The Voice of the Customer survey for competitive customer insights

A Voice of the Customer survey is critical to understanding what your customers think about your service, product or overall brand experience. In fact, customers' feedback can provide many insights on different aspects of your company that, when examined, can provide a wealth of information. Let's look at what a Voice of the Customer survey can do for your business. Plus, we've included a downloadable VoC Survey Kit for all areas of your business with example VoC questions you can use.And lastly, before we dive in, are you new to the term Voice of the Customer (VoC)? If so, check out The Voice of the Customer Guide: Importance, VoC tools and examples first. [ca-form id="194451" align="left" var1="http://www.customer-alliance.com/wp-content/uploads/customer-alliance-voice-of-customer-survey-download-1.pdf"]

What are the benefits of using VoC surveys?

Collect customer feedback via a Voice of the Customer survey. Get direct insight into what your customers think about your company. Companies utilising leading VoC programs enjoy higher revenue and reduced service cost compared to their peers.Companies using best-in-class VoC programs saw:

• 37.7% more revenue from net new customers compared to peers
• 22.4% greater improvement in annual customer service cost than their peers (1)

These are significant figures, revealing not only that having a VoC program is important, but also that having the right VoC program is crucial.

Areas VoC surveys shed light on

The more touchpoints you have with your customer, the more chances you have to optimise their experience with your brand. Use VoC survey questions to obtain data on the following:

• Brand perception: What do participants think your business does or offers? Where did they hear about you? What feelings do they associate with your brand?
• Customer loyalty: Get ahead of the competition. See how your company compares and why current customers choose you. Set benchmarks with metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS). Did the value they received match their expectations set by the information and advertisement you provided?
• Innovation: Gather customer data to know what they'll want next before they do. This data can also be used to develop better buyer personas. If you’re in the marketing team, consider using customers' own words in your marketing to provide content on your website and advertisements.
• Personalisation: Did you know that 71% of shoppers feel frustrated when their shopping experience seems impersonal (2)? Segment your customers properly and learn how to customise your products or services for them. To do so, you need a powerful Voc Platform to help you understand and analyse your customers’ feedback to know their intentions, preferences, and motivations.

Methods of surveying your customers

Given today's technologies, there are numerous ways to interact with your customers to ask them for feedback. We discuss several of these methods specifically in the article Voice of the Customer Tools to Improve Customer Experience. While more traditional, methods like interviews, focus groups, and email can still offer invaluable insights. But think to expand your voice of the customer survey method options to possibilities such as SMS, pop-up chats via a live chat function, or in-store via tablets or WiFi log in page. Tip: We recommend collecting feedback throughout the entire customer journey and perhaps even using more than one method. Consider sending a VoC survey not just once, but also at different touchpoints.

Voice of the Customer survey best practices

We hope you're excited to launch your VoC survey to collect needed customer feedback. But before you do, glance over these tips to ensure you're maximising your feedback collection efforts.

Perform surveys often

The market is constantly changing and hopefully, your product or service continues to evolve (especially based on consumer feedback). Therefore, it's necessary that you are regularly taking stock of how your company is performing according to your customers.

Measure accurately for benchmarking

Consider areas most commonly used for a VoC survey—customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. These are areas that demand proof of progress. Companies who perform Voice of the Customer research by measuring NPS are 3x more likely to grow by 10% or more over a 12-month period (3). Get a VoC solution, like that at Customer Alliance which will show you NPS and other selected analytics over time for easy benchmarking. [caption id="attachment_309613" align="alignnone" width="1440"]

VoC Survey best practices include personalisation and making mobile-friendly[/caption]

Go mobile-friendly

8.5 out of 10 email account holders use their smartphone to check their email account (4). So whether you utilise the tried and true email survey method or the new pop-up chat messaging, make sure they're optimised for mobile.

Personalise surveys

Tailor not only your Voice of the Customer surveys to your branding (think logo and brand colors), but also the surveys to the customer segment and data needs you have. Particularly, ensure that your survey addresses your customer by name and is a valid survey pertaining to their experience with your business.

Get your Voice of the Customer Survey Kit

Download your free Voice of the Customer Survey Kit below. Simply fill out the form and download it to see the sample VoC questions for every area of your business.Topics covered include examples of VoC questions for:

• Customer loyalty
• Brand recognition
• Concept testing
• Identifying pain points
• Customer satisfaction
• Customer segmentation

Trust us. No matter what business you’re in, the above topics should be examined. If you don’t already have a Voice of the Customer solution to help you collect, analyse, and showcase customer feedback, consider us. Sources:

1. Business 2 Community: From Build to Integration. The Essentials of a Successful VoC Program.
2. Forbes: 50 Stats Showing The Power of Personalization
3. Survey Monkey: Hearing the Voice of the Customer
4. 99 Firms: Mobile Email Statistics

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