Updating the definition of the voice of the customer
By John Goodman, David Beinhacker, Scott Broetzmann
Editor’s note: John Goodman is vice chairman, David Beinhacker is director of research and Scott Broetzmann is president and CEO, at Customer Care Measurement and Consulting, an Alexandria, Va., firm.
The term voice of the customer (VOC) has traditionally been interpreted as being analogous with or part of the domain of marketing research (MR). With the advent of customer experience (CX) and enterprise feedback management technology (EFM), many companies are rethinking VOC, often assigning it to a department other than MR. This battle was most starkly highlighted by a headline on the cover of the November 2014 Quirk’s, “Is CX out to get MR?” Now that EFM has become primarily a technology play, even more departments like the information technology department are becoming involved.
Our conclusion is that CX will most likely end up owning VOC and that MR is facing a diminished role, especially since leading companies have been wildly successful using their CX to drive customer acquisition via word of mouth. Companies like Chick-fil-A, USAA and Harley-Davidson have indicated that they obtain 70 percent or more of their new customers via word-of-mouth referrals, so there really is not much need for either MR or even traditional marketing. But there is a need to rethink the definition of VOC, which we do below.
Gerry Katz states in his December 2013 Quirk’s article that some analysts have hijacked the term voice of the customer by completely misusing it.1 McInnes and Carroll introduce enterprise feedback management and define it primarily as surveys, complaints and social media inputs.2 In an article published the April 2014 Quirk’s, Subbiah and Bosik further complicate the discussion by noting that the hype about big data and EFM is reaching a frenzy.3 The Temkin Group, in both white papers and Webinars, has suggested that text analytics and continuous insights are the key to enhanced VOC impact.4 Finally, Whipkey suggests that CX could completely take over MR.5 We now have three terms: VOC, MR and EFM. Are they the same or, if not, how do they differ? Our conclusion is that they: are different; draw on different data sources; and serve different internal customers.
Katz’s criticisms of VOC provide a good starting place. He notes that VOC often does not support radical innovation and fails to facilitate marketing conquests. However, while criticizing the overlapping use of the terms VOC and MR, he never directly states that VOC is not MR.
We believe that they are two different animals. VOC describes the experience of existing customers while MR is primarily aimed at developing the best product and strategy to tap the rest of the market by gaining new customers, usually called marketing conquests. VOC can be used to not only improve future CE but, if properly defined, can be used real-time to enhance current CE. Further, Katz’s analysis limits the sources of data that describe the experience of current customers as well the analysis and use of such data.
We briefly review his critique and then suggest, based on how technology has evolved in the past two years, how VOC must be redefined in much broader terms if it is to achieve its full potential.
