Three Questions on Voice of Customer with Contentsquare’s Pierre Bancelin

Why has Voice of Customer (VoC) become a must-have?

These days, it’s the consumer who has all the power. It’s not enough to offer good customer service. Brands are at the mercy of their customers’ expectations, and particularly their opinions, ratings, and all around desire for a good Cx customer experience. Any experience a consumer may have can become a rating on Google for a business, on TripAdvisor for a hotel, or even on Glassdoor for an employer… and there’s nothing worse for a business than bad reviews on digital platforms beyond our control. 

So, it’s in a brand’s best interest to better understand their customers’ needs and expectations, so they can give them what they want to see and fix what is frustrating them in their customer experience. 

How are brands adopting new strategies?

Historically, Voice of Customer was created in Asia to help develop Japanese products. The concept then crossed the Pacific and established itself in North America. Having said that, not all parts of the world have adopted Voice of Customer to date. 

In Europe, many countries are already making the most of it, but it’s only starting to develop in southern Europe and France. We are seeing more and more clients developing customer listening programs. 

I think that 2021 will be the year of Voice of Customer in France. The pandemic has proved that brands need to listen to their customers more than ever before.

What advice would you give to brands looking to implement a Voice of Customer strategy?

My first tip is to stick with it, as it can be very demoralizing at first. If you want to be customer-centric and throw yourself headfirst into VoC, you might be disheartened when you hear what your customers have to say, especially if all you get back is complaints and negative comments. Feedback like “Your website is terrible, I couldn’t complete an order,” isn’t very helpful beyond informing you that there’s a problem with your checkout. But, what else? How many other visitors have had this problem? You end up with more questions than answers. 

My second tip is to connect the Voice of Customer platform to a UX analytics solution. If you receive a negative review, you can actually replay a user cx complete session and see exactly why and how a visitor became frustrated, find out how many visitors have had the same experience, and put the necessary steps in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.