Voice of Customer Strategy, Template & Examples

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The advent of the digital era, social media, and other technological innovations are changing the way people connect with the world around them. It’s changing the way people connect with their loved ones, handle their banking, travel the globe, find new restaurants, and do their shopping.

And if understanding our customers is one of the key tenets of any successful business, how do businesses understand their customers’s needs and wants in a quickly changing world? How do businesses keep track of what they can do for their customers, what their customers need from them, and what their customers are going to be interested in in the future?

The answer is simple: Voice of Customer.

What is Voice of Customer?

Voice of customer (VoC) is an analytic method used by businesses to better understand the needs and wants of their customers. 

You can break down VoC into two primary categories:

• Customer Needs: VoC can provide a comprehensive look into what your customers want out of a company, service, product, etc.
• Company Strategy: VoC will allow you to analyze valuable data and information to make informed decisions about business strategies at every level of the corporate hierarchy.

While Voice of Customer might seem like a fairly simple method, it’s executed in a flexible, diverse, and multi-faceted manner. 

There are a number of techniques that companies can employ in gaining information on their customers’ needs and behavior, and all of that data can be utilized in a variety of ways to make smart, data-informed business decisions.

Businesses, for example, can utilize their data for rebranding campaigns, better product design, bolstering their customer service strategies, marketing, advertisements, and offering new or improved services. 

So what kind of strategies can companies employ to learn about their customers’ needs and wants?

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Voice of Customer Methodologies

Voice of Customer methodologies refers to the variety of approaches that businesses can utilize to accrue data and learn more about their customers. The key is to apply as many techniques as practically possible to ensure you’re approaching your customers from every angle. 

Here are some key Voice of Customer methodologies you can utilize today.

• Surveys: One of the most trusted and oldest ways of learning about people, surveys are a great way to help you understand your customers and the kind of issues they’re facing. To achieve the best results, make sure you’re asking the right questions, keeping your survey concise and easy to understand, and coming up with targeted questions that reveal important aspects of your business.
• Live Chat: Live chat has become one of the fastest growing and popular ways for customers to ask questions or present issues to customer service representatives. While using live chat is important to make sure customers are satisfied, it’s also a great way for you to learn about the issues your customers are faced with. You can also present surveys at the end of every live chat dialogue.
• Social Media: Social media is a great way to gain direct and non-direct forms of data and information. Customers can message you directly through your social media pages, which is a great way, like live chat, to learn about their concerns. But you can also follow what’s trending, what people are liking and sharing, and the kind of comments and conversations that take place surrounding your product, industry, and company.
• Customer Reviews: Another tried and tested method for learning about your customers’ experiences is through direct customer reviews. These tend to be more helpful because customers will typically go out of their ways to write a customer review if either their experience was really positive or really negative, which can give you a good idea of what’s working and what isn’t.

Voice of Customer Template

You should have several Voice of Customer templates on hand for a variety of scenarios, and you should be constantly updating those templates in order to understand the changes in the market and your customers’ needs. 

Like the VoC methodologies and application processes, there are a number of Voice of Customer templates you can utilize that will allow you to learn different aspects of the customer experience. The efficacy of these templates also has a lot to do with how they provide a common language and form that you can distribute to every department in your company. 

Some of the most common Voice of Customer Templates include:

• VoC Matrix through Excel: A VoC matrix is a useful chart that allows you to assess the things your customers least or most value.
• VoC Table: A Voc table is a very simple way to translate customer reviews and responses into concrete actions.
• VoC Data Charts: In order to make your data and information readable and easily understandable, you’re going to rely on data chart templates to simplify your findings. Utilizing charts, tables, and graphs to identify what your data is saying about your customers will allow all of you to distribute your findings to the rest of your company.
• VoC Surveys: Voice of Customer Survey templates will translate surveys into easily readable models that communicate what a survey is saying about customer satisfaction and what businesses can do with that information.

Voice of Customer will allow businesses to get closer to their customers as consumers and people. In a quickly changing world with quickly changing industries, companies need to utilize VoC to understand their customers’ needs and adjust their strategies accordingly. 

Gladly’s software has revolutionized the way businesses do customer service. Companies are far too often seeing their customers as assets, missing the bigger picture that customer service is about connecting with people. Place your customers at the center of your customer experience platform with Gladly.

About Gladly

Gladly is a customer service platform for digitally-focused B2C companies who want to maximize the lifetime value of their customers. Unlike the legacy approach to customer service software, which is designed around a ticket or case to enable workflows, Gladly enables radically personal customer service centered around people to sustain customer loyalty and drive more revenue.

The world’s most innovative consumer companies like Godiva, JOANN, and TUMI use Gladly to create lasting customer relationships, not one-off experiences. 

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