Why Have a Voice-of-the-Customer Program?
In supplier firms, where does critical knowledge about a strategic customer reside? In the Account Manager’s lead? Does the firm have a centralized database, easily accessed by all employees, containing all information about a customer? Or is customer data scattered throughout various customer-facing departments in the supplier firm? At many suppliers, it is the latter.
Deep knowledge of strategic customers often resides only with sales/service personnel or with senior management, both of whom probably have direct contact with the customer. But what about the operations or technical associates who serve customers they may never even talk to, let alone meet? Sixty-five per cent of employees never see or speak with a customer. They probably could not name the firm’s top ten customers with a gun held to their head. If critical customer contact in one of those top ten customers calls an employee outside the supplier’s sales and customer service department, the firm’s continued relationship with that account may hinge on the customer’s perception of how they were treated. Will that employee outside sales be able to pull up the customer on a database so they understand the context of the call? Are most suppliers comfortable with how that customer contact will be treated by past-due accounts people? By an IT person? Does a supplier really want to play customer roulette with that large of a relationship asset?
How does a supplier better the odds that the person outside sales/service will provide a good service experience, thereby reinforcing the relationship? What if the depth and breadth of supplier customer data was shared and embedded throughout all the supplier associates? Such internal communication can make a huge difference – not just in customer retention – but in how the supplier does business.
Systematically sharing information, such as the types of products and services the customer provides, the customer’s primary goals for the coming year, and the impact that customer has on the supplier’s goals can allow supplier associates to understand why the customer is special and demands more attention. The more knowledge associates have about the customers they are directly or indirectly serving, the more willing they are to go the extra mile to meet or exceed account expectations.
Inviting customer representatives to visit and speak to associates, sending out customer-related articles or photographs in a company newsletters, or even sending emails with items from the customer’s newsletter can help associates see the customer as more than an abstraction. A Voice-of-the-Customer program can help employees feel more connected to the customer. When associates get a sense of what it is like to walk in their customer’s shoes, they can better relate to the customer’s reasons for their requests and are also able to distinguish one customer’s unique needs from those of another customer.
The challenge for any company committed to having such customer information available to all levels is to put a process in place to systematically and continually communicate meaningful customer-related information to their associates.
At a high level, the following steps tend to occur if a supplier is going to implement a Voice-of-the-Customer (VOC) Program:
Suppliers tend to:
• Create a cross-functional planning and implementation team
• Prioritize featured customers
• Gather and consolidate account information
• Determine and/or design organizational communication channels
• Schedule and administer all project activities
The VOC Program generally requires resources from a number of different functional areas to assist with the planning, design and execution of this VOC process. Marketing can often help make the VOC information-sharing process more interesting, clever and fun. If the supplier approaches the VOC program as an academic exercise, it had best not start the program. Corporate Communications can often assist in the dissemination of information. Account Managers will be great at obtaining customer-related information and in hosting an account contact coming to the supplier firm. And executive management usually assumes the responsibility of regularly evaluating whether customer knowledge is increasing throughout the company and making a difference.
Implementing a process to help associates gain a better understanding of the customer reinforces and deepens a supplier’s strategic customer relationships. It will also support the supplier shift to a more customer-focused culture by creating an outside-in view. When supplier accounts see that the firm is making an extra effort to educate employees about them, they feel more acknowledged and appreciated. And such feelings lead to greater account retention and competitive advantage.
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