Matt Wroblewski, Director of Market Research, VWR International – a global laboratory supplies and distribution company – offered some enlightening takeaways for brands considering a Voice of the Customer program during Tuesday’s Loyalty 360 webinar – “Building a Holistic Voice of the Customer Program.”
Here are some snapshots from the webinar:
VWR International didn’t have any formal customer feedback structure four years ago, but by the middle of 2010, “we wanted to hear what customers had to say,” Wroblewski said.
- VWR International started off with an annual customer survey, which led to the integration of multiple customer touch points including Customer Service, Technical Support, and web. The company learned how to manage the customer experience, measure performance and make improvements using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) culture and processes to create value.
- Implemented a Voice of the Customer platform – through the assistance of Verint’s VOC Analytics platform – that enhanced customer perception of the company.
- Biggest transformation for VWR International was shifting from a strong B2B focus to a more B2C type of focus. VWR International has 5,000 suppliers globally, 1.5 million SKUs, 60,000 customer accounts, and 8,000 associates in more than 30 countries. The company generates about $4 billion in annual revenue.
- Companies have to have champions within the organization who want to hear what customers say.
- VOC programs grow organically, Wroblewski said.
- VWR International uses three metrics components: Supplier NPS, Associate NPS, and Customer NPS.
- Using NPS helps define a company’s VOC culture, and offers a strategic direction through key terms such as measure, value, prioritize, close the loop, engage, act, frontline activation, support with robust infrastructure, and to lead and communicate effectively.
- Overall system and set of processes is the most important part of the program. Numbers are important, but it’s really the internalization of the information you’re getting back from customers that’s the most important part. Whatever you use as a measurement structure, just pick something and stick with it.
- Understanding customer interactions is a crucial piece of VWR International’s VOC program, whereby a customer provides feedback, an alert is issued to a team leader for service recovery, team leaders follow up with customer for corrective action, there is a root cause analysis on issues, and process improvements in training.
- VWR International has seen a 26% increase in NPS since the first quarter of 2012.
- Close the loop internally and externally; share broadly within the company; measure what’s relevant and meaningful to the customer experience and make it actionable for management; and leverage internal data.