In my experience, growth successes and challenges almost always have some foundation in voice-of-customer (VoC). That’s a sweeping statement, but as a CEO if you lack up-to-date insight into what your customers want and need, how they anticipate that changing, and how they think of your brand, your offerings, and your competition, you may be running your company with your hearing impaired. As someone who uses hearing aids, I know I need to wear them and look directly at a speaker, or I miss information and must make guesses to fill in the blanks. That invariably slows me down and leads to misunderstandings and errors.
The same can be said for companies that don’t keep up with VoC—the equivalent of staying face-to-face with customers and hearing them fully. However, the good news is that technology applied to VoC can help companies stay accurately informed, up to speed, and on track, just as hearing aid technology enhances the quality and impact of my day-to-day interactions,
VoC is a type of market research that summarizes customers' expectations, preferences, and dislikes based on what they say. Some companies use their sales or customer success team’s insights as a substitute for direct VoC, which can introduce bias from internal perspectives filtering the customer voices. CEOs often tell me that they’ve been serving their industry for a long time, so they know their market. However, a combination of VoC and internal insights is necessary to reveal gaps in understanding and alignment that threaten future growth.
I had the opportunity to work with a professional services firm that had been in business for 40 years. After conducting VoC interviews, we discovered two important things. First, the firm’s brand image was misaligned with its clients’ perception of them as the most approachable and fun smart people with whom to work. Second, their external brand structure, which mirrored their internal organizational structure, did not align with how clients wanted to engage with the firm or purchase their services.
We’re all naturally compromised when it comes to hearing our customers. We put too much weight on experience to influence the present and potential future state. When we fill in the blanks because we’re not getting the story directly from customers at full volume, our past experiences and biases inevitably seep in. But as a CEO of a midmarket company, you must run a tight ship. It’s tough to invest limited marketing dollars in external resources to conduct ongoing VoC at a frequency that will keep you current. However, technology can help make VoC more feasible on a regular—and even continuous—basis.
I recently worked with an Insurtech startup company that was experiencing low response rates to its marketing and sales messages, but they were unsure why. They engaged me to improve their messaging strategy and I knew they needed VoC as a starting point. However, with conference season upon them, they had to launch the new messaging in just three weeks and on a very limited budget. Without the time or investment for a full VoC analysis, I supplemented traditional approaches with artificial intelligence (AI) tools to develop a VoC proxy.
I used perplexity.ai, and leveraged my industry background to create prompts that helped me gain insights about client needs, what factors would influence them to explore offerings to address those needs, their concerns, their current views on how their needs are being met, and differentiators that could fill any gaps. With Perplexity, I could easily check the sources to ensure the insights were solid because it provides links to all source documents. Based on my refined understanding of both buyer and influencer personas, I developed a recommended brand positioning, vocabulary, and voice, along with specific messages and communication cadences for the upcoming conference season. Despite having a limited budget, my few weeks of work resulted in more than double the engagement in their marketing and sales messages, which also attracted high-value prospects to their conference exhibits.
I’ve incorporated AI technology in my work to assist me in constructing scripts for VoC interviews. I have also used AI technology for real-time interview transcription, summary, and prioritization of key themes during interviews. This allows me to conduct traditional one-to-one VoC—which I value for the ability to probe as insights arise—in less time while enhancing it with improved queries and less biased analysis.
Technology can help to analyze VoC feedback in various formats, such as interview summaries and transcripts, as well as notes, survey completions, customer social media posts, and customer success and sales recordings. By employing technology to review these multiple forms of feedback, it becomes possible to sift through and develop combined insights, themes, and prioritization in far less time and with greater accuracy than a human alone can achieve.
I am deeply grateful that my hearing aids help me to hear what others have to say. I particularly appreciate the ability to select setting for specific situations, filter some background noise, and focus attention. At the same time, I know that they are not a perfect substitute for natural hearing or my decision-making. Sometimes, they direct my listening to the wrong priority—such as someone whispering behind me rather than the speaker at the front of the room. I need to remain vigilant and in charge of what I hear and how I hear it.
Leveraging AI technology for VoC is similar. It can make mistakes in understanding complex nuances in language and it can perpetuate human biases introduced in its training. CEOs seeking the benefits of VoC as they build their growth engine should invite technology into the conversation—but it’s a dialogue that is, first and foremost, human-centered and human-led.