The Voice of the Customer Marketing

To describe the stated and unstated customer needs and requirements, acquiring data and summing it up is essentially building the "voice of the customer". The voice of the customer can be accumulated in a variety of ways: direct discussion or interviews, surveys, focus groups, customer specifications, observation, warranty data, field reports, etc effectively creating a cumulative of facts and figures, building the "Customer's voice"

Once a product plan, which defines the target market and customers, is recognized, the next step is to plan how to capture these customer's needs for each subsequent project. So the question is, how do you identify target customers, which customers do you contact in order to understand their needs, what implementations are you to use to gather information about their needs, and what kind of schedule and estimate of resources, are all essential to painting a picture of "the voice of the customer".

Opportunities will arise once these trends are identified and appropriate techniques will be implemented to capture the voice of the customer. The techniques used will then depend on the nature of the customer relationship.

There are no archetypal voices for customers. Customer voices are varied. In consumer markets, there is an assortment of different needs. Even within one buying unit, there are multiple customer voices (e.g., parents vs. their offspring). This applies to industrial and government markets as well. There are even multiple customer voices within a single organization: the voice of the procuring corporation, the voice of the user, and the voice of the supporting or maintenance establishment. These diverse voices must be considered, reconciled and balanced to develop a truly successful perspective.

A brewing debate

A brewing debate about Starbucks' new coffee flavor depicts a challenge facing innovation-seekers: Which customer's opinions should be listened to?

To bolster the enterprise, the Starbucks' group of companies introduced a milder tasting brand of coffee, succinctly named the "Pike Place Roast". The Sumatra brand, their bolder tasting coffee range was quietly moved away from the offering, particularly in the afternoons.

Starbucks introduced Pike Place Roast into the market to respond to complaints from consumer reports claiming that their coffee tasted bitter or burnt. In an astonishingly short period of time (by FnB industry standards), a small group commercialized the brew within six months.

Starbucks set up a website specifically designed to solicit customer feedback. Much like the coca-cola classic debacle, a local group of core Starbucks' enthusiasts motioned disparaging gestures toward the lightly flavored coffee, one patron citing it a "Fundamental, grievous error. It was watered down and away from what makes Starbucks distinct". The partiality was split right down the middle.

An organization seeking to generate new growth often faces one version of this dilemma or another. Should they listen to their best, most loyal customers, or should they turn a blind eye and their deaf ears toward them, and sought out more recent clientele of whom they are not serving well. Perhaps even to customers they are not serving at all?

The general consensus is that more experienced companies would turn this "or" question into an "and" statement. This is the price most establishments pay for innovation. Corporations seek to bridge the gaps between all their customers. After all, who wouldn't want to expand by pleasing their existing customers, expand by simultaneously finding out how to listen and serve new as well as dissatisfied customers?

The Apple Ipod is another good example. Think of how the range of Ipod products has widened and diversified, since its introduction into the market place and you will see a very clearly illustrated picture. The company didn't just increase the output of it's original design to appeal to all areas of Ipod users. The Ipod Nano line was designed to be more aesthetically pleasing, targeted to less-technical consumers. And the cheaper, smaller, Ipod shuffle range, which was targeted to consumers more concerned with price and portability, was also released into the market.

Listening to just one party is a destructive approach. Simply listening to your best customers, who have little incentive to tell you to do things better or fundamentally different is the bedfellow of disruptive trends in the market. Alienating them is the wrong way to go, because loyal customers are the profit engines of most enterprises. It is like walking on a tight rope some 30 feet in the air, particularly when corporations like Starbucks' essentially only follow a single business model.

One approach Starbucks could be to consider, is allowing individual outlets to arrange or format their stores in different ways. This would of course have to depend on the customers who live within the postal code. Perhaps even creating a sub brand might be in order. The Gap, for example, has its Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Piperlime brands to connect with different customers across the appeal range.

While coffee drinkers might argue that this approach would involve magnifying overhead and may be regarded as an overall risk in general, it could still afford Starbucks a better connect with different groups of customers, helping to power the growth they so deeply yearn.