Voice of the Customer and Maximizing the Customer Feedback Process

Editor's Note: Hear more from Gary Schwartz at IQPC's Customer Feedback Week conference in September. For more information about the event, click here. Gary Schwartz, an active speaker at IQPC’s 2009 Customer Feedback Week conference, is excited about turning data into profit through the voice of the customer. He claims that every business must take voice of the customer seriously. Schwartz wants you to enable your customers to talk about what they want, when they want, how they want. This customer feedback needs to be integrated with the business back-office experience. The business needs to know, in real-time, when the customers are having an interaction; and the company needs to be proactive when necessary. Customer service needs to solicit customer feedback and capture customer feedback in aggregate. This will gather the full voice of the customer across the business. Schwartz calls this event-driven solicitation of feedback. In today’s downturn economy the business needs to bring other information into the survey set to know the most profitable customers. If a customer reports extreme dissatisfaction, customer service needs to act on that right away. You need to be able to collect that information through whichever channel the customer wants. The business must make it easier for the customer to offer feedback, because the feedback can eventually be translated into profit.