Digital - Voice of the customer
Free Road map and free tools
0. Form the team
Form a small cross-functional team and make a simple project plan.
Preferably have a fixed meeting time every week to keep the momentum in the project.
A good start is to watch the free educational videos on Customer value on the 8-step-VoC home page. Customer needs without a clear connection to value are no needs, just distractions.
1. Define customers to participate
Make a customer matrix in Excel. Read chapter 2 for information about how to create one.
Read also chapter 1 for more details on customer segmentation.
Remember, products aimed at unclear or too broadly based segments are seldom successful.
2. Interview customers over Internet
Conduct in-depth interviews of a small number of customers over the Internet using Zoom. Ask the customer for permission to record the interview.
Download the “Quick guide for in-depth interviews” to create your interview cards.
Read chapter 2 to increase your interviewing skills before you start interviewing customers.
Learn how to extract customer needs and resource concerns and formulate value stories in chapter 2.
3. Compress value stories
Read chapter 3 and learn how to use the affinity diagram technique to compress value stories. Use the web-based tool Miro to create the affinity diagram.
Remember that the goal is to compress the number of value stories to under 25.
4. Compile the deck of Value cards
Read chapter 4 and learn more about Value cards and the gamification principles used in the card deck dialogue.
Use VoC-quickstart to document and preview your Value cards.
Use VoC-xml to make snapshots of your value cards.
5. Establish customer profiling data
Your ability to analyze the data later is determined by what type of customer profiling data you collect.
It is not only important to know who said what but also have additional facts about the customer, his/her experience, the usage or environment where the product, service or software is being used.
The variables defining your customer segments must, of course, be included in the profiling data, as well as other important characteristics of the customers and business context.
Read chapter 5 and learn more about customer profiling data.
Document the profiling data in VoC-quickstart.
6. Invite customers to prioritize and benchmark
Now, it is time to reach out to a significantly larger number of customers to reach confidence in your data.
Set up a video conference with your customers over Zoom.
If the customer understands that this is not a traditional sales call or that the meeting doesn’t have a hidden agenda, most people are willing to participate. The card deck dialogue offers them an opportunity to express themselves in a way rarely offered.
The card deck dialogue is conducted using the web-based tool Stormboard and the module VoC-input.
Perform all the gamification steps used in the card deck dialogue to increase the quality of the result and make it into a fantastic learning experience also for the customer.
Rember to ask follow up questions based on the result and document the answers in VoC-input. Customer comments are valuable information complementing the statistical data collected.
Many times these comments bring life to the data and explain the customer’s point of view and the reason behind his/her position.
7. Store and mine the data
Use the module VoC-analyze Basic and import your data from the card deck dialogues for analysis.
Read chapter 7 with recommendations on how to analyze and present the insights gained.
Watch the videos to learn how to use the programs and configure your database.
Start mining the data and create customer insights.
8. Sharpen sales strategies and develop product with unrivalled customer value
Step 8 is about turning the customer insights into products and services with unrivalled customer value. The concept we advocate for this is the Value Model. A proven method used by many organisations, globally. The Value Model is a work model for creating and carrying out projects in which creativity is a prerequisite for success. It defines world-class development work that ensures profitable organic growth for the benefits of customers, employees and shareholders alike.
The Value Model has the ultimate objective to create value in terms of:
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unrivaled customer value in new products and services
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business values in form of growth and profitability
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soft values in the way of in-depth relationships and increased knowledge.
Visit the Value Model home page for more information
Software modules digital - Voice of the customer
VoC-quickstart
VoC-quickstart documents the value stories and customer profiling data. The output configures the database VoC-analyze.
VoC-quickstart can also export the text for the value cards in XML-format. This file can then be imported to VoC-xml.
VoC-xml
An easy to use program to handle your value stories. Enables you to view and prototype your Value cards. The program will also configure your value stories into a xml-format. The xml-format is the preferred format if you need to send your value stories for translation.
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Visualizes Value cards
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Printing of prototype Value cards
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Make snapshots of Value cards
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Exports/imports card data in xml format
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Based on Excel
VoC-input
Controls and simplifies input of customer data from the card deck dialogue. In the program you record the customer profiling data, prioritization of the Value cards and the benchmarking results. Configures the data so it later can be imported to VoC-analyze.
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Documents customer profiling data, card sorting result and benchmarking of value stories
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SWOT for 8 decks of Need cards
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Creates input data to VoC-analyze
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Based on Excel
Used in step
Used in step
VoC-analyze Basic
Powerful program to visualize, analyze and document your VoC data. Provide multiple views of your data along with simple tools to drill down and see important details. Configures data for simple export or printing. Instead of spending numerous hours to program and configure your Excel-sheet VoC-analyze Basic will provide the result in minutes.
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Documents customer profiling data, card sorting and benchmarking results
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Analysis of VoC data
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Unlimited filter options to drill down in your data
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Imports data from VoC-input
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Based on Excel
Used in step
The 8-Step-VoC process explained
This video is module 7 in the Customer value challenge. The first six modules in the Customer value challenge is describing how to transform the concept of customer value into a concrete and practical tool to drive your success.
This video describes the traditional Voice of the customer process using printed Value cards and folders.