Customer focus drives questions for an organization to think strategically and align cross functional teams. Strategic questions such as Why are we in business? Where do we need to be in the future? and What is the source of our competitive advantage? can be better answered when we understand what customers value the most.

Who Are the Customers?

All end users or recipients of a service, product, or process. The customer can be either internal or external. Examples of external customers are the consumers of our products and services – it could be other business entities or individuals. Organizational functions such as Sales, Marketing, or Operations, are internal customers as are employees, management, and the Board of Directors.

What are the Customers’ Needs?

The “Voice of Customer” (VoC) is the qualitative or quantitative expression of the things that drive customer satisfaction. In a commercial setting, VoC represents all those things that drive intent to purchase or repurchase your product or service.

How can we learn about customers’ needs?

There are primarily two key sources:

• Reactive: complaints, customer service and support calls, decreased, increased, or repeat business, contract cancellations, web page activities, and the like.
• Proactive: interviews, focus groups, surveys, sales visits/calls, market research/monitoring, benchmarking, scorecards and dashboards).

How do we translate the VoC into metrics?

Customers tend to be vague and may not always know their own requirements. A common tool used to translate VoC into something that can be measured is Critical-to-Quality (CTQ) tree which defines a customer’s ideal outcome using data. For example, a “good customer service call” can be measured as the time an agent took to answer the call and the quality of the issue’s resolution (scale 1 to 10).

How Adonis Can Help

The Voice of Customer (VoC) is not often expressed in measurable ways. Here at Adonis, we provide training and ongoing support that will equip your organization with the proper tools to interpret and act upon what your customer is asking of you.