitors, find their weak spots, and use the data to improve on areas where they are lacking. Do this on a constant basis to track your progress over time, and you will notice a significant improvement in product development. 

Take action

This could involve anything from making changes to your products or services or improving customer experience. I recommend running small experiments. Let them run for at least 14 days (to gather enough data), and if the results are positive, take action on a larger scale.

Best ways to gather voice of the customer data

Collecting customer feedback and using it to grow your business is easy when you have access to the right tools and tactics. Here are some simple and effective strategies we’ve used to capture voice of the customer (VoC) insights:

1. Customer surveys

Surveys are a great way to gather structured feedback from customers. Every business is different, but here are a few things to consider when capturing VoC data through surveys:

• Identify the key area that you want to gather feedback on.
• Decide on an online survey tool. For us, Hotjar was a great choice, but you can also create stand-alone surveys through tools like Qualtrics, Typeform, GoogleForms, or SurveyMoney. 
• Create surveys that are easy to complete and provide a good experience for the customer. Keep the survey short and to the point, as customers are more likely to complete it. 
• Promote the survey to relevant audiences and for a limited time to avoid polluting your data.
• Once you have collected enough survey responses, analyze the data and use it to identify trends and patterns in customer feedback. 
• Finally, follow up with customers who have completed the survey. This will show them that you value their feedback and are taking action based on it.

Example: Our team is preparing to launch a UI overhaul for our flagship product, TextMagic. To confirm that we are moving in the right direction, we released an interactive demo and emailed our most loyal customers to ask for their opinion. We used Hotjar to add a survey to every demo screen and address two simple questions: 

• Do you like the look and feel of this page? (if the answer is no, why?)
• If you could add one feature to our product, what would that be?  

We showed the demo to 1,600 customers and received 328 detailed replies in 30 days. 

2. Online reviews

Reviews on third-party sites like Yelp, Google, Capterra, TrustPilot, or G2 are great sources of VoC data. Unfortunately, most review data is unstructured – it contains noise, spelling mistakes, etc. 

We have over 3,000 internal and public reviews. To capture the VoC from this large data set, we compiled a master file and filtered out irrelevant information according to predetermined criteria. This was done with the help of text analysis techniques such as sentiment analysis, keyword, and topic extraction. 

If you don’t have that many reviews, you can simply create word clouds to identify common phrases that appear in your reviews.

3. Focus groups 

Businesses can bring a group of customers together to discuss and provide feedback on a specific product or service. This data collection method is ideal for testing concepts and gaining a better understanding of your customers’ needs.

Focus groups are typically moderated by a trained facilitator and can be conducted in person or online. For better results, write down key insights and measure them against other data points. 

4. Social media 

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are excellent for monitoring customer sentiment and tracking mentions of your business or its products.

Because there is a lot of chatter coming through different social platforms, I recommended using sentiment analysis techniques to discover patterns.

This is wild — BMW is now selling a monthly subscription service for heated seats in your car.

• Monthly fee: $18
• Annual fee: $180

The car will come with all the necessary components, but payment is needed to remove a software block.

Welcome to microtransaction hell.

— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) July 12, 2022

Don’t just count reactions and views, as they may paint a false image of your brand. Consider the emotions and opinions of your customers. A few months ago, a tweet about BMW’s subscription service for heated seats went viral – for the wrong reasons. 

If BMW had only analyzed the reach and reactions to the post, they would have overseen a serious issue. The company had to put forward a statement to clarify: 

To clear the air… BMW owners do NOT have to pay a subscription for heated seats or any other options ordered at time of purchase.

— BMW (@BMW) July 21, 2022

5. User emails and direct feedback

If you aren’t already, make sure you gather customer feedback through emails or dedicated feedback forms on your website. This is a quick and easy way for customers to share their thoughts and experiences.

This is easily done using a professional ticketing system that lets you optimize ticket management and set up specific workflows for customer segments. You can add tags to separate clients according to their communication preferences, which leads to better, more targeted campaigns. 

6. CSAT, NPS, and other customer satisfaction metrics

We already discussed the most important customer success metrics in a different article, so let’s focus on a few easy ways to capture the voice of the customer with CSAT and NPS: 

• Gathering the VoC through NPS. Regularly ask customers to fill out NPS surveys after completing significant actions on your site. Follow up with open-ended questions or segment your audience based on things like demographics, location, or product usage patterns.
• Gathering the VoC through CSAT. Include a highly specific CSAT survey question for customers who complete relevant actions. For example, you can ask the customer to rate how satisfied they are with your shipping speed, the checkout experience, etc. 

7. Blogs, forums, subreddits

Subreddits, forums, and communities are gold mines of customer data. When gathering data from such sources, don’t look only at your business. Find out what your target audience is saying about your competitors as well. Here’s how: 

1. Monitor the blogs and subreddits your audience loves. Customers will post feedback and unfiltered reviews on blogs and forums related to your industry. 
2. Use social listening tools. Social listening tools such as Hootsuite, Brand24, or SemRush automatically track mentions of your business, products, or services. They can also help you aggregate sentiment and identify trends in customer feedback.
3. Engage with customers or leads. Respond to feedback, answer questions, and address concerns related to your business. This shows customers that you are committed to improving their experience.
4. Analyze feedback. Use the data you have gathered to identify trends and patterns in customer feedback. 

Successful voice of the customer programs

Here are some examples of companies that are using the voice of the customer (VoC) successfully. We’re partial to examples from the SaaS world, of course, but will also include examples from other industries:

• Salesforce is a champion of positive customer experiences. The company has also written the Transformation Playbook to empower a mindset shift towards improving CX processes. 
• Starbucks consistently delivers on its brand promises. The company gathers customer feedback regularly through in-store suggestion boxes, social media, and customer surveys. Starbucks is also known to have changed products and even introduced menu items and flavors based on customer requests.  
• Amazon has made selling through VoC an art form. The company actively requests reviews from customers, and customers love leaving them. User-generated reviews are useful not only for making better decisions about their inventory and suppliers but also for creating content from the most trustworthy source – real customers.
• Slack, a communication and collaboration platform for teams, actively solicits customer feedback through various channels, including in-app surveys and social media. The company answers every, and I do mean EVERY customer inquiry on social media. They also have a dedicated community run by volunteers to help beginners and advanced users. 

Hey there, great point! When you can, please try:

1. From Slack on desktop
2. Click your workspace name in the top-left → Preferences → Accessibility
3. Under Keyboard, toggle from "Move focus to the message list" to "Edit your last message"

Let us know if that does not help!

— Slack (@SlackHQ) February 1, 2023

• Zoom has an interesting approach to TikTok. Zoom became quite popular among gen Z and millennials during the pandemic. That’s because they actively listen to their audience on TikTok, post relatable videos, and announce new product features in a format customers love. Here’s an example.

Conclusion

When it comes to the success of your business, the voice of the customer should be at the forefront of every decision. Understanding the needs wants, and pain points of our customers is the key to creating a better customer experience. 

You don’t need many resources to get started with your VoC program. Gather customer feedback from multiple channels, analyze customer interactions, and act on relevant VoC data. We hope this guide will simplify your data collection process and help you make better decisions for your business.