Revenue Growth Through Voice of the Customer and Innovation

A recurring theme at the conference was how an effective Voice of the Customer (VoC) campaign, done properly with the minimum of aggravation to the customer, is vitally important to any organisation. Along with an emphasis on innovation, it can significantly effect revenue growth.

Customer satisfaction and perception of quality compared to competitors was identified as a key to success and leverage by Goran Lande of Sony Ericsson in his presentation with Peter Sandin, Tuning In To Your Customer Requirements By Understanding Quality Improvement Drivers. Within their business improvement model, Sony Ericsson measure everything to do with their customer - awareness, retention, satisfaction, loyalty, etc. They use various techniques, including interviews but also gather data indirectly from such things as warranty information.

Mr Lande and Mr Sandin emphasised the importance of taking into account regional variations when compiling VoC: the needs of customers can vary dependant on where they are in the world, and this is very important in getting accurate and relevant data. Christoph Remmert of SKF pointed out that there are cultural differences even between the north and the south of Germany which have to be taken into consideration when communicating with the various parts of an organisation, as well as the customer.

As part of a panel session on Gaining Accurate And Appropriate VoC Without Disturbing The Customer, Attila Aranyos, Director of Operational Excellence for Merial, offered many useful suggestions on the collation of relevant data, some of which are listed below:

• Get the various departments together, even if it is just to design the VoC, but also to add their voice to the VoC;
• When in direct contact with the customer, give them the personal touch. Invite them to your HQ, use personal language;
• Observe how the customer uses your product or service: this can give vital insight;
• Use the person who has the best relationship with the customer to get VoC: this might not necessarily be a salesperson;
• Train frontline people in what VoC is in Six Sigma terms and why it is important.

VoC is also intrinsically linked to innovation. Carl Dugdale of The George Group gave a presentation entitled Fast Innovation: Building a Sustainable Engine for Growth where he emphasised that “…gaining a much better understanding of your customers is critical for the innovation process.” Effective VoC provides a unique customer value proposition, which in turn leads to innovation as it gives the organisation a new model, a new way of working. On the other hand, poor customer understanding (as well as poor internal communication, amongst other factors) contributes to lack of innovation.

Senior executives know that organic innovation within an organisation is critical to revenue growth, and in his presentation Carl showed that research demonstrates that spending on R&D is not the answer. “Innovation is a process, and like any process, it can be improved.” Consequently The George Group have built a set of tools to improve the process based on Six Sigma thinking.

The benefits of innovation in terms of revenue growth are obvious, but it is not simply the act of innovation which is important. Communicating these innovations effectively to the customer and getting their opinion is just as vital.