Voice of the Customer (VOC) is one of the central tenets of Lean Six Sigma. The entire methodology focuses on determining customer needs, then creating operations that cut out everything that doesn’t serve those needs and produce better products for consumers.
Finding VOC and determining the needs of customers is also a key component in creating a Critical to Quality Tree in Six Sigma.
Technology has made VOC easier to determine. About 95% of all customer interactions will happen via channels controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) by 2025, according to research cited by Microsoft. The tech giant wrote that this shift is needed to give customers a “tailored shopping experience.”
“To offer a VIP treatment at every touch point, many companies are turning to technology to help deliver personalized experiences and free up sales associates from monotonous tasks, allowing them to focus more time on delighting customers,” Microsoft reported.
Ways To Put AI To Use For VOC
Both Microsoft and Forbes have looked at ways that AI can improve VOC. Some of the ways include the following.
Chatbots
Everyone who has interacted with a chatbot knows the main problem: they aren’t ready to handle every question you ask. Advanced AI is beginning to resolve that problem as machine learning systems develop a better understanding of questions. Also, cloud-based speech analytics programs are making it possible to establish VOC speech recognition programs across multiple countries and regions.
Using As Part of Six Sigma
Forbes reports that some companies have smoothed out the customer onboarding process, as well as the initial customer experience, by using AI to ground DMAIC projects in customer expectations. This ensures that process improvements meet customer requirements and that onboarding processes get improved based on interpreting “textual, unstructured content” the process creates.
Reducing Customer Churn
Churn is the turnover of current customers deciding not to continue buying a product. When used in terms of web-based businesses, it may also refer to people who visit a site, initiate the buying process but then abandon the process. AI can analyze customer data to determine when people decided to bail out of the buying process, helping companies find spots in the customer journey that need improvement.
Improving Call Centers
With the insights gained through AI analysis of customer data, call centers are changing how they handle calls. Forbes reports that by putting into place features customers want, companies have already reduced handle time by 40%, cut employee costs by $5 million and boosted conversion rates on service-to-sales calls by almost 50%. Both customer satisfaction and employee engagement have also improved.
Why This Is Important
The need to focus on understanding VOC and serving customer needs has not changed. Will Thiel, co-founder of Pointillist, wrote that customers live in “an omnichannel world” while many companies still struggle to manage customer journeys across multiple channels.
He writes that AI can “provide an intelligent, convenient and informed customer experience at any point along the customer journey.” It can lead to more integrated customer journeys that “feel more natural to customers.”
However, there are hurdles to clear. To prove effective, AI-driven VOC systems will need data unification, real-time delivery of insights and data presented in context of a specific business. Any one of these is challenging. Mastering all three will take time.
However, marrying AI to a Lean and Six Sigma “customer first” approach can help make a company’s efforts to satisfy customers more focused and precise.
