Voice of Customer in Business Markets
OVERVIEW
What Is This Thing Called VOC, and Why Is It Different From What You Think?
The concept of listening to the Voice of the Customer has been around for more than 20 years now, and has been empirically shown to be a clear “best practice” in new product development. Yet VOC is still too often misunderstood, misused, and poorly executed. True VOC is not just any kind of market research, and it is definitely not just asking the customer what they want! This highly regarded course, taught by one of the most experienced experts in the field today, will set things straight and teach you how to gather, analyze, and effectively use VOC in your own new product and service development initiatives.
Recommended for:
People involved in new product development, including team members from marketing, market research, engineering, R&D, sales, and product management— virtually anyone charged with the development of new products and/or services in a business-to-business setting, and who are in need of a better understanding of their customers’ wants and needs.
OBJECTIVES
“I don’t think I have come across anybody that has a better Voice of the Customer approach yet … Many millions of dollars were generated through the application of VOC principles.” – IDEX Corporation
After completing this seminar, you will:
- Clearly understand the true definition of Voice of the Customer
- Have a well thought out plan for your own VOC project(s)
- Understand both the qualitative and quantitative parts of VOC
- Know how to design a sample and write an interview guide
- Be ready to interview customers yourself
- Be able to analyze the mountain of data that results from a good VOC study
- Know how to use that information to set priorities and make better new product development decisions
How You Can Apply the Learning:
Click here to access real-world examples of how past participants in this course have applied what they learned.
CONTENT
Course Overview
- Why You Should Listen to Customers
- Correctly Defining the Voice of the Customer
- How Voice of the Customer Fits Into the Product / Service Development Process
Designing the Interview Process
- Who to Interview – Designing a Sample
- Where and How to Interview Them – Focus Groups vs. One-on-Ones and Ethnography
Observation
- Logistics of Interviewing – Recruitment, Facilities, Technology
- Writing the Interview Guide
How to Interview Customers
- Introducing the Interview
- Active Listening
- Probing – Getting Past Generalities Like “Durable”, “Good Quality” , and “Easy to Use”
- Role-playing and Practice Interviewing
Analyzing the Interviews
- Transcribing, Highlighting, and Winnowing
- Needs vs. Solutions, Engineering Characteristics, Target Values, and Opinions
Organizing and Prioritizing What Customers Say
- Affinitizing Customer Needs
- Importance vs. Performance
What You Can Do With Voice of the Customer Information
- Avoiding the Pitfalls
Translating The Voice of the Customer into Product and Service Design Specifications using QFD
Translating the Voice of the Customer into New Features and Solutions
- Traditional vs. Web-based Brainstorming and Ideation
- Concept and Prototype Evaluation
INSTRUCTOR
Gerry Katz
Vice Chairman, Applied Marketing Science
Gerry Katz is a recognized authority in the areas of new product development, design of new services, process innovation, and market research, with more than 40 years of consulting experience. At Applied Marketing Science, he has led more than 300 major client engagements employing the Voice of the Customer (VOC), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and a large number of other strategic marketing science applications. His client engagements have covered a wide variety of industries, with particular emphasis on healthcare, medical technology, and commercial / industrial products. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA), the world’s leading professional society devoted to the study and practice of developing and commercializing new products and services. He is also certified as a New Product Development Professional (NPDP) and is a senior contributing editor to Visions Magazine.
He is the author of several award-winning papers, and received the William O’Dell Prize from the American Marketing Association in 1988. His articles have appeared in The Journal of Product Innovation Management, The European Management Journal, The Journal of Marketing Research, Interfaces, PDMA Visions, and Quirk’s Marketing Research Review. Gerry is a highly sought-after speaker at both public and private conferences on Voice of the Customer, innovation, new product development, and the design of new services. He is a highly regarded teacher, trainer and coach, and has lectured frequently at the business schools of MIT (Sloan), the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Dartmouth (Tuck), Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, Northeastern, and Harvard University. Gerry has appeared twice on the NBC Today Show and in The Wall Street Journal. His outside interests are in music and education, and he has served on a number of Committees and Boards of Directors at a range of institutions, including the University of Rochester, the Eastman School of Music, the Longy School of Music, and the Boston Higashi School.
Gerry received his B.S. in management science from the University of Rochester in 1970 and his S.M. in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1972.
CANCELLATION
For open enrollment seminars:
Up to 30 days prior: No fee
Between 15 – 30 days: $100 fee
14 days or less: Full seminar fee
All substitutions within 14 days prior to the seminar will be subject to a $50 administrative fee.