The importance and shadows of VoC (Voice of the Customer)

“Voice of the Customer is not just an extension of customer relationship management to a customer experience. It is an approach that can guide enterprises in meeting the spectrum of sales, marketing, customer support, brand and reputation management, products and service design, and quality demands.” Seth Grimes – text analysis Channel Expert

Recently organisations have woken up to the fact that every business transaction we are party to in our working lives, whether with a customer or colleague, leaves a transactional shadow. Beyond the transaction itself there lies a collection of sentiments, feelings and perceptions that govern whether the person you have just engaged with would engage with you again; whether they would recommend you to other people or perhaps actively discourage further interaction.

Once upon a time it was the case that good customer experience would be passed on verbally to an average of two people. A negative experience would be passed on to ten people. The world has changed since then with the arrival of mass communications; the internet; mobile phones; email and the many other forms of touching the world outside. The truth is that a positive or negative experience can now be brought to the attention of tens of thousands within minutes.

Fortunately the arrival of services like Rant and Rave allow you to capture the voice of the customer. Rant and Rave helps you analyse it and measure it in such a way that the data is a meaningful indicator of success stories, business risks, public perceptions and much more. This information can be used to structure and shape the direction of your business so that you increase positive customer sentiment exponentially (with communications allowing customers to spread word of a good product or service globally, from the safety and anonymity of their own homes). Where negative experiences occur, trapping the sentiment and reacting to it quickly and proactively can halt widespread negative sentiment. If used correctly and quickly you can turn it around into a positive reaction. This can only be done if this transactional shadow can be captured, measured and understood.

Rant and Rave, the new service from Rapide does exactly this. It allows you to capture customer’s insights and experiences at the very point of service delivery. Allowing your customer to provide you with these insights in a host of ways including mobile phone, SMS, Email, online etc. The data provided is analysed using our award winning proprietary text analysis and Sentiment Engine and then provided back to you instantly via a massively dynamic and user friendly online interface.

The information you get back is provided to you in both qualitative and quantitative formats but it doesn’t stop there! The majority of customer voices discussing you and your services are not provided back to you but shared between the customers themselves, away from you and your ability to monitor. Places like review sites, customer blogs, social networking websites and various other informal channels.

Rant and Rave can provide an aggregator which will scour predefined sites for any information relating to you and analyse it on your behalf. All data is put through our text analysis tools to ensure that you receive it back with ratings and metrics that allow meaningful reflection and help govern the best ways to move forward as a business based on the voice of your customer.

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