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| Image courtesy of Pixabay |
There are many voices you need to listen to when developing your customer experience strategy.
You listen to your customers and to your employees. You do listen to them, right? Both of them?
Think those are the only voices you should be listening to in order to improve the customer experience? Nope! They’re not the only ones. There are many voices that are key to total understanding.
You know the main ones…
Voice of the Customer (VoC) is structured and unstructured data from solicited and unsolicited feedback; I’ll also add behavioral/purchase data here, as well as anything else we know about the customer.
Voice of the Partner (VoP) includes similar data formats from and about your partners, including suppliers, franchisees, and more.
Voice of the Employee (VoE) includes similar data types about the employee experience, employee engagement, and the workplace culture.
Voice of Customer through Employees (VoCE) includes feedback and insights about your customers that have been gathered by your frontline staff (call center, sales, account management, etc.).
I like to refer to those four in lump sum as voice of the constituents.
And then there’s…
Voice of the Business (VoB) includes financial and operational metrics.
Voice of the Market (VoM) includes market research, brand perceptions and research, benchmark data, and other competitive data.
I think there’s one more voice that we should add to the mix: the Voice of Reason.
The voice of reason is that voice that remains rational and reasonable when you’re in a challenging situation or when everything else is out of control. As CX professionals, and especially for business leaders, this voice is important because it’s what balances all of the competing factors – what constituents are doing and saying versus where (misguided) business priorities lie. It’s the voice that makes you stop and question: is this the right thing to do? are we doing right by our customers?
Reason often overturns experience. – Edward Counsel, Maxims
Very insightful Annette, I wonder how many companies have replaced the voice of reason with echoes of their CEO instead.
Challenging words but so true. I know you'll also agree that acting on what you hear is just as important as listening, if customers (and the other constituents) are to notice any difference.
I wonder if you could make the C,P,E,Ce,B and M into a nice acronymn or mnemonic?
Adrian
Hi Annette,
I would like to repost this in our blog with attribution and link back with your permission. Issuetrak.com/blog
Steven
Steven,
Thanks for asking. Yes, with attribution, that's fine.
Annette 🙂
Ah yes, I like that. Got any suggestions?
James, I think the answer is: more than we care to imagine. Unfortunately.
Absolutely, Guy!