Most forward thinking managers would agree that the voice of the customer is the most important voice in the organisation. But current methods for capturing and acting upon the voice of the customer often fall short of what’s needed to drive effective business change. Get it right however, and the benefits to the customer and the business can be enormous.
The three letter acronym, ‘Voice of Customer’ (VOC) is now accepted management speak. Yet mention these words to those in the know and you’re likely to be met with a grimace. For many companies believe they are listening to customers and have a specific process for doing so. Yet they have few results to show for it. The information they collect tends to be fragmented or bland.They find it easy to know what to do with the information once they’ve got it. But hard to do.
And they struggle to create accountability for clear outcomes beyond their own department. They struggle to justify tangible returns on purely financial grounds. The only way this can change is by repositioning what the voice of the customer is for. It’s not a nicety. It’s what drives the very best businesses. It’s how managers manage in the very best businesses. It’s as important as financial data in a 21st century business.
When senior managers drive the business using the customers’ voice, the business benefits are significant. The customers’ voice, used well, can capture customers’ feedback and frustrations. It provides an insight into a whole range of things that have gone wrong, both within the front line operation directly dealing with the customer – and across lots of other departments which impact this front line.
Typically, front line operations have developed in a piecemeal way over the years. This has resulted in over-complex, inconsistent and duplicate processes becoming the norm. The end result is high levels of self-inflicted or unnecessary contacts or contacts that take a long time to resolve, sometimes requiring multiple and messy hand-offs to other areas.
This causes a lot of frustration for customers and waste for the organisation. We know from our experience that companies can reduce operating budgets by 20% every year and that up to 80% of contact rates can be reduced over four years - if the right processes are in place to act on the voice of the customer. The very best companies like Amazon use such processes. It is a key part of their economic model. Reducing unnecessary customer contact and improving customer advocacy as a result.
In the formative years of Amazon, the voice of customer processes were called WOCAS – “what our customers are saying”. The phrase came about when CEO Jeff Bezos sent this email to our now US colleague Bill Price who was running customer service at the time:
“Bill, can I please get a daily report of the most interesting customer-thing going on in customer service that day. It's the thing I would notice myself if I were doing cs that day. It should be one paragraph … Thanks, Jeff”
From this simple summary or one key thing, a series of processes evolved. Today “WOCAS” processes summarise what front line staff know. And they make it actionable by management. And they let front line staff see whether or not management are listening to them and acting on what they know, how far that action has gone and what the change is as a result.
Yet in many businesses because so much time and budget is taken up dealing with high levels of contact, there is no head room to sort the problem out. And when you consider that many contact centres also struggle to retain the quality people, ‘seeing the wood for the trees’ becomes even more difficult. Think of a high revving engine, making a lot of noise and blowing a lot of smoke, but not producing much power.
Inefficiency, therefore, is an accepted way of life in these operations. Front line people know what customers want, but management won’t listen to them. So staff become disillusioned, which further degrades the quality of service given to customers.
Operations like these then, are caught in a vicious circle. They are so busy dealing with self-inflicted contact that they don’t have the time or energy to simplify what they do, reduce costs or tap into the latent value of their staff and customers.
Transforming this situation presents management with a significant opportunity to increase business performance. The trouble is the opportunities are largely hidden from view. Take the example of reducing recruitment and training costs as a result of better staff retention. It’s not unusual in some contact centres to see a staff turnover rate of 50%. This means that every year half your staff leave, and you have to replace them. In turn, that means you are continually investing in recruiting, inducting and training staff, just to stand still. Remember that ‘high revving engine’?
Finally, there’s the cumulative effect of all the above benefits on customer satisfaction, leading to increased loyalty, reputation and brand value. It’s more difficult here to talk in terms of percentage improvements, but clearly this is the area that can potentially make or break the business.
So why do current approaches to the Voice of Customer fail to realise the above benefits? And conversely, what are the attributes of an effective VOC approach that facilitate the business to capture these benefits?
Here are some distinctions between most current methods and what is needed for success:
It is clear from the above that the reasons why current approaches to VOC break down exist at both the front end and back end of the process. Specifically, it is the inability to capture the ‘gold dust’ from customers at the front end that informs what to change, and, at the back end, poor accountability, follow through and tracking of solutions.
The engagement involved in a successful approach stands out:
• The first is the dependence on front line staff to make the approach work. No matter how good the process is, unless the people who talk to customers are engaged, there will be no benefits in listening to customers. Research isn’t the same as a culture of listening. Success depends on management clearly understanding this and acting upon it.
• The second about how we manage. We’re asking managers to manage differently. Leaders to listen and lead differently. According to what the customers and front line staff know. Not according to what they “know”. This requires a lot of sustained effort. It has to be important to the organisation if it is to work.
Positioning VOC as a priority means putting it boldly on the corporate agenda, linking it to core business goals, including it in managers’ objectives and measuring and reporting on the outcomes in financial terms. If this is not done, then VOC is likely to be seen as a tactical pursuit or project.
In regulated financial services the TCF (Treating Customers Fairly) requirements no longer leave this to chance. But still many companies are trying to tick the box, rather than understand and really go for the business benefits.
Maybe this lack of ambition comes from never having worked in a business where the customer really is the point. But when there is a real belief and understanding the results are outstanding. Financially and for the customer and the staff.
WOCAS processes are an integral part of Budd’s mission to help companies ‘stop doing dumb things’ to their customers and people. You can download free whitepapers on how Amazon, Google, eBay and first direct use the voice of the customer in their business models at www.budd.uk.com