The way "voice of the customer" (VOC) metrics are leveraged in today's enterprise is changing, creating opportunities for integration into traditional customer relationship management (CRM)
strategies. Most CRM systems collect and report on structured socio-demographic and transactional customer data, such as past purchases. Few, however, manage to capture and integrate the different
categories of customer voice -- what customers are actually saying about your organization -- into those systems.
With the proliferation of social media networks and other forms of
non-traditional customer touch points, in addition to advances in unstructured mining technologies such as speech and text analytics, there is a surge of structured and unstructured data that can be
categorized as representing the new voice of the customer.
Organizations can no longer ignore VOC when developing or evolving their CRM strategies if they hope to truly understand underlying
consumer behavior and drivers of brand loyalty.
Categorizing the Voice of the Customer
The term "voice of the customer" has been used in many different contexts to
mean different things. These VOC references generally fit into four key categories: Direct Structured, Direct Unstructured, Indirect Structured and Indirect Unstructured.
Voice of the Customer | Structured Data | Unstructured Data |
---|
Direct
(Internal) | Closed Questions: Web, IVR, Email, Mail, POS | Actual Voice and Text Interactions, Focus Groups |
Indirect (Public) | Online Ratings, 3rd Party Survey | Blogs, Social Media,
Public Media, Word of Mouth |
Direct Structured
Direct structured fits within the most traditional definition of VOC --
customer feedback and post interaction surveys. Conducted via the Web, interactive voice response (IVR), email or even at the point of sale, these surveys are frequently used by marketers to collect
VOC data. Making this customer information available to the broader enterprise helps companies better understand purchasing decisions, product/service preferences, and more.
However, this
VOC data can be limited in detail because of its inability to capture the full depth of what is discussed during customer interactions. That, coupled with limited survey response rates and typical
non-random participation (i.e., mostly very positive or very negative responders), the result may provide a clouded picture of customer behaviors. While it is critical to the VOC equation, it is not
the only source of insight into customer trends.
Indirect Structured
Indirect structured VOC differs in the sense that information is collected and typically
distributed outside the organization. These ratings come from data and marketing research services or via public Web sites with "rate this" or "recommend this" functionality. Because these ratings are
widely available, ignoring them can be dangerous since they may impact customer buying decisions, as well as your competitors' strategies.
Direct Unstructured
Direct
unstructured VOC includes customer interactions -- in the form of voice, email, chat and open feedback from focus groups. At one time, such data were more difficult to aggregate and quantify than
structured data, and thus have not been included in most CRM systems or strategies. This is now changing, however, with innovations in speech and text analytics software.
Direct unstructured
data are much richer in nature and captures more detailed nuances, behavior drivers, root causes and insights when compared to most VOC structured data. It also reflects a true random sampling of all
customers, eliminating the potential bias of self-selection response samples. When fully integrated into a CRM strategy, it offers greater insight into genuine customer behaviors.
Indirect Unstructured
In today's digital world, indirect unstructured VOC refers primarily to information generated among the social networks, as well as word of mouth.
Indirect unstructured data provide a glimpse into everyday public conversations on specific brands, products and services. Emerging social media monitoring tools can track, categorize and even try to
associate positive or negative sentiments to this type of VOC data to gain knowledge and understanding on the customer decision-making process. Creating structure and mapping some boundaries around
this valuable information based on other forms of VOC can help separate real trends from irrelevant chatter.
Connecting the Dots with CRM and VOC
VOC data are much
more accessible with today's tools, creating an opportunity for organizations to move beyond siloed thinking by formulating the right mix of categories.
For a national payment processing
company, spending roughly $600,000 for speech analytics software created a $3.4 million return on investment. The organization captured and acted on direct unstructured VOC data by analyzing calls
coming into its contact centers. In doing so, the system identified key words/phrases that were typically associated with customer conversations just prior to them terminating an account.
Taking that same VOC database, the payment processor ran automated searches for these indicative words/phrases in recorded interactions with existing customers to determine and flag those with a
propensity for defection. After cross-correlating the customers' "value" through its CRM data, it established a process to proactively contact the most high value and "at risk" customers -- saving
more than 600 accounts that represented over $4 million in revenue since the project was deployed in mid-2009. These results were achieved because the company leveraged the rich unstructured voice
data in tandem with its CRM data to tap into and act on the real voice of its customers.
Now's the perfect time to take a look at your organization and the potential VOC available to you.
Such technologies as speech analytics and text analytics that mine unstructured VOC data are a starting point. To fully maximize investments already in place, ask your CRM vendor if it has the ability
to integrate both structured and unstructured VOC data to help create a richer and more actionable customer relationship management strategy.