We have talked about a lot of the things one must do to have a good VoC session, but it is equally important to highlight some of the key don'ts when conducting a customer VoC:
- Talking more than the customer: We have been blessed with two ears, but only one mouth. Keep this ratio in mind when performing a customer VoC. You are there to ask the customer's perspective and learn, but you are not there to teach. A good rule of thumb is to try and get the customer to talk at least twice as much as you do, and getting the customer to talk 90% of the time is even better.
- Forgetting basic meeting manners: Be on time, courteous, attentive when the customer speaks, send thank you notes, and so on.
- Treating the VoC guide as a rigid agenda: The VoC guide is just that, a guide. Feel free to let the discussion take its natural course based on the customer's lead. As long as you get the information you came for, it is not typically important in which order you receive it.
- Having more than one person asking questions: This could create confusion about the various roles and the customer might feel like they are being ganged up on.
- Interrupting the customer: This really should be obvious, but always, always, let the customer finish their train of thought and fully express their answer. Do not feel the need to fill a perceived vacuum by saying something when it is not necessary.
- Asking useless questions: Years of experience has shown that questions such as, "How much would you pay for this product feature?" or "What features do you wish to see in this product?" are generally throwaway questions and customers rarely answer them in a way that is actionable by the interviewer.
- Asking leading questions: These types of questions are often biased to satisfy your own assumptions or beliefs and offer little vale to the engagement. Questions such as "Don't you agree that this product is better than any competitive product at the same price point?" don't really help to uncover customer needs and lead to assumptions that you are manipulating the discussion to validate the answer you already have in your head.
- Asking loaded questions: Loaded questions tend to introduce a subtle influence that could result in a biased response. Don't ask, "Do you favor stiffer industry regulations to reduce CO2 emissions that will save lives?" Instead ask, "Should industries be more regulated when it comes to CO2 emissions?"
- Using ambiguous words: Words can have different meanings for different people. Don't ask, "What time do you usually eat dinner?" Instead ask, "What time do you normally dine in the evening?"
- Using acronyms or industry jargon that the customer is not intimately familiar with: Nothing helps to derail a question or line of thinking more than when the customer does not understand the question. In the best case, it forces the customer to ask, "What did you mean by that?" In the worst case, the customer won't ask what you meant for fear of appearing uninformed and will answer what it is they "thought" you meant by your buzzword or industry jargon, and it will not be what they were actually thinking.
- Use examples that consist of response alternatives: Don't ask, "What data acquisition systems, such as portable hand held barcode readers, did you purchase last month?" Instead, ask, "What data acquisition systems did you purchase last month?" or if needing more specificity, you could ask, "What portable data acquisition systems did you purchase last month?"
- Expect the customer to remember specific numbers or times: Sometimes we like to know exact numbers to aid in our after-interview analysis, but it is often difficult to recall, or we expect an answer that is more specific than can be expressed.
- Use outsiders to do VoC: Although some would differ here, specifically professional service firms who include VoC as an offering, the information you can gain from a customer is much too valuable to be done by a third party.
- Fall victim to the Satchmo principle: Musician Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong was once asked how he was able to play the trumpet so masterfully. He responded, "I don't know, I just do it." This is the basis of the principle. Once you learn something, it is very difficult to remember what it was really like not knowing it. The same is true for your products and technology. You spend all your day thinking about your product and you are very familiar with it, and to you it seems easy to use and understand. Your customers, on the other hand, may find it overwhelming because they only use it occasionally or rarely. Be careful you do not assume your customer is stupid or not as skilled as you for not knowing as much about your product or market as you do. You must eliminate all preconceived notions driven by your experience and the experience of those that you work with, and learn to look at the customer's input through their eyes. If the customer tells you that something is difficult to use or confusing, it is!
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