So-called Voice of the Customer programs have become a hot topic. According to our friends at Communispace, search results from Amazon.com reveal more than ten times the amount of material about voice of the customer than was available fifteen years ago. In 1993, there were thirty three books published on the voice of the customer; since the new millennium there have been on average thirty-three books a month published on the same topic. Something is going on and it is clearly not "your fathers relationship marketing..."
 

However, I am not going to rattle on as to what is driving this - the social media component of this trend has been covered exhaustively - but rather the ability of organisations to leverage the explosion in customer feedback...

Way back in 1990, Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline) was arguing that the only sustainable competency for organisations is their ability to learn faster than their competitors and that organisations with rigid hierarchies and an industrial-age mindset that restrict information flows are not well-positioned to become learning organisations. In this day and age they are certainly not well-positioned to hear or act on voice of the customer.

Manila Austin talks of three components of organisational learning that depend on companies listening to and leveraging the voice of the customer:

• Firstly, organisational learning requires shared exploration among organisational divisions, being connected to other marketplace innovators across the globe, interdisciplinary  conversations between industry verticals and academic disciplines, and an ongoing exchange with customers and consumers. Put simply - companies need to "expand their firewalls" (Charlene Li) - the distinction between what knowledge belongs outside or inside an organisation is no longer meaningful in our information age
• Second, with a free and frequent flow of information across boundaries comes the potential to challenge existing mental models. And such insights represent  significant potential that can only be realised if the organisational culture supports experimentation - the ability to challenge basic assumptions about what we know to be "true"
• The third component involves developing interaction between companies and customers so that customers are motivated to share their experiences and be candid with their feedback and opinion

The current demand for Voice of the Customer programs "requires extending learning practices beyond corporate borders to include customers - not just as data points, but as active and willing participants in knowledge co-creation. This shift requires companies to develop conversation skills as the foundation for listening."

I find this last point particularly insightful. We can all relate to a listening capability at an individual level (our colleagues/friends/partners are only too ready to remind us of this!) but a listening capability at an organisational level is something different quantitatively and qualitatively. It is not just a bunch of individuals each developing their own listening skills...

Austin again puts this very well:  "Listening sits at the intersection of emergent organisational models and technological advances in social media; leveraging these tools requires us to listen in new ways. Hearing and acting on the voice of the customer requires openness, transparency and curiosity internally and externally to build relationships with customers that will generate actionable insights."

For those organisations approaching VOC programs as passive data collection exercises - perhaps a time to pause and gather some courage!