We don't have a Voice of Customer program. 1. How do you get buy-in and 2. What does an MVP of a VOC program look like?

You can make the case on paper, but you can also spin up an MVP to affirm the value of a VOC program. 1. In my previous experience, I gained buy-in by outlining all the ways programs like this can drive product feedback, referral of new customers, retention of current customers, and upsell/cross-sell of products. 2. We ran an MVP at our yearly summit by inviting top spending/high potential customers to do a roundtable with our execs and heads of product. We learned what's top of mind in their wo ...Read More

Great question! Voice of Customer programs are incredibly important to keeping a pulse on your customer base, and ensuring your product/service is meeting the needs of customers. Gaining buy-in can be a challenge, but I'd recommend a few things: Set the vision for your VOC program. Ideally this can mean a few objectives to focus on initially, and some medium-to-long-term objectives to expand to once you see initial success.  Tie VOC objectives to core business goals and objectives. Great VOC pro ...Read More

I'm glad you asked about MVP, because I tried to boil the WHOLE ocean and build a massive VoC program a few years ago. We tried to collect every piece of information that anyone in the company was collecting from the market. It was way too ambitious and my CEO asked us to stop doing it after a summer of work. That was a huge failure, but going back to basics and building a win/loss program was the best choice for me. I mapped out the 12 areas of VoC that we eventually wanted to cover (e.g. custo ...Read More

Love this question and I’m often surprised by how underutilized customer research is within companies. The issue is that research takes time which explains why a lot of companies shy away from it. But the right intel can accelerate your business multiple orders of magnitude by informing - priority product bets, competitive differentiation, geo expansion, pricing strategies, strategic narratives, validating personas (and so much more)! First, tie the research hypotheses to defined P0 business pri ...Read More

To gain buy-in for a Voice of the Customer (VOC) program, you need to first convince stakeholders of the value of the program. I like to start with a simple proof of concept, which could be as straightforward as conducting a handful of customer interviews to get feedback on areas like NPS or product capabilities. The insights from these interviews can serve as a tangible example to demonstrate the types of insights that can be gleaned from a broader VOC program. Once the organization recognizes ...Read More