Listening to the Voice of the Customer

Listening to the Voice of the Customer (VOC) is an integral part of successful customer engagement and experience. Solutions that implement VOC capabilities listen and trigger responses in near real-time, driving relevant engagement at a low marginal cost. Listening to the Voice of the Customer at every stage of their journey enables banks to better understand their needs, expectations, and sources of friction.

Identifying, understanding, and responding to customer needs drives loyalty and increases customers' sense of control over their finances. VOC serves as a hallmark of customer care, satisfaction, and favorable purchase preference. Moreover, VOC models operate at a low marginal cost to gather timely feedback, enhancing products, processes, and brand sentiment over time.

VOC strengthens financial institutions’ results throughout the customer journey. Key objectives include listening to customer feedback, measuring satisfaction and sentiment, responding to concerns, and clarifying needs. Feedback provides insight into gaps in products, services, processes, and staff performance. With this, banks can take action to improve outcomes and reduce risk. VOC enhances the ability to understand needs, preferences, and issues, providing actionable knowledge for decisions about pricing, products, and services.

Banks can follow a four-step cycle to leverage VOC:

1. Targeting the audience that will provide the most valuable feedback based on segment, demographics, risk factors, events, or customer type (personal or business).
2. Asking relevant questions to gather feedback through relational, transactional, and intent-based surveys.
3. Interpreting the feedback to identify trends and root causes.
4. Employing corrective actions, such as reaching out to a frustrated customer, coaching staff, improving processes, and modifying products and services.

VOC models are only effective when customers feel heard, and the institution takes action.

Validating that the chosen action was successful requires follow-up feedback. This makes the VOC model cyclical: reaching out to the target audience, asking questions, interpreting their feedback, and acting on their responses. This knowledge ensures success in retargeting groups and refining survey questions. A customer-centric business model empowers consumers, ensuring they feel heard, known, and valued.

For more formation download our interview: Listening to the Voice of The Customer.