Experts insights on customer experiences with VoC implementation

What is Voice of the Customer (VoC)

Voice of the Customer (VoC) initiatives allow brands to uncover the true perspectives of their audience base. Instead of relying on gut feelings and internal assumptions, brands can make customer experience decisions backed by data. This evidence-based approach will increase an organization’s chances of delivering meaningful improvements to user journeys and ultimately boost customer lifetime value.

Strong VoC initiatives can empower employees to put the customer at the core of their decisions. This allows customers to feel empathized with and understood leading to reduced churn rates and increased customer loyalty, both of which can drive revenue. Research has found that collecting and actioning feedback increases upselling and cross-selling success by up to 20 per cent.

In the mission to collect VoC data and customer feedback organizations must stay focused on driving action. Companies ensure sure feedback data is not left to gather dust but is converted into actionable insights that can actually benefit the end-customer experience. The Global State of Customer Experience 2021 revealed that there has been an 18 per cent increase in CX practitioners making sure customer feedback always reaches the relevant departments.

Also read: How farfetch created a real time VoC index

This eBook collates the advice of several CX leaders from APAC organizations such as ALIDA, Telstra, AustralianSuper and Nearmap on successfully implementing VoC initiatives. These brands share advice on how to put the customer at the core of a business strategy by driving empathy and engagement, using VoC initiatives to prove ROI, leveraging customer feedback to improve product potential and understanding what your customers really want.

CX practitioners are encouraged to use these insights to empower their VoC and reap the benefits of using customer perspectives to shape business growth and development.

“With constantly changing consumer preferences, priorities, and behaviors, businesses must tap into VoC programs to proactively stay ahead of changing consumers to ensure they’re providing the most value possible.”

Riaz Raihan, General manager of Alida

Putting the customer at the core of the business to drive empathy and engagement

Jessica Dawson, associate director of VoC at Australian telecommunications company Optus, shares a success story of how the Australian telecommunications company implemented voice of the customer data and feedback to empower internal teams and boost customer satisfaction.

Optus used VoC feedback to optimize the customer journey and features connected to its Optus Sports offerings, a group of sports channels launched by the telecommunications company in 2016.

Collaboration between internal teams is key

The project saw a collaboration between the Optus VoC team and the Optus Sports base to build a VoC collection mechanism that collected customer data both in-the-moment and on a relationship level to map out the customer journey and glean which touchpoints were the most important to customers. As it was built collectively by the two departments, all stakeholders within Optus Sport were aware of the key customer touchpoints.

Creating customer empathy using VoC

The VoC data collected was accessible for the Optus Sport team to review regularly. This allowed the team to take ownership with the ability to conduct multiple layers of analysis and identify helpful insights without needing to consistently rely on the VoC team.

The empathy and insight created by this program has resulted in changes to enhance customer experience that helps them engage with the content. This includes a nine-minute highlights option for sports games, prioritization of stream optimization by platform and the removal of spoilers from headlines and images of articles so as not to ruin results for fans. All changes made were made based on finding solutions for common customer pain points.

Dawson explains that previous wins from VoC initiatives are very helpful for building momentum for future projects. She says: “Reflecting on the impact the changes have had on your customers is powerful in reinforcing the value of the voice of the customer and the work being done by you and your team. The benefit goes to the heart of what it means to put the customer at the core.”

Key learning

Encourage others in your company to utilize and analyze VoC data to improve customer centricity.

Leveraging consumer feedback to elevate product potential

Kevin Maske, manager of modeling, research and loyalty at Cebu Pacific Air, shares how the ALIDA platform enabled the Philippines-based low-cost airline Cebu Pacific to innovate to support its customers and protect customer lifetime values during the onset of Covid-19.

Prior to the pandemic, Cebu Pacific’s VoC focus was primarily on operations, with strategic decisions leaning primarily on historical data. However, due to regional and national lockdowns and border closures triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the airline had to change its strategy in order to innovate to support its customer and protect customer lifetime values.

Collecting consumer insights

While other airlines were offering unlimited passes for flights, Cebu Pacific enlisted the help of its CEB Squad, a community of highly engaged customers connected to its ALIDA platform. This allowed the company to run surveys and focus group discussions to reveal insights into what customers actually wanted.

When considering why brands are looking towards customer for insight now more than ever, Riaz Raihan, general manager of Alida says it is a result of the Covid-19 pandemic: “Resilience has become a top priority for C-Level executives coming out of the pandemic. Businesses can’t afford to miss the mark with the products and services they deliver. With constantly changing consumer preferences, priorities, and behaviors, businesses must tap into VoC programs to proactively stay ahead of changing consumers to ensure they’re providing the most value possible.”

Also read: CX guide to the VoC

Using VoC to introduce new products

The community was asked for its opinions on two offers: an unlimited pass and a travel voucher that allowed them to fly ten times within a set time period. The group was asked if they would see value in buying either option, or if so, how much would they be willing to pay. Cebu Pacific discovered that 57 per cent of the community liked the idea of a travel voucher and would be willing to spend US$100 on a voucher or US$160 on an unlimited travel pass.

When invited to detail the factors were most important to it when purchasing travel vouchers, the community highlighted four key areas: affordability, flexibility, number of destinations and ease of use.

Based on this feedback, Cebu Pacific launched the CEB Super Pass, which gave customers a one-way ticket to any destination in the Philippines with no blackout dates for ₱99 (US$1.94).

Maske reiterates the virtues of the VoC initiative, noting: “If we have only looked at our competitors were doing, the introduction of a new flexible product would have put pressure on us. But, because we knew it was based not on what our competitors were doing, it was created for our market and gave our customers what they wanted. We knew that nothing our competitors could do would alter [the success of] our product.”

When the product re-launched in May 2021, Cebu Pacific saw a 76 per cent increase in ad recall and 9 per cent more seats sold than its anniversary sale, which saw the airline sell tickets for ₱1 (US$0.02).

Key insight

Be open to feedback and you may be surprised by the opportunities your customers point out to you.

Driving digital transformation and customer experience

Anila Fredericks, head of customer service operations at Telstra International Service Centers, explains why customer centricity is key for ensuring transformation initiatives head in the right direction.

Pairing VoC and digital transformation

Fredericks says that providing value for customers is at the core of Telstra’s digitalization and digital transformation roadmap. By moving more technology and technical skills to the front, Telstra is allowing for automation, and for customers to self-serve. By doing so, Fredericks explains that it can free up the headspace of internal consultants to work on more value-added projects. This also allows customer issues to be resolved quicker, and for customers with more complex issues to be connected to an agent faster meaning customer feedback is centered.

Additionally, by introducing automation to the experience of online portals, customers receive an automatic response immediately, and then a high-quality response from an agent within an hour. This automation allows line-of-sight for agents by making sure all records are updated and giving all those in the company the same technology and information.

Introducing a VoC program

Fredericks declares her top advice for introducing customer centric VoC programs to be “quality, consistency and ownership at every touchpoint”.

“It is really important to have a seat at the table and speak up,” Fredericks notes. “Find the voice of the customer and translate it into actionable insights. Finally, it important to have a one-year plan and a mid-term plan, but you must also have a longer-term plan; you need to be in it for the long haul.”

Telstra’s holistic customer-centric digital roadmap helped it adapt quickly during the Covid-19 pandemic. By making sure that the company had a plan that saw the whole company use a unified ticketing system, it allowed those at all levels within the company to listen to the customer feedback and view customer data. Additionally, as teams within the company were already using video calls and collaborating on Microsoft Teams this meant they had a solid foundation for providing customer service.

Key insight

Plan with the customer in mind not only for the short term, but also the long term.

Predicting and actioning churn with NPS and text sentiment analysis

Amelia Maye, voice of the customer lead at Australian superannuation and pension fund AustralianSuper, reveals how the company uses VoC feedback to reduce customer churn.

Maye says that AustralianSuper’s previous closed loop system for investigating customer feedback did not contact many members of the superannuation fund as all alerts from customers had to be manually reviewed and deemed valid leading to very few calls. This also meant there was no quantifiable data for process improvements to address low NPS scores, no metrics for measuring the ROI from the closed loop system and no link between poor customer experiences and likelihood of churn.

Predicting churn

By analyzing the numeric data surrounding NPS scores, AustraliaSuper found that low-level detractors (0-4 NPS) were much more likely to churn that those who gave higher scores, with those that gave their NPS as zero being 154 per cent more likely to churn than those who gave a score of 5-10.

The company also found that the amount of time customers spent with the company increased with NPS score, with those who scored 7-10 NPS having an average customer lifespan of 83 months.

The company also discovered that verbatim comments about ‘customer service’ and ‘communications’ showed the highest churn rate at 181 per cent increased likelihood of churn each.

Riaz Raihan, general manager of Alida says that VoC initiatives can help boost customer retention by understanding proactively what customers need most.

“By implementing a VoC program, you can ensure you’re providing as much value as possible with the products and services you deliver. By keeping customers at the center of decision making, your business will be able to innovate and grow in lockstep with your customers,” he explains.

Also read: Implementation of VoC program

Actioning potential churn

To combat churn levels, AustralianSuper targeted the insights and feedback given by those who gave a 0-4 NPS score for a new customer feedback closed loop initiative.

The company deployed an automated closed loop system to equip agents with information to optimize how they serviced customers. The automated system highlighted the survey data, the NPS score, and sentiments provided by the customer in question to give the agent context for the follow-up call.

Since the introduction of the program, 95 per cent of customers have reported that they found their callback valuable, and 91 per cent of issues were resolved in follow-up calls.

Maye says AustralianSuper’s focuses for the future will be on closed-loop feedback programs.

“We will be rolling closed-loop feedback programs out across different studies, expanding on our text analytics capabilities and starting to build mechanisms to distribute the customer feedback to all the different parts of the business,” Maye states.

Key insight

Find out customer pain points and target them to improve customer retention.

Understanding the story behind the NPS score

At the CXN Live: Voice of the Customer in APAC event Lloyd Nurthen, customer experience manager at Nearmap, describes how the geospatial imaging company is using customer feedback to understand the meaning behind NPS scores.

Nurthen explains that while a high NPS is great from a business perspective, understanding why customers are giving the company that score is key.

He explains that Nearmap has started to collect feedback at key points along the customer journey, giving the company a holistic picture of what customers are telling the company directly. By employing this, it helps Nearmap to identify customer pain points that it may otherwise miss. Additionally, text analytics are deployed to help the geospatial imaging company understand how various CX initiatives will impact its NPS.

Understanding NPS scores

Nurthern says that the success of a VoC initiative is not based on an NPS score, but rather how if the feedback is being actioned: “While people may focus on the [NPS] number, you need to think about how you can influence that number and make sure the story behind that number is making sense. Our CMO reached out about our NPS score and thought it had dropped because we went to a rolling metric, when actually it dropped as there were more pain points in our feedback. If you are just starting out in understanding what your customers want to tell you, read your comments for five to 10 minutes a day, and truly understand what your customer’s pain points are.”

Measuring the success of VoC initiatives

Nurthen notes that while the company’s success metric is its NPS, the success of the VoC initiative is measured by what employees are doing with customer feedback within the business; for example, the percentage of business decisions that are made with customer feedback in mind, or how many agents are closing the loop with customers and solving their issues. Riaz Raihan, general manager at Alida shares his advice for companies that are looking to implement a VoC initiative: “Listening to and learning from your customers is only half the battle. With data overload, more data doesn’t always mean more value. Organizations must focus on gathering the right, actionable data to drive meaningful improvements to the experiences they deliver.

“Traditional VoC excels at uncovering problems or opportunities in your customer experience but lacks the ability to understand the root causes of those issues or how to fix them. Your insight gathering must go beyond just listening and tracking and into building solutions with your customers,” he explains.

Key insight

Instead of focusing on numbers, measure the success of your VoC initiative by focusing on how customer feedback is being used in your business.

Final remarks

This guide draws on expert insights from several CX leaders to demonstrate that the voice of the customer is key to improving business services in a streamlined and targeted manner.

If brands can take steps to turn data into actionable insights through utilizing the expert advice shared above, such as introducing real-time text analytics and introducing closed-loop initiatives to ensure customer feedback is implemented, then they can take advantage of the significant benefits – to both business and customer – that VoC feedback brings.

By listening to their customers to resolve pain points and introduce new programs, products or initiatives that they actively want, brands can also increase customer loyalty, reduce churn and prove ROI from customer experience initiatives.

“Reflecting on the impact the changes have had on your customers is powerful in reinforcing the value of the voice of the customer and the work being done by you and your team. The benefit goes to the heart of what it means to put the customer at the core.”

Jessica Dawson, Associate director of VoC at Australian telecommunications company Optus

Read a PDF of the Report Here

How do you implement VoC in your organization & gain customer empathy with it? Please let us know in the comments below.