The enormous amount of customer feedback data generated by Net Promoter ¹ (Closed-Loop Feedback, Customer Insight & Action, Voice of the Customer etc) programs generates a very interesting challenge: "how do you separate out the signal from the noise?"

Take this little quiz to see if your organisation is ready for a customer community or conversational marketing;
 

1. There is a process in place to constantly measure customer satisfaction&sentiment. Not just on-line and not the annual customer satisfaction survey. Regular sampling. Y/N
2. Management calls a number of customers, happy and unhappy each day or week as part of their regular duties. Y/N
3. You have a social media policy for staff that as a starting point assumes they are already participating. Y/N

The term "Voice of the Customer" (VoC) is a very useful term for initiatives designed to improve customer experience but it is also a term that has been bandied about in a very loose manner. So it is good to see from Bruce Temkin (Forrester) some definition of terms and analysis of how the concept can be translated into practical action!

Conversational Marketing as CRM Navigation  CRM - It was such a sensible idea at the time! The one customer view, a corporate memory for the customer, the left hand knowing what the right is doing, treating different customers differently, measuring the return on marketing investment... The results have frankly, been well......    underwhelming. The irony is, of course, that the "C" part of "CRM" has too often just gone missing in action...