Next Generation Voice of the Customer Programs Will Rely Less on Surveys and More on Analytics and Mobile, According to Temkin Group Research

WABAN, Mass., Aug. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Temkin Group announces the release of its new research report, Prepare For Next Generation Voice of the Customer Programs. The research, based on a study of more than 200 large organizations, examines how voice of the customer (VoC) programs are evolving and where they are heading.

The research shows that large companies with VoC programs have dedicated an average of three to five full time employees. When fully implemented, these programs provide highly tailored customer insights to employees across an organization.

Temkin Group identified six critical competencies for VoC programs: Detect, Disseminate, Diagnose, Discuss, Design, and Deploy. It turns out that less than one-quarter of companies with VoC programs have developed strong skills in each of these areas.

The research uses Temkin Group's VoC maturity model to identify where companies are along a spectrum of five levels of maturity.  Only 5% of VoC programs have reached the highest level of maturity, a stage called "Transformers" while 46% of these programs are in the two earliest stages of maturity: "Novices" and "Collectors."

"Companies have been surveying their customers for years, but leading-edge voice of the customer programs go well beyond those efforts, taking those practices to an entirely new level" states Bruce Temkin, author of the research and Managing Partner of Temkin Group.

The report shows that VoC programs are going through major changes. Rather than focusing on collecting feedback, these programs are becoming more action-oriented. When companies were asked about the sources of customer insight that would be more important in the future, social media, customer interaction history, and feedback from front-line employees were at the top of the list. Multiple-choice surveys ended up at the bottom of the list.

Companies were asked about their planned activities. It turns out that large companies expect a sharp rise in the use of text mining, predictive analytics, speech analytics, and collecting feedback via mobile phones.

The research also compared VoC programs between companies that have strong business performance and lower performing companies. It turns out that high performing companies employ more full-time VoC employees, act more on the customer insights they find, and use more analytics.

As companies take on new VoC capabilities, the research asserts that they will increasingly need to invest in Customer Insight and Action (CIA) platforms. These evolving applications automate multi-channel customer feedback, analysis, and response and the related workflow associated with closed-loop voice of the customer programs.

The report, Prepare For Next Generation Voice of the Customer Programs, can be accessed from the blog, Customer Experience Matters, at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com as well as from the Temkin Group website, www.TemkinGroup.com.

For more information about Temkin Group, visit http://www.TemkinGroup.com.

About the author, Bruce Temkin

Bruce Temkin is widely recognized as a customer experience thought leader and is Customer Experience Transformist and Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters®. Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker who consistently receives high marks for his content-rich, entertaining keynote addresses. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of customer experience management.

About Temkin Group

Temkin Group is a leading customer experience research and consulting firm with one simple goal for its clients: increase customer loyalty by becoming more customer-centric. The company combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of large organizations to help senior executives accelerate their results. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or [email protected].

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SOURCE Temkin Group