Those wrong places are usually inside your company. In a study examining best idea sources, 8 voice-of-customer methods and 10 other methods were examined. In terms of effectiveness, the VOC methods took 8 of the 9 top spots. At the very top? Customer visit teams and customer observation. Most companies need to “get out” more.
More in article, Where New Product Ideas Begin (Originally published in B2B Organic Growth).
Companies like to talk about the voice-of-the-customer, but most just listen to themselves as they create “conference room” products. The team gathers internally to decide for the customer what they’ll want in a new product. This team will always lose to the team that immerses itself in the customer experience, and designs a product to improve that experience.
More in article, Why Advanced VOC Matters (Originally published in B2B Organic Growth Newsletter)
Do you like to answer surveys at home? How about at work? How do you think customers feel about filling in your questionnaire? Forget your list of brilliant questions. Instead, learn to brilliantly probe whatever customers want to tell you. You’ll be rewarded by customers who actually want to talk to you.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 2)
Some companies rely on a handful of internal VOC (voice-of-customer) experts to interview customers. You’ll do far better if you train a critical mass of employees—who routinely interact with customers anyway—to gather customer needs. Keep your VOC experts as coaches and trainers, but implement “VOC for the masses.”
More in executive briefing, Seven Mistakes that Stunt Organic Growth
With apologies to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina… all great voice-of-customer interviews are alike in the same way: The customer is talking during most of the interview. And they are talking about those outcomes (desired end results) they want to talk about. Anything else is clutter, much of which leads to unhappiness.
More in article, The Missing Objective in B2B VOC (Originally published in B2B Organic Growth Newsletter)