There’s no shortage of customer data in today’s businesses. Surveys, support tickets, reviews, social media mentions, call recordings — the list goes on. While companies historically struggled to get data on customers, the amount of data available nowadays is overwhelming. It’s one of the great ironies of our time: as the volume of customer data has exploded, the potential insights haven’t increased with it, even though it can be more abundant than ever.
Your contact centre is where your customers are often most honest — so it should be seen as a goldmine of intelligence.
This article will explore:
- The voice of your customer: What it is and why it is already part of your business strategy, whether you’re listening to it or not
- Listening in the right way and then applying insights
The Voice of the Customer
At its core, VoC is about understanding what your customers really want, need, and feel — and then using that information to make better decisions.
The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is an essential part of your strategy. Your paying customer can be a valuable and free human resource.
Consider the following business strategies that are directly related to your VoC:
- Retaining customers starts by listening to them
- Upselling to customers starts by hearing what they want
- Happy customers become loyal resellers – free of charge: Word of mouth marketing is one of the most powerful ways to expand your business
Yet, many organisations are still struggling to listen effectively and find the golden nuggets.
1. Dealing with lots of data dots
Most companies already collect feedback e.g in the form of post-interaction surveys. But these tools only scratch the surface. They can miss the emotion, fail to capture what wasn’t said and they don’t tell you why a customer felt the way they did.
Even worse, insights often stay locked in departments. For instance, marketing doesn’t talk to support or product teams don’t hear what sales hears.
And the contact centre — where customers are often most honest — is reduced to a cost centre instead of a goldmine of intelligence.
The problem is not that we don’t have the data. The problem is a disconnect.
2. How to listen differently: finding dots
The real Voice of the Customer isn’t always written in a survey. It’s spoken in frustration on a support call. It’s hesitation in a buyer’s tone. It’s that long pause before a customer says they’re “fine.”
With modern technology, businesses can now tap into those conversations.
Tools like speech analytics, AI-driven sentiment tracking, and conversation intelligence platforms make it possible to:
- Surface common customer pain points
- Detect churn risk
- Identify training needs for teams
- Prioritise product improvements based on actual user language
The data is already there. You just need the right ears — and the right tools to connect everything.
3. Turning insight into action: connecting dots
The VoC is only powerful when it’s actionable. Feedback data and the golden nuggets gotten from this are only useful once applied.
- Close the loop fast
The businesses that win aren’t the ones with the most feedback – they’re the ones that close the loop fast. Some ways to close the loop include:
- Share insights across departments
- Aligning decisions with customer expectations
- Track the impact of changes
- Give your customers a reason to believe you’re listening
Whether customers are frustrated, angry or extremely happy and satisfied, they always love being heard. You can let them know you are listening by:
- Responding to their concerns
- Making improvements
- Letting them know about improvements via a phone call or an email.
The voice of the customer Is Your Competitive Edge
Listening: The New Differentiator
In crowded markets where products and pricing are often similar, experience is what sets brands apart. And experience starts with listening.
Are you capturing the real voice of your customer — or just reading between the lines?
In a world of noise, the brands that hear their customers loud and clear are the ones that rise above the rest.
Speech analytics supports you in the true voice of your customer. It is a smart investment and a universal fit, regardless of whether a few thousand calls or millions are conducted.
It helps you identify opportunities for improvement in customer experience and compliance by evaluating past calls, uncovering trends, understanding customer pain points, and pinpointing areas where compliance might be vulnerable.
Speech Analytics helps you win the long game by enabling you to use your gold mine of knowledge to strategise.
Contact us today to see a demo of how speech analytics can enable you to use your gold mine from your call data to plan ahead and win the long game.