Voice of the Customer through the Employee
Posted by Nancy Porte on Tue, Dec 06, 2011
Sometimes customers just don’t know what they want. Steve Jobs told Inc. Magazine, “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” To better understand and serve customers, many businesses are now turning to their front-line employees.
Voice of the Customer through the Employee (VOCE) is a program that seeks to better understand the customer through employee insights. There are a number of ways this can be done, including the use of online surveys, speech analytics, or text analytics. In other cases, employees are asked to share – in an online community – the questions, concerns, and frustrations of customers. Popular in the retail industry, this concept is simple. In-store staff are encouraged to submit their observations about consumer problems, issues, and complaints to a team that then directly addresses the issue at hand.
Best Buy launched a system, called “My Customer,” built upon the philosophy of VOCE. An
onscreen widget makes it easy for employees to enter a comment about any consumer issue. The data is reportedly reviewed immediately, and decisions made quickly.
Steve Wallin – Senior Director, Voice of the Customer at Best Buy – was recently honored in the Management 2.0 challenge. His story relates how VOCE has unleashed the power of its 100,000+ frontline employees to share what they learn from customer interactions.
While they admit the program had challenges, there are documented results that have improved store layout and operations. For example, when it was reported that consumers were confused between the customer service and the Geek Squad desks, Best Buy changed the signage and added more informational kiosks throughout the store. They subsequently saw a 30% increase in that store’s customer service ratings.
Some critics say that VOCE isn’t the answer. They point out that the problem with customer confusion about store layout could have been solved if appropriate testing had been done in the design phases of the store layout. Perhaps. But testing processes aren’t perfect, either. And, more importantly, customer needs and wants change over time. VOCE appears to be a sound, reasonable option for tracking changing customer requirements.
As VOCE continues to gain popularity in the retail industry, it is intriguing to think about how it could be applied in other industries. Any business with a call center or field operations team can gather employee insights about customers’ day-to-day issues and behavior – which could lead to both product and service improvements. For example, what if a cable company call center employee could relate that a large number of customers – calling in about other issues – also keep mentioning they don’t understand the new billing format? What if a driver responsible for frozen food delivery could instantly inform you that customers have mentioned they would buy more if they could schedule the exact time of delivery? Those are tremendously valuable things to know about your business.
Capturing the Voice of the Customer includes many listening posts – surveys, social media, chat, CRM systems, and more. Cohesively collecting – and rapidly acting upon – employee insights about your customers adds yet another valuable source that rounds out your comprehensive program. Employee insight provides an organization with competitive advantage by receiving timely insights that can then be used to effectively improve the customer experience – across the board.