Businesses should excel at Customer Experience, but at what cost? The customer insight derived from combining customer feedback with financial data using a Voice of the Customer platform can prove invaluable as senior executives strive to manage costs and grow profits throughout the business.

By analysing the customer insight, areas within the business such as contact centres or retailer’s point of sale can be streamlined to provide the kind of experience customers want. Staffing levels can be varied to follow customer needs and usage. For example a retailer could very staff levels based on customer feedback on queuing times, recent McKenzie research shows that customers who have a low queue time are more likely to recommend to a friend.

With this increased insight in all the areas of the business, decisions can be made with a full end to end view of the customer. Non-profitable areas can be identified and strategic decisions can be made on which reform and which to exit. 

It is fundamental that CEO’s ensure that customer insight is no longer purely the preserve of Marketing and that the information is available across the business and becomes embedded in the businesses processes ensuring feedback will drive true operational change within the business.

Culturally, commitment from the top to change the business and make the customer central to all business decisions is essential to all Voice of Customer programmes.  The above diagram highlights the role of the CEO in leading the change to a customer centric culture. 

The use of customer insight enables senior management to shape future business strategy with the customer always in mind. There is a high correlation of organisations whose CEO’s lead the VOC initiative and its strategic impact.