Understanding and meeting customer needs is essential for any business aiming to improve customer experience and build customer loyalty. This is what having a voice of customer (VoC) strategy enables you to do by allowing you to capture customer expectations and feedback.
But how do you go about it? How do you collect this data? Are there any voice of customer software that can collect these kinds of data?
In this article, we’re going to answer these questions for you. You’ll learn what we mean by a voice of customer software, its key benefits and essential features to look for.
What is a voice of customer software?
Voice of Customer (VoC) software can be referred to any tool that enables you to capture customer feedback across multiple channels, analyze the collected data, do sentiment analysis and provide actionable insights to enhance customer satisfaction.
It empowers companies to identify trends, prioritize areas for improvement, and take a proactive approach to improve customer engagement and customer experience by integrating feedback and customer expectations into the decision-making process.
Benefits of a voice of customer software
Voice of Customer software empowers businesses to truly listen to their customers and respond effectively. Here are some key benefits:
1. Improved customer understanding
VoC software consolidate and collect customer feedback from various sources like emails, social media, surveys, and customer support interactions. This centralized approach not only makes data access easier and improves management but also helps better understand the customers, their expectations, preferences and thoughts.
2. Real-time customer insights
VoC software provide real-time feedback collection and analysis, allowing businesses to respond quickly to emerging trends and issues. This agility enables companies to adjust strategies and make timely improvements that meet evolving customer needs.
3. Enhanced customer engagement
Active feedback collection and responsive action foster stronger customer relationships and create a customer-centric culture. Additionally, when companies take active steps based on customer feedback, it shows customers that their feedback is valued and acted upon, which encourages continuous engagement. This in turn increases customer retention and revenue.
4. Data-driven decision-making
VoC software supports data-driven decision-making by delivering actionable insights based on feedback patterns. Analyzing these trends enables companies to make informed decisions on product development, marketing strategies, and customer service improvements, so they’re not just making improvements without any direction.
Key features to look for in voice of customer software
To get the most from voice of customer software, it's essential to choose a tool with the right capabilities. Here are the key features to look for:
1. Comprehensive analytics and reporting
VoC software should offer analytics functionality that can track trends and patterns, visualize data, and measure customer feedback over time. Also look for customizable dashboards and reports that allow teams to quickly interpret data and identify actionable insights.
2. Integration capabilities with existing marketing tools
Look for a VoC software that can integrate with the existing tools that you’re using such as CRM systems, and other marketing software. This integration ensures seamless data flow between the software and allows for comprehensive customer insights.
3. Data security and compliance
Given the sensitive nature of customer data, VoC software must include strong data security features and comply with privacy regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA, to protect customer information and build trust.
4. Sentiment analysis
Look for software with natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis capabilities. These features help interpret the tone and intent behind customer comments, highlighting whether feedback is positive, negative, or neutral.
5. Multi-channel feedback collection
The software should gather customer feedback from multiple sources (e.g., surveys, social media, emails, live chat, website, and call centers) to provide a comprehensive view of customer sentiment.
Which VoC software should you choose?
There is no one-size-fits-all VoC tool; instead, businesses combine and use multiple tools and methods to capture a complete view of the customer experience. A well-rounded VoC software stack might include survey tools, social media monitoring tools, CRM systems, and analytics platforms, each addressing different aspects of customer feedback collection and analysis. There are also tools that offer you multiple features from the list that we’ve shared earlier in this article.
8 popular voice of customer software
Here are eight VoC software options that you can consider having in your VoC software stack. Each tool offers unique features to help capture, analyze, and act on customer feedback effectively.
1. Medallia
Medallia is renowned for its comprehensive customer experience management capabilities. It offers businesses real-time feedback collection and AI-powered analytics. It allows businesses to capture customer insights across various channels, including surveys, social media monitoring, live chat, and in-app feedback. Medallia provides customizable dashboards and advanced reporting tools for deeper insights, with pricing available on a custom basis.
2. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is a powerful tool for enterprises looking to manage customer experience through robust survey and feedback mechanisms. It offers advanced survey design, predictive analytics, and real-time reporting, with integrations to CRM systems. Qualtrics provides a holistic view of the customer journey, combining VoC with employee feedback. Pricing is also custom-based on business needs, and it supports surveys and online questionnaires as its primary VoC methods.
3. Mailmodo
Mailmodo specializes in interactive email-based VoC, providing businesses with a unique platform to collect feedback directly through email. It offers customizable and interactive email forms, email campaign analytics, and easy-to-embed feedback surveys that drive high engagement. Mailmodo's pricing starts at $99 per month. It primarily uses email surveys and interactive email forms for feedback collection. Check out how they use interactive forms to collect customer feedback.
4. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is widely known for its ease of use in designing and distributing surveys, making it an excellent choice for small to medium-sized businesses. It offers customizable survey templates, a vast question bank, data analysis tools, and reporting features. SurveyMonkey is available with a free basic version and paid plans starting at $25 per month. Its primary VoC method is through online surveys and questionnaires.
5. InMoment
InMoment focuses on gathering customer feedback across key touchpoints and utilizes advanced analytics and AI to enhance the customer experience. It features text analytics, emotion detection, and sentiment analysis, along with voice and social media listening capabilities. InMoment integrates feedback into customer journey points and provides customizable dashboards. Pricing is available on a custom basis, and the software collects feedback through surveys, social media monitoring, live chat, and voice feedback.
6. Sprinklr
Sprinklr is ideal for brands seeking to capture insights from social channels, excelling in social media monitoring and customer engagement. It provides sentiment analysis, social listening, customizable dashboards, and customer engagement tracking. Sprinklr is priced on a custom basis and primarily uses social media, live chat, and customer service interactions to gather VoC insights.
7. Clarabridge
Clarabridge is known for its advanced text and sentiment analysis, making it a strong choice for companies dealing with large amounts of unstructured feedback. It offers powerful AI-driven tools for analyzing text-heavy channels, such as customer reviews and support transcripts, alongside speech and sentiment analytics. Clarabridge integrates feedback from various sources, including social media, email, live chat, and customer service transcripts, with custom pricing depending on features and volume.
8. HubSpot
HubSpot integrates VoC capabilities within its all-in-one CRM suite, allowing businesses to collect and analyze customer feedback directly through NPS surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, and customer support tickets. HubSpot’s tools seamlessly integrate with its broader CRM, providing a unified customer view. It offers a free plan in addition to paid plans starting at $50 per month, and uses surveys, email, live chat, and customer support feedback as its primary VoC methods.
How to implement voice of customer tools into your marketing strategy
Once you’ve chosen the VoC software of your choice, it’s time to integrate it into your VoC strategy. Here’s how to do it effectively.
Step 1: Set clear objectives: Define clear VoC goals, such as improving customer satisfaction or reducing churn. This will help you in choosing your VoC software, guide your strategy and help you measure the impact of VoC initiatives.
Step 2: Map to the customer journey: Identify customer touchpoints across the journey to gather feedback where it is most relevant, ensuring a closer alignment with real-time customer experiences. This is also where you’ll pick the method of data collection.
Step 3: Integrate with CRM and analytics tools: Consolidate VoC data with CRM and analytics systems for a comprehensive view of customer interactions, enhancing data accuracy and insight integration.
Step 4: Use insights for personalization: Use the insights to personalize customer interactions and create a tailored experience to strengthen customer engagement and satisfaction.
Conclusion
Voice of Customer software is essential in today’s customer-driven marketplace. By centralizing feedback, providing real-time insights, and supporting data-driven decision-making, VoC tools allow you to create a customer-centric culture that fosters loyalty. An effective VoC strategy, integrated into the marketing approach, can be a powerful lever for achieving customer satisfaction and long-term success. You can follow the steps defined in this article to create your own VoC software stack and integrate them into your VoC strategy to start capturing valuable customer insights that drive meaningful change. Don’t forget to keep in mind all the key features that we’ve outlined when choosing the VoC tools for your VoC software stack.
