What is Voice of Customer in the fuel industry?

VOC is a proactive and innovative method to capture the ever-changing requirements of your customers. In this process the feedback or requests and requirements of the customers are collected internally and externally to cater to the customer needs with the best-in-class products or services. The voice of the customer in the fuel retail industry can be collected through many techniques like direct discussion/interviews, focus groups, surveys, field reports, complaint logs, customer specifications/observations, warranty data, etc. This data that is collected in an efficient manner is then used to identify the quality needed for a component or material to be incorporated into the process/service or product of your business. This feedback process can change how your customers perceive you and help you reach the mainstream goals of your fuel brand like customer retention, customer success and customer satisfaction. The voice of customer program needs to be administered at brief intervals so you do not become obsolete among your customers whose expectations are rising. The moment you decide to halt this process your competitor will rise above you and take your space!

Even when you adhere to all these steps and try your best not to mess up the schedule, there may be some hiccups. That is why we are going to talk about the 4 primary ways your VOC program can go wrong in the fuel industry. Let us take a look at the voice of customer mistakes that you could be making:

1. Not identifying every relevant customer group:

   one of the most common mistakes you as a fuel brand is making in your VOC program is not identifying all yout customer groups. This could mean that you are only focusing on your regular customer age group while avoiding the new (Gen Z/Millennial) crowd that is making their way into your fuel retail store/fuel convenience store or fuel station. The new generation is full of ideas and they have seen what is working better in your industry. They are most likely to shift from you to your competitor the minute your competitor brings something relevant or new to the table like new products at their fuel convenience store, better payment options or attractive promotional gigs. Their shift will entirely be on you because you did not adapt to their needs. This mistake could also be made in terms of not identifying the internal groups who have an insight into the bill-paying customer. We witnessed this when a Life Insurance retention project which happened to gather the Voice of the Customer data from current and former policy holders and somehow missed a primary component. They did not work on whether customers were given other alternatives to help decrease their premium payments. This major discrepancy was identified much later, when the Call Center representatives took over the process through telephonic conversation.

2. Not clarifying goals of the data collection step upfront:

   the second major problem you could be catering to yourself is not clarifying the goals during data collection. What does a company or in this case your fuel industry brand focus on the most? Outcomes. However, when you focus too much on the outcomes you are bound to forget the factors that influence your outcomes. The reason you administer a VOC research program is to make potential changes in the outcome. But if you happen to make this mistake there are chances that the data you receive from your fuel industry VOC program will miss important details that can help you make changes. For example, a leading firm did a VOC research and found that there was a lack of information when it came to employees handling problems on their own. The firm missed out on asking the customers what kind of information they needed. This led to them having to administer another round of VOC that would give them more intel.

3. Using the wrong data collection method for the type of information you need:

   as we mentioned earlier in this blog there are many ways to collect the data that you need, but most businesses choose less labour-intensive methods like surveys. You are more likely to get detailed feedback and review when you do interviews and focus groups. The best way to avoid such a mistake is to use multiple methods of collecting data as opposed to sticking to one method.

4. Not probing the customer statements:

   lastly, connected to using only one way of data collection another mistake you could possibly make is not probing your customer enough to reach to the bottom of the issue. For example, if your customer states they want better customer service, you need to probe them to answer what exactly they are expecting else you will end up translating this statement in a different way or brainstorming with your team to understand what the customer means which will lead you to an incomplete voice of customer research that is not detailed.

Not translating customer statements to a report that can be analysed further is yet another mistake fuel businesses make. That is why companies like Sonata CX do the job with precision to avoid any such discrepancies. Sonata CX has spent over 27 years in the customer experience industry and catered to more than 100 clients that have benefitted from our services. If your fuel industry brand needs reformation through the voice of customer research then we are here to help you analyze, report and reform your way into customer satisfaction through the voice of customer research as a leading customer experience company. For more details click here.