Outsell Case Study — Voice of Customer
We’re not huge fans of net promoter scores here at Outsell because they provide a number and not much else. We believe the best form of loyalty comes from asking customers two questions:
· Would they recommend you?
· Would they renew or reuse your service if asked to do so today?
If clients answer “yes” to both questions, they’re loyal. Loyalty matters more than customer satisfaction because a client can be dissatisfied with something but that could have little to no bearing on whether they’re loyal. A “yes” or “no” to these two questions also gives you way more insight than a score. If the answer is “no,” then you can immediately delve. If the answer is “yes,” you can be at ease, but never let up.
Lately, we’ve been asked to go further than this and have done several studies focused on the voice of the customer. One client asked us to speak to customers that had issued RFPs for services they provide and then decided to switch or stay. They wanted to know what drove these decisions and what was important to customers overall, with many facets pertaining to their offering and that of competitors. They then wanted us to compare their messaging alongside that of their competitors and have us make recommendations on where their targeting was off or on and how best to optimize it.
Another client has a new offering they’re launching for a different user type than their core. They wanted us to interview prospects — individuals that fit the target customer profile — and obtain input. We named the company at the tail end of the interview to garner more insight about their views based on the brand, their perceptions and experiences with that company, and what they thought about the new offering in that context. After we spoke with prospects to find out more about what mattered to them, unmet needs, how the offering fit or didn’t, and their views about competitors, we reviewed competitor positioning to derive how best for this company to enter the market. We learned that customers have a love/hate relationship with the dominant player, where the competitor products had gotten long in the tooth and discovered how best to speak into what matters for these prospective users.
When we do a competitive review, it is always on the record, and we never seek confidential information. No one needs to stealth through garbage bins outside offices to garner competitive secrets in this day and age. It’s all out there because otherwise, companies can’t compete in our web-driven world. A company says a lot about what they do via their sales force and how they respond to and address questions as well as their websites and public marketing.
Recently, a young company on a fast growth curve realized they were making product roadmap decisions without input from analytics or customer feedback. Here too we’ll be surveying their audience and providing input about how they’re positioned, unmet needs, and what audiences would like to see by key roles and primary market. We’ll help inform their product roadmap with facts and not just opinions.
Voice of the customer combined with a competitive review is a powerful combination. We recommend that every client do this, and we’re happy to do it for you.
You can learn a lot in 15 interviews or by running a quant survey of your customers. It’s amazing to hear what customers love and loathe, what their unmet needs are, what ideas they have for your offering, and what rises to the top. It’s also fascinating to hear how they view the competition alongside your offering and then review the competition against all this. The smart companies are doing this and finding out how they can position, what will resonate, and ultimately what will help them gain market share.
In information services these days, most growth comes from market share. Budgets are flat and customer budgets are strained. To win a new logo means you’re most likely displacing someone else, and upselling means you most likely are too.
Ask the customer. The alchemy is in the answers, and we’ll help you find gold.