VoC: 4 Key Challenges and How to Overcome Them for Better CX

by | Mar 15, 2018 | Market Research

In today’s customer-centric market, understanding and responding to your customers’ needs and desires is a critical factor in business success. Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a strategic process that allows brands to actively capture customer feedback, opinions, and preferences, and use them to enhance products, services, and overall customer experience. By systematically listening to the VoC, businesses can take customer expectations and transform them into actionable insights that align with their marketing strategy and drive customer satisfaction.

However, as with any technology or strategy, implementing an effective VoC program presents certain challenges. These challenges range from gathering authentic customer insights to engaging the right internal teams and using the correct technologies to facilitate customer communication. Identifying these roadblocks and understanding how to overcome them is key to making the most of your VoC program.

Here are four common VoC challenges that your business might encounter and some practical solutions to ensure you can leverage the full benefits of this powerful strategy.


1. Employee Feedback: Tapping into Frontline Insights

The Challenge: Unrecognized Insights from Employees

Often, valuable customer insights are already circulating within your business but are not being recognized or acted upon. Many of these nuggets of feedback are gathered informally by frontline employees who interact directly with customers—such as call center agents, sales representatives, and customer service teams. However, when these employees don’t have a platform to share their experiences and insights, these potential opportunities for improvement go untapped.

Consider a situation where a support team frequently encounters the same customer complaint about a confusing user interface in a product. Without an internal structure to relay these observations to decision-makers, the feedback is left unaddressed, and the brand misses the chance to make meaningful improvements to the user experience.

The Solution: Regular Internal Feedback Sessions

One of the most effective ways to harness this feedback is to establish regular, interactive sessions where employees are encouraged to share their experiences, insights, and ideas about the customer journey. These sessions should be held monthly or quarterly, and all employees should be invited to discuss their observations and learnings from direct customer interactions.

For example, in these sessions, a customer support agent could share common complaints about product features, a salesperson could talk about why a deal was lost or won, and a marketing professional could provide insights on customer engagement with a campaign. These cross-functional conversations will not only generate valuable insights but also break down silos within the company.

Additionally, ensure that feedback from these sessions is documented and prioritized. Assign a point person or team to collect and categorize employee insights, align them with customer pain points, and integrate them into the VoC strategy.

Key Takeaway: Your frontline employees are a goldmine of customer insights. Regular internal feedback sessions ensure that these insights are captured, analyzed, and acted upon, helping to shape better customer experiences and identify pain points before they escalate.


2. Senior Input and Mentorship: Driving Top-Down Support for VoC

The Challenge: Lack of Executive Guidance and Support

A VoC program is only as effective as the level of commitment it receives across all levels of the business. While it’s common for senior leadership to give the green light for implementing VoC technology, their engagement often stops there. This lack of continuous executive involvement can hinder the success of the program, as the employees implementing VoC may feel unsupported or lack clarity on the program’s direction and importance.

This disconnect creates a significant problem: employees may hesitate to make decisions, resolve customer issues, or take action without explicit approval from senior leaders. As a result, the VoC program struggles to gain traction, and customer feedback that requires prompt action may fall through the cracks.

The Solution: Active Involvement and Clear Chains of Command

To overcome this challenge, it is crucial to ensure top-down support and mentorship throughout the VoC program. Senior leaders must remain actively involved in the VoC strategy—not only in its approval but also in its day-to-day implementation. This includes offering guidance, making strategic decisions, and being accessible to employees who need support or clarity on customer insights.

An effective way to structure support is to create a chain of command for dealing with queries, issues, and decisions related to the VoC program. Assign senior leaders or managers to specific teams as mentors or champions of the VoC process. Their role is to guide the teams implementing VoC, remove roadblocks, and empower employees to make decisions that will enhance customer experience.

Additionally, demonstrate the value of VoC to senior leadership by sharing key metrics, customer testimonials, and success stories. When senior leaders see the tangible impact that VoC insights have on business outcomes, they are more likely to be engaged and actively contribute to the program’s success.

Key Takeaway: Continuous senior leadership involvement and mentorship are essential for a successful VoC program. Establish a clear structure for support, decision-making, and mentorship to empower employees to take action and drive customer-centric improvements.


3. Customer and Brand Communication: Creating Open Channels

The Challenge: One-Way Communication Between Brand and Customer

While VoC aims to gather constructive feedback from customers, there’s often a missing piece—brands fail to open meaningful two-way communication channels with their customers. Customers may offer valuable feedback about products, services, and their overall experience, but if they receive no response or acknowledgment from the brand, they may feel unheard or undervalued. This lack of engagement could lead to missed opportunities for deeper insights, more loyal relationships, and ongoing advocacy.

For example, consider a scenario where customers provide feedback about long wait times for support. If the brand never follows up or takes action based on this feedback, customers might not only lose trust in the brand but also disengage altogether, seeking competitors who value their voice.

The Solution: Building Engaging and Open Feedback Loops

To ensure that customers feel heard and valued, brands should actively create open channels for communication and develop feedback loops that encourage customers to share their thoughts and experiences. Start by engaging customers on platforms where they already interact, such as social media, email, chat, or review sites. Acknowledge their feedback with prompt and thoughtful responses, whether positive or negative.

For instance, if a customer shares a glowing review of your product, thank them for their support and ask if they’d like to be featured in a customer success story. If a customer expresses dissatisfaction, respond empathetically, apologize for the inconvenience, and let them know how their feedback will be used to improve the service.

To make the most of open communication channels, consider creating a customer advisory board—an exclusive group of customers who regularly provide input on your product or service. This group can offer in-depth insights that lead to product enhancements and foster stronger customer loyalty.

Additionally, follow up with customers after their feedback has been implemented to let them know the impact they’ve had. Closing the loop with customers reinforces that their voice matters and keeps them engaged in your brand’s growth.

Key Takeaway: Customer and brand communication should be two-way. Create open and transparent feedback loops where customers feel valued and heard, and respond meaningfully to both praise and criticism to foster trust and gather deeper insights.


4. Failure to Involve Virtual Customer Assistants (VCAs)

The Challenge: Ignoring the Value of Digital Interaction and 24/7 Support

In a world where digital presence is critical, customer interactions are no longer limited to standard business hours. Brands operate in a 24/7 environment where customers expect immediate assistance, answers, and support, regardless of the time or day. However, many businesses still rely on traditional, in-person methods of support, leaving gaps in customer interactions during off-hours.

Neglecting to incorporate Virtual Customer Assistants (VCAs)—such as chatbots, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools, and automated support—can result in missed opportunities to gather VoC data. When customers engage digitally, they provide insights into their behaviors, preferences, and pain points, which can be lost if there is no mechanism in place to capture these interactions.

The Solution: Embracing VCAs and Digital Support Tools

Investing in VCA solutions, AI tools, and chatbot technologies is essential to meet the demands of modern customers. By implementing VCAs on your website, social media platforms, and messaging channels, you can create an interactive space where customers can share their questions, concerns, and preferences any time of the day or night.

VCAs not only provide real-time assistance to customers, guiding them to the right solutions, but also capture data that can be analyzed to improve the customer journey. For example, if a chatbot frequently receives inquiries about how to use a specific feature, this insight can be used to enhance product tutorials or create an FAQ section.

To choose the right VCA solution for your brand, explore different providers, request demos, and evaluate how each option aligns with your business needs and customer journey. It’s important to strike a balance between automation and personalization—ensuring that while the VCA offers instant assistance, customers can seamlessly connect with human agents for more complex issues.

Key Takeaway: Embrace VCAs and AI tools to provide around-the-clock customer support and capture valuable insights from digital interactions. VCAs are a powerful way to engage customers, enhance their experience, and gather meaningful VoC data for continuous improvement.


Conclusion: Overcoming VoC Challenges for a Better Customer Experience

Implementing a Voice of the Customer program comes with its own set of challenges, but when these hurdles are proactively addressed, the rewards are well worth the effort. By engaging employees, ensuring senior mentorship, fostering open customer communication, and embracing VCAs, your brand can capture actionable insights that drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.

A well-executed VoC program not only helps you deliver a product or service that aligns with customer needs but also strengthens the overall customer journey. If you’re ready to develop a custom VoC strategy that will transform your customer experience, contact Interact RDT today and take the first step toward building meaningful, customer-driven growth.

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