Customer experience management is increasingly focusing on the design and execution of customer voice programs and on metrics such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS). More and more organizations are implementing a customer voice program (VoC) into their customer management strategies, leaving behind the obsolete approach of analyzing the opinion of their customers without continuity and not very frequently.

According to the study “Transforming the business through the Voice of the Client” – A National study on the level of operationalization of the Customer Experience (Deloitte-DEC, 2016), more than 50% of the organizations already have a customer voice program focused on measuring quality perceived by customers.

Such a program represents a clear competitive advantage in the market provided that it complies with all of the 3 steps of an effective customer voice program:







Customer-voice programs should be focused on taking action and, still, lack of action is currently the greatest weakness when companies implement such programs. As stated before, Customer Satisfaction (CX) metrics are useless if they are not properly analyzed and followed by corrective actions.

Luckily enough, technology and big data software allowed us to take a huge step towards effective management of customer feedback at little cost. With feedback devices and software like RateNow, you have access to a real time dashboard for data analysis, you can customize and drill down on data, you can apply date filters or compare different locations’ performance to detect weaknesses and solve problems immediately.

Satisfaction surveys can provide us a huge amount of data. It’s up to us to take the opportunity offered by the digital transformation and ensure that our customer experience strategy is moving according to our objectives.

Nevertheless, a surprising 51% of companies do not use technology of any kind to manage their customer experience (Dec&Deloitte, 2016). As a result, response timings tend to be long and corrective actions ineffective.

On the other hand, as stated in The profitable Customer Experience. Handbook for managers and professionals (DEC, 2017) those CX leaders who managed to activate a Voice-of-the-Customer program succeeded because they were able to nail the 3 key characteristics of an excellent customer experience measurement program:

• The right information: focus on information which is of high interest to the company manager who who receives the insights and complete enough to trigger an action.
• Reach the right person: make sure the information reach those who can really implement the corrective actions.
• Ask at the right time, or at the "moment of truth". In other words, customer feedback collected a few seconds or minutes after the experience will be extremely reliable as the feelings and the impressions created by the experience are still vivid in the client’s mind. At the same time, such feedback can be analyzed immediately for a quick improvement of the experience.

As a result, real time insights allow you to take more effective actions.. If data obtained are not analyzed and no corrective action is taken, then the impact on the client can only be limited.

According to the abovementioned study of Deloitte & DEC (2016), 80% of surveyed companies analyze customer feedback data no more than once a month. This implies that if a customer has a problem or a very bad experience the company will not be aware until thirty days later, when solving the issue is not possible or relevant anymore. Be aware that experiences occur every day in most companies and you should react quickly.

However, in order to act it is necessary to know what the customer thinks about the organization and how you can improve their satisfaction. To this aim, it is important to choose the right type of questions in your satisfaction survey.

Depending on your objectives, you can ask the following questions:

• NPS o Net Promoter Score: to measure growth potential and be able to compare yourself with an industry benchmark. Do you know how many of your clients are promoters and will recommend your brand? Do you know how many detractors? Calculate your NPS on a scale from 0 to 10. If you want to learn more about this KPI, click here.
• Top2Boxes rating: ask your customers or users to assess staff friendliness, waiting time, quality of the explanations provided, space, perceived value for money... everything relevant for your business! With a Likert scale and the Top2Boxes Analysis you will find out the percentage of voters who rated 4 or 5 on a scale from 1 to 5, an indication of the excellence of your service.
• Multiple Option Questions: find out, for example, what aspects can be improved, how clients got to know you, if they are recurring customers or it’s their first visit.
• Profile questions: Find out more about your audience background like age, sex, interests and motivations to buy in order to provide a customized experience.
• Open comments and suggestions Let your users write their opinions, criticisms and suggestions. This option also allows you to collect contact data like postal code, email or telephone number in exchange of exclusive offers or promotions.

It is very important to inquire beyond the data and transform numbers into stories and experiences. Only then can you anticipate behaviors and design actions..

Data collected through voice of the customer programs and, more generally, from customer experience management must affect all departments that directly or indirectly contribute to the customer experience. CX leaders share the results with all levels of the organigram in a systematic way, that’s the only way to follow to make sure the client's voice will be part of the corporate culture .

Designing a good VoC program will allow you to improve the experience of your customers, increase their loyalty and their willingness to recommend your brand.
What are you waiting for? Implement a Voice of the Customer initiative as part of your strategy of customer experience.