Voice of the customer: revenue & growth (# 1)
Go2Market THINK: GATHERING, UNDERSTANDING & ASSIMILATING VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER
Value Proposition leaders outpace laggards by 13%, in terms of corporate growth (Bain)
Voice of the customer insights directly inform the three key foundational principles to our G2M model:
Your value proposition is the experience with your organization; part journey, part destination. The ability of your value prop to meet market needs dictates when and how you win.
Value communications are the smart words we use to describe the value prop, using the very words our customers use to describe the issues they face and the quantifiable, demonstrable outcomes we provide to address those issues.
Value delivery is making good on your promise, your value prop. If value delivery suffers, your value prop is invalid and you stand to poison the very referral well necessary to sustain growth.
The voice of the customer is the one version of the truth. There is no denying the insights gleaned from this very important and informative practice.
In the top needs 3 for CMO’s are: 1. Having a Strategic Vision and 2. Understanding Voice of the Customer (Forrester)
Voice of the customer is NOT customer satisfactions insight. While the process of gathering voice of the customer involves elements of your offer, it is not primarily about you, your company, your offer, service, etc. VoC is about answering, as a partial list:
What decision makers, by role and title, are involved in the decision process?
What influences those decision makers and where do they seek ideas to solve problems?
How do the decision makers describe the problem, the pain?
What outcomes do they desire from a solution and how do they define winning?
What is the context in which decisions are made, what is going on at the time?
What do decision makers see as the competing alternatives, including DIY and do nothing?
How do they prioritize the criteria to make decisions and weigh their options?
What blind spots exist and what best practices make sense?
What evidence is necessary to prove your unique ability to meet the needs of markets of choice?
VoC is the necessary foundation for all things G2M. On the way to responding to market demands with speed, and when we struggle to drive revenue, we turn to tactics and technology with the hope that these would solve our revenue issues. We’ve exchanged accuracy for speed, strategy for tactics, concluding that social and digital tools alone somehow solve our woes. We’ve attempted short cuts to solve the problem and ignored strategic focus. Therefore…
Only 14% of companies’ unique benefits are both unique and beneficial (The Challenger Sale)
Marketers must now focus on being found and learn to build continuous relationships with buyers. The way we build relationships with decision makers has changed. We no longer have the access to them we once did and the mix of resources involved in the decision process varies widely. When considering your value proposition, your customers and prospects are asking themselves:
Why should I change (what I’m doing now, given my options include DIY and ‘do nothing’)?
Why should I change now (what are the economic or residual benefits to changing now vs. at some point in the future)?
Why with you?
The buying process can be seen as the process below, involving different levels of staff through the phases to get to an optimal solution. As many as 81% of purchase influencers are not C-level employees.
A well-executed voice of the customer exercise will provide insight about:
1. How decision makers describe the issues and the pain; the words they use…
2. What influences decision makers and how they view competing alternatives
3. The context in which decisions are made and how they prioritize the criteria to make decisions
4. What outcomes they desire from a solution and how they define winning