Hearing the Voice of the Customer

It’s important for companies to say that the voice of their customers shapes everything from vision to specific product/service features, but what makes a company confident that it’s actually heard the customer? What makes a customer feel that his or her voice has been heard?

Everyone who’s worked in retail or food service probably knows the cautionary tale of the unhappy customer who didn’t speak up but never came back. You don’t want to ever assume that things are just fine with a customer who doesn’t say anything, goes the tale, since they might not feel comfortable speaking up. With large-scale software and services, it’s unlikely that the client won’t speak up, especially about critical, deal-breaker concerns, but what about the less-critical things that could add up to “death by a thousand cuts” when a contract is up for renewal? Or what about the many positive aspects of the service/product that could easily go unmentioned?

Even with the best of intentions, providers can face challenges getting feedback from their customers. For those of you who have a service or technology provider, do you provide feedback when given the opportunity? Why or why not?

For those of you who work in services procurement, how do your providers make sure you’re heard? What has worked well for you? Do you ever feel like you have opinions to share, feedback to provide, that’s not getting through?