In my previous blog, I mentioned that many companies are swimming in meaningless customer data. This primarily stems from the fact that most companies do not have controls and methods, or guiding principles for how to capture customer insight. More to the point, most companies operate without a master budget and centralized ownership for capturing voice of the customer, resulting in fragmented data, without context, and conflicting goals and objectives. Consequently, they end up with mounds of data that is not actionable.

In order to properly capture the voice of the customer, organizationally garner actionable insights, and then leverage your customers to break through revenue barriers, we recommend you retool in the following key areas:

1. Create a master budget line item coupled with executive sponsorship for capturing voice of the customer. The issues uncovered by a formalized customer insight program cannot be resolved by one department alone. Executive sponsorship and a cross-functional leadership team are required. Start by creating a budget line with defined executive ownership for a formalized customer insight program.
2. Develop a master voice of customer plan – a master blueprint – around how to capture the voice of the customer from a 360-degree view. This master plan must include how to contextualize and structure your customer insight framework across the customer lifecycle for aligning the data, necessary corporate actions, outcomes and corresponding impact. Further, this master plan must tie back to corporate goals and objectives, take into account the cross-functional needs of the organization and be constructed to uncover the levers and dials that drive customer retention, repurchase and referrability. To do this, you must structure your customer listening system from the customer’s point of view, not departmental needs.
3. At the bare minimum, require an “Imperative First” for every research project. In our experience, the most meaningful research begins with statements like: “We want to find a way to improve the retention rates of customers within our healthcare segment. To do that, we’d like to understand the customer touch-points and identify the dials that have the greatest impact on loyalty and repurchase.”.
4. Once you have a master plan and budget in place, create ownership and accountability across the management chain for retention, repurchase and referrability—the three essential, revenue-driving customer metrics.

While this approach requires greater discipline in spending and customer management, at the end of the day, your company will have more insightful information about your customers from a 360-degree view. With that information, you’ll be able to make actionable decisions, build better and value-driven solutions, and ultimately, sustain and accelerate your company’s growth.

David Ambler, Vice President of Client Services David.Ambler@phelongroup.com