Broadcasting the Voice of the Customer
Business Strategy Innovation has published a white paper to its web site on "Broadcasting the Voice of the customer."Here is an excerpt:
"Before the industrial revolution, most businesses in the United States were sole proprietorships or small family run businesses. In those days, every member of the business was in direct contact with the customers and had the opportunity to passively or actively hear the voice of the customer.
The voice of the customer tells us what about our product or service that customers find valuable, and what they find annoying or useless. By focusing on what customers found valuable and removing or reducing what they found annoying, these small businesses could accumulate financial success and customer loyalty.
In today's interconnected world, we are in the midst of a customer revolution. Today's customer has unparalleled access to pricing and product information to enable a more informed and economic purchasing decision. Today's customer benefits from marketing developments such as mass customization, mass personalization, and micro-segmentation. In addition, they have unrivaled access to communication channels to make their preferences known. But, who is really listening?
We live in a world of corporations and conglomerates, where most of the employee class has no direct access to the voice of the customer. The man or woman stitching up your clothing has no idea whether the stitching method worked well for you, or if you were happy with the product. They only know whether or not they made their daily quota and how much failed Quality Control. If the person stitching your clothing had access to the voice of the customer, would they do their job differently? Would they feel differently about their job?In many of today's companies, the job of listening to the customer falls to someone in the marketing department, possibly even someone who does nothing but focus on brand and customer research. This person usually works with product management and possibly research and development to inform product revisions and new product development. Often, very few people outside of that core team have access to the voice of the customer. But why restrict customer feedback to a select few?"
Download the complete "Broadcasting the Voice of the Customer" white paper in PDF form.
What do you think?
Braden Kelley is the founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.Labels: Braden Kelley, collaboration, Innovation, marketing, Process, Strategy, Voice of the Customer
posted by Blogging Innovation at 12:20 PM
6 Comments:
I agree with you that more segments within an organisation should be in contact with costumers. But do you have examples of organisations who are doing (or trying to) this? I guess it would cost alot of money to get this thing around.
I agree with you that more segments within an organisation should be in contact with costumers. But do you have examples of organisations who are doing (or trying to) this? I guess it would cost alot of money to get this thing around.
Having a wide range of employees listening to customers is a great idea, but will only truly be effective if the right culture and response strategy is in place.
Phillip
http://design-outloud.com
This is a thought-provoking paper.
A few comments.
Innovation is most certainly a key output in successful organisations.
Ideas, however, do not only come from consumers. For example, innovative processing food technologies are not unveiled in focus groups. Steve Jobs did not invent the ipod at a focus group, either. Ideas arise from a multitude of sources, including market analysis, competitive moves, segmentation research, focus groups, globalisation, demographic analysis, technology, regulation, etc.
I have never heard of the idea of "shared focus groups". Usually, focus groups are highly targeted in terms of recruitment and questions to be asked because the idea is to obtain in-depth feedback. You really need to focus to make the most of the sessions. If people from different functions throw in unrelated questions, this objective may be compromised. Perhaps, I'm being too much of a purist!
In relation to the question of why do companies not have more people/functions engage in consumer encounters, I think the value of this depends on the industry and organisation. P&G does it more and more these days but not all companies will benefit from an approach of "more is better".
I do agree that innovation should not be the responsibility of a given function but rather the entire organisation should be encouraged to bring innovation into their work. Again, the specific strategy will depend on the organisation and the implementation challenges will be significant but the outcome should be worth the effort.
Another point is that velocity is important once you have a winning idea/proposition. It is not important in the early stages of innovation, where learning should be the priority. And naturally, at the end of the day, what matters is having a few "hits" in the marketplace. Using the ipod example again, Apple launched its mp3 player years after the competition had pre-empted it. So, speed is not always the key measure.
This post has been removed by the author.
I've seen Microsoft and Symantec do bits of this, but most companies neglect to pursue it. It doesn't have to be a big production to implement. It can be as simple as incorporating a customer spotlight in the corporate newsletter or enterprise portal and populating the feature with selected insights or problems customers are facing.
Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)
http://twitter.com/innovate
Post a Comment
<< Home