Much has been written in the last couple of years about the power and promise of Voice of Customer (VOC) research to help shorten development cycles or improve performance for businesses and organizations. This work is particularly germane in North America, where growth in many industrial and commercial markets is peaking and companies are scrambling for competitive advantage. The concept is simple: capture customer requirements and feedback and use the data to set business priorities. Unfortunately, VOC research often doesn’t live up to its promise. The issue is not whether or not you are getting VOC, it is whether or not you are using the VOC. Often, the information that is collected is difficult to translate into actions and competitive advantage. As a result, great work can go unused or, worse, cherry-picked to support competing agendas. Two factors cause weak VOC: a lack of involved stakeholders, and useless data.

What is VOC?
For very small enterprises, VOC is a natural, organic, daily activity that needn’t be institutionalized. But as organizations grow in size and their markets and customers grow in size and quantity, the basic questions of value can be harder to ask, answer and share. To fill that gap, VOC is becoming a structured research activity; a critical step in a larger planning process that provides the insights necessary to make strategic and tactical business and investment decisions. VOC answers three basic business questions depending on the decision at hand, the overall quality of business intelligence, and the level of existing understanding within a business team. Through VOC, a business asks its customers:

• How are we doing and what should we do better?
• What do you think of our idea(s)?
• What challenges can we help you overcome?

This white paper will help executives and strategists in business-to-business organizations improve the usefulness of their VOC activities by citing specific company examples, identifying common pitfalls, and suggesting better ways to ask these three critical questions.

Excerpts of this article appear on IndustryWeek.com in the Leadership and Strategy Forum, March 31, 2008.

Is this idea relevant to your business? E-mail us for more information.