The document discusses becoming more customer-centric by leveraging voice of the customer (VOC) data. It describes how replication of VOC findings across multiple studies can validate pain point themes to focus on. It compares the company's current VOC efforts to those of Virgin Media, which operationalized VOC by distributing reports in real-time and holding employees accountable for improvements. The document advocates taking a holistic, closed-loop approach to resolving customer pain points by centralizing VOC efforts. It argues internal design experts can be leveraged to create data-driven solutions through rigorous design cycles, as demonstrated by the successful German website redesign.

1. BECOMING
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
Using the voice of the customer
to drive action
Kimberly Dunwoody

2. We have been
talking about being
customer-centric for
years so…

3. are we there yet?
Are we customer-
centric or do we
have more work to
do?

4. Many teams
around the globe
have been formed to
focus on the customer
experience…

5. With all of this
work going on how
are we doing in
terms of customer
satisfaction?

6. “With all of the work we are doing, shouldn’t our
scores be better?”
85.5
Overall Customer Satisfaction
85
84.5 85%
84
83.5
83
82.5 83%
82
Us Them
Us Them
Western Union Global Business Intelligence. (2009). 2009 Annual Brand Tracker. Vienna: Western Union Corporation.

7. “That is just one score from one study using one
methodology, should we be acting on that?”

8. Our organization has put several methods into place
to serve as voice of the customer (VOC) listening
posts… “With so many methods and so
much data aren’t we just putting
ourselves at risk of ‘analysis-
paralysis’?”

9. Yes, we do collect a great deal of VOC data,
however current best practices advocate this
approach by leveraging the concept of replication to
validate VOC themes.

10. When findings are replicated across more than one
study we can feel confident aligning ourselves around
VOC pain-point themes by listening to the customer.
Owen, R. &. (2009). Answering the Ultimate Question. San Fransisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

11. “What do you mean by ‘replication’ and why is it
important?”

12. In the scientific community studies are
replicated to assure that the results are
reliable.
VOC Study #1 VOC Study #2
Same
Results

13. Once replicated, the results can be
generalized across other situations because
scientists agree on the results.
VOC Study #1 VOC Study #2
“We can then solve
“Let’s work together to larger issues for more
isolate the root cause of our customers.”
VOC pain-point themes...”

14. For example, if two studies find that picking
up money is a customer pain-point theme, we
then accept the finding as a VOC pain-point.
Customer Satisfaction Survey Call Center Survey Theme
Theme
“My pregnant finance had
“My son had to go
to wait over an hour to pick
to three locations
up the money I sent her
before he found
because they said they did
one that let him
not have that much cash. I
pick up the $800
thought you service was
that I sent him. This
suppose to be fast?”
is unacceptable to
me.”
Same
Results
Process Related Money Pick-Up Theme
Western Union Global Customer Experience Management. (2010). Global Customer Satisfaction Survey. Englewood: Western Union Corporation.

15. Now that we have identified a pain-
point it is good to resolve individual
customer problems, however...
Specific Customer Response Specific Customer Response
“…I am emailing to help “Hello, I am calling to
resolve the problem you help resolve the problem
reported via our you reported via our
survey…” survey…”

16. We must also focus on resolving the
underlying systemic cause of the problem
or theme….
Customer Pain-Point Theme Customer Pain-Point Theme
“We’ve identified the “Now we are working
together to solve them!”
root causes…”

17. “Ok, so we now agree that we have a problem, if
more than one study points to the same problem.
Now what? Don’t we just have a laundry list of
problems now?”

18. Yes, we do now have a list of pain-point,
themes…however it is our ‘to-do’ list.
“Have other organizations Our customer-
centric goal!
been able to do this?”

19. Yes, Virgin Media is a great example of a
company who accepted responsibility for making
changes to their processes that were flagged as
customer pain-point causes.
“At Virgin Media in 2007 we
‘operationalized’ our VOC program,
by routing specific comments to the
departments causing pain-points, in
real-time.”
Satmetrix. (2009). European Net Promoter Conference. European Net Promoter Conference Report (pp. 6-14). London: Satmetrix.

20. “So how is what Virgin
Media did, different “Let’s compare our
from what we are current efforts to their
doing?” VOC program.”

21. Currently we follow best practices having
established numerous VOC listening posts.

22. Reports are distributed once a week to key
stakeholders.

23. Virgin Media also collects data using multiple
VOC listening posts, however…
Satmetrix. (2009). European Net Promoter Conference. European Net Promoter Conference Report (pp. 6-14). London: Satmetrix.

24. Reports are distributed widely across the
organization in real-time…
Satmetrix. (2009). European Net Promoter Conference. European Net Promoter Conference Report (pp. 6-14). London: Satmetrix.

25. And all employees, at every level, are held
accountable for improving satisfaction…
Satmetrix. (2009). European Net Promoter Conference. European Net Promoter Conference Report (pp. 6-14). London: Satmetrix.

26. Everyone is expected to use this VOC data to
drive their daily actions and policy decisions.
Satmetrix. (2009). European Net Promoter Conference. European Net Promoter Conference Report (pp. 6-14). London: Satmetrix.

27. “Ah-ha! So one big difference between our current
VOC program and Virgin Media is the ‘closed-loop’.
We need to make VOC data more widely available
and hold ourselves accountable for solving our
customers’ problems.”

28. “I am not sure what you mean by ‘closed-loop’,
but it seems to me that you want to embarrass my
department by sharing VOC comments that make
my people look bad.”

29. Actually the idea is to balance the needs of the
customer with the needs of the business. By shedding
light on pain-points, resources can be aligned to
solve the issues that mean the most to our customers.
“This is what is
important to me,
the Customer….”

30. Let’s revisit the Virgin Media example, in 2007, when they began
their VOC program, customer pain points were widely discussed
internally. Unfortunately no one was held accountable for solving
pain-points and very little improvement was seen for the first
year.
“In 2008 a centralized Customer
Experience Team was formed to work
with departments to solve pain-points,
and to ultimately create accountability
for those departments unwilling to make
the necessary changes.”
“We refer to this as our ‘closed-loop VOC
program’ and our proud of our world-class
customer satisfaction scores.”
Satmetrix. (2009). European Net Promoter Conference. European Net Promoter Conference Report (pp. 6-14). London: Satmetrix.

31. “My department has its own Customer Experience
Team, we don’t need some 3rd party department
telling us what to do.”

32. It is terrific that you are putting so much focus on the customer
experience, however how will ‘fixes’ in your department work
with changes being made by other Customer Experience
Teams in other departments?

33. A centralized view to the customer experience can
ensure that the end-to-end experience works together
holistically.
“Our task now is to
align our efforts in
order to better
leverage our
economies of scale.”

34. “OK, so we acknowledge that we need to
respond holistically to customer pain-points,
however we do not have any experience doing
this.”

35. Actually we have been quite successful in implementing a
rigorous VOC-driven approach by leveraging our
extraordinary internal design community.
“Leveraging internal design experts from a variety of
fields, we can create data-drive customer experience
solutions.”

36. Visual Designers, Instructional Designers and Interaction
Designers trained in data-driven design processes
working together have been leveraged to create
outstanding customer experiences.

37. To find success in using VOC data to solve for customer
pain-points we need to look no further than our
transactional website in Germany.
“I find this
website hard to
use because….”

38. In 2008, a group of internal designers analyzed
feedback received from EU Web Customers and then
began to prioritize pain-points…
“We are hearing customers say…”

39. “Let’s rank them in the order that they are creating
dissatisfaction, let’s put the most serve pain-points on the top
of the list that we want to solve for…
1. The transaction takes too long,
2. It is not clear how much it costs,
3. Some of the language used is confusing to me, etc..”

40. “Next, utilizing an iterative design process let’s create a
design that solves these problems and that can also work
within the technology constraints of the core money transfer
system.”

41. “Finally we validated the design via 1:1 testing with German
consumers. Once the design was complete, it was built and
launched.”

42. “Today, two years later the German website out performs the
US website in customer satisfaction. This success can be
attributed to the rigorous VOC data-driven process we
undertook. Additionally an ROI of over 2,000% was
achieved for this design process in the first 12 months since
launch.”
Western Union Web Customer Experience . (2010, January). Web Customer Experience Update.

43. Our website customer satisfaction scores are remarkably
better on the German site when compared to the US site,
where this type of comprehensive VOC design program
was not undertaken.
40
30
35
20
10
0
-10 United States Germany
-20 -27
-30
-40 Customer Satisfaction
Western Union Global Customer Experience Management. (2010). Global Customer Satisfaction Survey. Englewood: Western Union Corporation.

44. To remove the barriers that stand between us and our
goal of being more customer-centric we must..
Accept that we have
valid VOC pain-
points when they are
found across more
than one study…

45. To remove the barriers that stand between us and our
goal of being more customer-centric we must..
Openly distribute,
discuss and prioritize
VOC pain-point
problems…

46. To remove the barriers that stand between us and our
goal of being more customer-centric we must..
Build a closed-loop
feedback process
holding ourselves
accountable for
solving these
problems…

47. To remove the barriers that stand between us and our
goal of being more customer-centric we must..
Undertake rigorous
data-driven design
cycles to create and
validate solutions
with our customers..

48. Once the barriers are removed…

49. We can move forward towards our goal of becoming
customer-centric….

50. By meeting our customer’s needs we can differentiate
ourselves from the competition and move our
organization forward.