Delvinia’s Customer-Centric Approach to VoC Programs

Voice of the Customer is a term that’s commonly being used to describe the process of using digital technologies across various customer touchpoints to collect, analyze and interpret customer feedback and data.

Sounds straightforward. But in today’s digital world, keeping pace with the changing habits and behaviours of customers has never been so challenging.

Digital and social technologies create new and exciting opportunities to collect market research and connect with digital savvy consumers. But, moving from a method-driven approach to a consumer-centric approach poses challenges when it comes to deriving insights in a timely manner.

Many companies are collecting a lot of data about their customers but they lack the ability to quickly turn that data into insights and action. Furthermore, the number of customer touchpoints are increasing across every organization.

Sales, marketing, customer support, and even market research departments all have direct access to customer touchpoints. But when an organization is looking at finding ways to collect feedback to derive actionable insights, many organizations struggle with the question:  Who owns the voice of the customer?

We believe that effectively capturing the voice of the customer lies at the intersection of marketing, CRM and research. And, adopting a consumer-centric approach (rather than a technology-driven solution) will result in a more effective way to collect data that can be turned into actionable insights.

A Customer-Centric Approach

The essence of a customer-centric voice of the customer program is about the intersection of:

• Asking consumers to provide feedback and have a dialogue with your organization by creating relevant digital experiences that will motivate consumers to share their opinions and participate in market research
• Being able to link an individual’s responses to a profile of their habits and behaviours, in a manner that ensures that their privacy and personal information are protected
• Listening to the dialogue about your brand or organization through the use of social monitoring technologies
• Observing how customers are interacting and transacting with your organization through methods such as web analytics or transactional data
• Utilizing both internal and external data sources that your organization collects from its customers
• Finally, being able to integrate all of this data into a near-real time snapshot that will help your organization quickly derive data-driven insights that result in action.

Delvinia, in partnership with AskingCanadians™, is launching a new service line that builds on the consumer-centric understanding of digital technologies and our ability to leverage digital tools to capture the voice of the customer and provide relevant solutions to derive insight from customer data.

Our Voice of the Customer service line includes programs, platforms and products designed to help companies efficiently and cost-effectively integrate the voice of the customer into any marketing or customer experience program.  It will enable market researchers to derive insights in ways that will help them motivate consumers to want to share their feedback.

Keep watching this space for future posts about our approach to VoC.

New Media Use Changes During the Customer Life Cycle

Delvinia CEO Adam Froman and Rupen Seoni, a vice president of Environics Analytics, were among the speakers at the Canadian Marketing Association‘s CMA Analytics Conference yesterday.

In their joint presentation, New Media Use Changes During the Customer Life Cycle, Adam and Rupen outlined the AskingCanadians™ Social Media PRIZM_C2Link, a database that enables marketers to target their products, messages and channels based on their customers’ social media habits and lifestyles.

Using this tool, marketers can analyze how specific segments of Canadian consumers use social media differently as they become more engaged with a brand. To illustrate this point, Adam and Rupen presented a case study examining how Canadian Blood Services can turn consumers into brand advocates based on their social media use.

They also shared findings from AskingCanadians™ 2012 profiling data, including the fact that:

• Over 50 per cent of Canadians are comfortable meeting and communicating with people through social media
• 1 in 3 Canadians have social networks with 150 or more connections
• 1 in 4 share links with friends and colleagues via email and sharing tools
• 40 per cent more Canadians are open to receiving relevant marketing messages through social channels than in 2010.

To view the presentation in its entirety, please see the following video.

In the News: Vue Magazine Profiles Delvinia’s Work with the Town of Markham

In the December issue of Vue Magazine, published by the Market Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA), our CEO Adam Froman shares the story of our work with the Town of Markham.

Adam’s feature article, “How Marketing Research is Helping Canada Gain Recognition as a Global Leader in eDemocracy,” illustrates how the municipality has successfully used digital technologies, including Internet voting, as a means to engage the public with local government. The article also speaks to the role of our research initiatives in helping the Town gain an understanding of its citizens.

Delvinia has worked with the Town of Markham since 2003, when the municipality chose to introduce Internet voting. Markham engaged our firm to help the Town communicate this new and innovative voting option to its residents.

In developing and implementing the voter outreach campaigns for the 2003, 2006 and 2010 municipal elections, our role has been that of a participant in the process as well as an observer. In 2003, we began collecting surveys and publishing reports about the attitudes and behaviours of Markham residents as they experienced Internet voting.

“The research has been fundamental in helping Markham understand the habits and behaviours of residents – in the ways they use technology in their lives and in the ways they interact with government. It has also been instrumental in validating Markham’s decision to continue to offer Internet voting in future elections,” Adam writes.

To read Adam’s full article, please see the December issue of Vue magazine.

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