Voice of Customer (VoC), as we discussed in our previous blog, is a part of Customer Experience (CX) that uses feedback to understand what customers expect from a brand. It is a customer-focused strategy that focuses on customer experience management (CXM) through the use of technology, surveys, metrics, and analytics. In this blog, we'll look at the questions you can ask customers using the Voice of Customer approach, as well as how to use voice of customer analytics.
The VoC research makes use of AI and ML to avoid the repetition, bias, and errors that a human might make in such a process. Overall, VOC improves your company's customer experience management in order to retain and retain customers while increasing business possibilities. Click here to learn why VOC is important and how VOC collects data.
So, what questions should you ask your customer to better understand their needs and gather data while conducting voc research? Companies should ask the following questions during a survey to gain insights into where they can improve:
- What characteristics do you look for within a company/product?
This question allows you to examine the customer's expectations and interests from your brand rather than assuming a problem that you can solve based on generic meetings and discussions. These types of questions lead the customer to believe that you actually listen to them and value their suggestions.
- What matters most to you when selecting a company for their product or service?
A question like this can help you figure out what your customer cares about and what influences their purchasing decision. Quality, price, availability, sustainable production, customer service, free shipping, and other factors may be considered. With the answers to this question, you can conduct an audit of your services and products to ensure you're meeting customer expectations. It can also assist you in narrowing down which business practises are impeding your customer experience. This question provides you with a specific action you can take to improve your performance!
- What comes to mind when you think about us?
This question allows you to precisely measure your customer's reaction to you, which allows you to decode how they feel about you and how they perceive you as a brand. Creating a positive image for your brand is essential, and the answers to this question can assist you in doing so. This is also an excellent crisis management question. If you are unsure whether a crisis has been resolved, you can use this survey question to determine what is affecting your customers and how to fix it more effectively.
- How can we improve your customer experience?
When it comes to customer experience management transformation, both money and time are at stake. Every company has its own reservations. However, even if you do not intend to make the change soon or know it will take a long time to fully implement the change, this question is important. Such questions involve your valuable customers in your decision, and as we all know, retaining customers is much less expensive than finding potential customers.
- A competitor you would prefer over us and explain why they would be the one you choose.
This question not only tells you who your competitor is, but it also alerts you to new competitors in the market. It also tells you why your customers are prone to switching brands, which closes a huge gap. You will be able to thoroughly examine and establish differences that you were previously unaware of. Customers explain what caused the shift, which could be anything - price, functionality, style, and so on.
- Which other company have you purchased this product from?
This question leads you to your most formidable adversary. This question differs from the previous one in that you can tell which competitor your customer has done business with. They differ slightly but provide you with different data that you can now use to your advantage.
- Would you recommend us and why?
As we all know, word of mouth works wonders, and knowing whether or not your customer will recommend you to their close circle should tell you a lot about yourself.
When all of your questions have been answered and you have a large amount of data to sort through, Voice of the Customer Analytics comes into play.
The Voice of the Customer analytics programme is the method by which businesses examine the data gathered from VoC surveys. The main goal of this programme is to identify and track trends in customer sentiment, customer success, and customer satisfaction, which will help the company find logical solutions and pave the way for better decision making in customer experience management in terms of product/service/brand improvisation.
Here’s how the voice of customer data is analyzed:
- How many people have reverted back with the survey? If you are receiving a disproportionately low number of surveys, you should reconsider your methodology while keeping your target audience in mind, as the younger generation prefers social media questionnaires to web or mail surveys.
- A younger generation's vocabulary is slightly more shorthanded and uses colloquial languages, and while the response may be similar to that of a different generation, you may need to work on operational changes such as restructuring your pricing for your product/service based on the age group.
- Determine what is frequently mentioned as a problem among your customers. If everyone has said that the chat bot alone isn't enough, make sure to include a human touch in your customer service and other problems. Recognize trends in the survey.
- Include commonly encountered problems in your user persona discussions to identify a previously unknown target audience.
- Visualize trends and create reports that can assist you in making otherwise perplexing business decisions in real time. This report can be shared with all stakeholders and will assist you in improving your brand's reputation while also bridging gaps in internal silos.
VOC research provides you with a comprehensive understanding of your business over time, which you can use to make necessary changes to stay ahead of competitors. It also assists you in better understanding your customers' needs and taking steps to improve customer success. Customer experience management is an urgent need, and if you are not a part of it, you are missing out. Companies like Sonata CX can assist you with your customer experience transformation by providing programs such as voice of the customer, mystery shopping, pulse surveys, and more.
Our CX solutions are focused on transforming the total customer experience through surveys, metrics, analytics and auditing by using the CXM framework to combine physical measurements with digital Platformation™ capabilities. We are committed to finding the right customer experience strategy that can lead to a competitive advantage.
Sonata CX is a global technology company specializing in customer experience CX measurement, platform-based digital transformation, supporting businesses to become connected, open, intelligent and scalable. Global coverage of more than 105 markets with over 27 years of market leadership through extensive measurement capabilities, powerful and intuitive reporting and analytics platforms give us the leverage to improve customer experience. It has presence across USA, Canada, EMEA and APAC regions. If you would like to know more about how we can assist you, please fill out the business enquiry form below.