The difference between “doing surveys” and really listening to customers!

In this edition of the Customer Centricity Corner Rachel Waterfield, Customer Insight Manager at voestalpine Metsec plc shares insights into what makes an effective Voice of the Customer (VoC) programme in the B2B sector.

She emphasises the need to engage with internal stakeholders to think about and develop the hypotheses to test via customer research, which then leads to the right questions to ask that are appropriate to the differing respondent roles within the target sample.

The discussion then goes on to consider the different methodologies and metrics available to researchers, including– CSat, NPS, CES and trust, and which are the best measures to use in the B2B sector.

Rachel’s well-made point about using a “mirror” survey approach to compare and affirm internal and external voices leads to a closing discussion on how B2B trust is multi-layered and 2-way across customer/supplier relationships, so can’t be dumbed down into a “silver bullet” one number methodology. Indeed, it’s a vital role for those of us who champion customer centricity to think systemically and do the joining up of VoC and Voice of Staff insights to achieve the ultimate aims of sustainable, mutually beneficial and profitable B2B relationships.

Are you getting the nuggets of insight that really drive customer centric change? Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss ways to become more joined-up and customer centric in your VoC programmes.

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Peter Lavers

Peter is an expert in relationship marketing and customer experience management. He is a Director of Customer Attuned, helping clients to develop new and innovative ways to find, engage and satisfy customers.