What Is Voice of Customer? And Do You Know Yours?

This episode of HubHeroes has been a long time coming, and I’m buzzing with excitement that we’re finally tackling it. George and I are pulling back the curtain on a topic that’s near and dear to both of us — the Voice of Customer (VOC). But let me tell you right off the bat, this isn’t just another chat about collecting feedback for the sake of ticking a box.

We’re diving into what it really means to listen to the people who matter most to your business — your customers. We’re talking about understanding the humans behind the data, the real-life individuals whose voices should be shaping your decisions, your strategies, and your brand’s future.

💥 Related Content:

• Customer Delight: What Is It Really + Who Is Responsible for It?
• How HubSpot + Inbound Have Changed with Kyle Jepson of HubSpot

Here’s the deal: if you’re still thinking of your customers as just data points or as names on a spreadsheet, you’re missing the mark. This episode is all about flipping that mindset. It’s about realizing that your customers aren’t just a source of feedback; they’re your partners in growth. George, Max, and I are excited to share our insights and practical tips on how to leverage VOC in a way that truly benefits your business and your customers alike.

So, if you’ve ever wondered how to make your customers feel truly heard, or if you’re looking to take your customer experience to the next level, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready to change the way you think about customer feedback, because when done right, the Voice of Customer can be the most powerful tool in your marketing and business strategy arsenal.

Keywords

voice of customer, customer feedback, customer insights, customer engagement, customer experience, VOC strategy, customer-centric approach, human-centered marketing, inbound marketing, customer journey, social listening, product development, customer advisory boards, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, survey tools, proactive customer service, customer relationships, brand loyalty, customer retention, customer trust, feedback loops, customer behavior, data-driven decisions, customer advocacy

What We Cover

• The Heart of VOC: George kicks off the conversation by passionately reminding us that the Voice of Customer isn’t just a corporate buzzword; it’s about truly listening to the humans behind the data. It’s about recognizing that when we refer to “customers,” we’re talking about real people with real needs, dreams, and frustrations.

• Capturing vs. Acting on Feedback: We break down the critical difference between simply capturing customer feedback and actually acting on it. George shares his frustration with companies that collect feedback but fail to implement changes based on that data. We discuss the importance of not only listening but also using that feedback to drive tangible improvements in products, services, and customer experiences.

• Real-World Examples & Best Practices: We delve into how brands like Apple and Starbucks use VOC to tailor their products and services to customer needs. But we also emphasize that VOC isn’t just for the big players. Small and medium-sized businesses can (and should) implement VOC strategies that fit their scale, focusing on quality insights over sheer quantity.

• Building with Customers, Not for Them: Max adds another layer to the discussion by emphasizing the importance of giving customers a “seat at the table” during the decision-making process. It’s about moving away from a top-down approach and instead building with your customers, ensuring that their voices are heard before major decisions are made.

• Practical VOC Strategies for All Businesses: Whether you’re a small business owner or part of a larger organization, we explore various methods for gathering and utilizing VOC data, from surveys and social listening to customer advisory boards and direct feedback channels. The key takeaway? You don’t need a massive budget or a dedicated team to start listening to your customers; you just need to start.

• Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them: We also address the common mistakes companies make with VOC, such as avoiding feedback due to fear of criticism or not having clear goals for their VOC efforts. We discuss how to overcome these challenges and use VOC to foster stronger, more genuine relationships with customers.

And so much more ... 

Additional Resources

• Why Go HubSpot? Your Free Ultimate Business Growth Guide
• Why Go HubSpot Service Hub?
• What Is Customer Delight + Who Is Responsible?
• How Have Inbound + HubSpot Changed?

Episode Transcript

George B. Thomas: That was another thing, by the way, before we dig, uh, knee deep into this, that, um, Chad said. Is that, how about, where's Devin been? Yeah, because we miss him too. Uh, and I agree, Chad, we miss the rants. Uh, about text messaging,

Liz Moorehead: Shower basins.

George B. Thomas: Link, LinkedIn, Shower Basin, yes,

Max Cohen: Ryan Reynolds.

George B. Thomas: Basins, I think it was, or something like that.

Tower City, I don't remember. Anyway, but yes, Devin, if you're listening to this, we love you, we miss you.

Liz Moorehead: Can't wait to have you back.

George B. Thomas: hopefully we'll see you at Inbound, but yes, can't wait to have you back for sure. Without a doubt.

Liz Moorehead: Well, George, you already kind of let the cat out of the bag for our live audience joining us here on Riverside about what we're going to be talking about today, bud,

George B. Thomas: Yeah, I mean,

Liz Moorehead: you're just excited. And

George B. Thomas: can't be perfect all the time.

Liz Moorehead: that's right. This is our once in a blue moon, lack of perfection. This right here, ladies and gentlemen, is the moment where George deviated.

No, but to be honest, my first point in this outline today is George, this is something you're super passionate about. We're talking about voice. Of customer and I'd love to give you just a little bit of runway before we get into today's conversation to just live in that joy, man, you are so excited to talk about this today.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. So, um, here's the thing, Liz, you know, for me, it's all about the humans. And the funny thing is that sometimes when organizations, uh, start to call humans. Uh, prospects, leads, customers, and evangelists. Uh, they forget that they're humans. And so when we say voice of customer, what I'm really saying is voice of meaning you're paying attention to the fact of how people are engaging with your products.

You're paying attention to how people are engaging with your brand. You're paying attention. Like you're paying. Meaning you're listening, meaning you're probably asking questions, by the way, if you're an organization that doesn't understand the power of asking questions versus just dishing out advice, like that's maybe a first place to start.

And here's the thing. If you hear the words voice of customer or like I like to say voice of human, and you immediately think, yeah, we do surveys. No, like voice of customer, a VOC system is much more than just we, we do surveys every now and then like, so here's the thing where I really got, uh, ramped up, tuned in.

To this whole conversation and started to pay attention to it because again, it, it did so much align with just the overarching, you know, George B. Thomas brand of it's all about the humans is when I did an interview with Nate Brown, which by the way, this is a, this is a, we'll put his linked in a link in the description of the show. He's a, he's a gentleman you should pay attention to, but we did an entire interview when I was doing the podcast for marketing profs, the marketing smarts podcast, a B2B, uh, business podcast. And, um, man, the episode was juicy. Like it was just so good. Like he had, uh, that's hot. Like I was waiting for Max to hit that ass hot

Max Cohen: that's

George B. Thomas: Yeah, I was waiting for that brother. Like it was just so good. And it was so connective. And so listen, if you're going to have a modern organization, if you're going to be modern leaders, if you're going to be paying attention to modern customers, their needs, their expectations, you have to be listening and you have to be asking because you need to be pivoting and, and transitioning into what it is that they want, expect and dream of from your organization.

That's why I love today's conversation.

Liz Moorehead: well, then let's dig right into it because Max, I know before getting into this, you also said, Hey, I'm hyped about this discussion, which made me happy after last week's all bound kerfuffle. Verbal kerfuffle. But let's

George B. Thomas: Which, which, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Which, by the way, Max, did you see in Slack? The little present I left for you about All Bound.

Liz Moorehead: you left him a present in

George B. Thomas: Yes, there was a comment on my YouTube channel that said, that said, I like this All Bound thing. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Not why we're here today, not what we're talking about, but I was like,

Liz Moorehead: I like how you do that, George. You just throw a little grenade out there. We're not here to talk about this today, Max, but here you go.

George B. Thomas: I feel heard. I feel seen. Anyway,

Liz Moorehead: That's the voice

Max Cohen: the, what's the point there? Just to see, Hey, max, someone else likes it, or just, I didn't understand the, the, what you were trying to get across with

George B. Thomas: was a little digital rib punch, like a little,

Max Cohen: All right. Yeah. You see other people like, I get it. I get it. Two nine,

George B. Thomas: uh,

Liz Moorehead: yeah, let's get back to the

George B. Thomas: oh, wow. Goodness.

Liz Moorehead: you've already started talking about why you like it, what got you excited about this topic, but start this journey for us today, right? When I say voice of customer, where does your brain go specifically? What is it? Why are we here having this conversation today?

What are we talking

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So again, I kind of alluded to this about how, like, immediately people might think of like, Yeah, we do surveys. Um, I want you to open up, uh, the mind, the eye, the dream, the vision, the mission of voice of customer and realize a it's a process, uh, a process is focusing on capturing. One, uh, analyzing, two, and then acting, which by the way, the part that really frustrates me is when people are like, we listen to him, we just don't do anything with it.

Like, come on. So it's capturing, analyzing, and acting. Customer feedback to better understand again, like I said, their needs, their preferences, their dreams, their desires, their experiences, their expectations. Um, and it is all about gathering these insights and it's not just feedback, like just surveys, it's literally.

Are you doing social listening? Um, do you have any type of like behavior analysis going on? Um, are, are we looking at, uh, emails over time? Like, there's a bunch of different platforms and a bunch of different ways that we can be capturing, analyzing and acting on these things that we're getting from our, uh, Um, customers are, are humans, because what we're trying to do is we're trying to, um, improve the products.

We're trying to improve the services. We're trying to improve the relationship and make it more of an align or alignment between the business and the strategies and the customer. Like when we start to have that. Uh, mindset. It's like, and again, I don't know what's up with me lately, but it's like this three angle view of action.

Now, all of a sudden we start to realize that this is actually the engine that drives the 1 percent better, 10 percent better, 50 percent better each week, quarter, year, because this is what gives us the fuel and the, the measurement. Okay. To actually take our momentum and put it in the right direction, not just any direction.

Liz Moorehead: Max, I want to turn to you now because you know, when I was originally structuring this Immediately to my mind, I'm having flashbacks already to the previous episode of All Bound, right? And you said at the start of this, no, no, no, this is not like last week, this is not like last week, where Max was unhappy and we were talking about semantics and all that stuff.

And instead you said, no! I like this conversation. I'm excited about this conversation. So what is the difference for you? Because I've actually heard people say, Oh, voice of customer, we're already doing this. It's applying a label to something that already exists. It's not really da da da da. So Max, how is this different for you?

Why to you is this something that's worthy of discussion? What excites you about

Max Cohen: so when, when, when I think of like voice of the customer stuff, and I think like there's, there's small ways to quote unquote, do voice of the customer stuff. And I think there's like bigger ways of doing voice of the customer stuff. I think the one thing fundamental thing that like ties. Any of those levels in which you would do voice of the customer's stuff.

Is that like, there's a big difference between like, Oh, we do surveys and we listen to feedback. There's a big difference between that and giving your customers a seat at the table, right? Cause when we talk about voice of the customer, it's where are you hearing that voice And when are you hearing that voice and the differences you're either hearing that voice after decisions have been made, or you're taking that voice into account before decisions are made, right?

Like, so for example, without me, even like, I don't have a role here called like voice of the customer. Right. But when it comes to any of the stuff that we do around product development, right, one thing that I unabashedly know that I am really, really, really good at is being able to think like 12 steps ahead and knowing what HubSpot customers complain about inside of HubSpot.

Right. So like, I'm really, really good at saying, Hey, if we do something this way, We are going to get people to end up eventually complaining about this thing. Right. And so even though that's like a really small example of it, right, what we're doing is we're taking what we know the customer is going to voice, right.

Or, you know, have distress about, or going to like, not going to like, or whatever, and we're applying that to a decision we haven't made already. Right. And taking that into consideration before we do make the decision versus just Let's build it the way we want it. Right. And then get feedback on it after, and then have to go back to the drawing board.

I think it's like a very micro example of it. Right. Um, you know, and then you start to see like other customers where they have whole like roles and teams and programs, like based on voice of the customer, like HubSpot does it like, there's literally people there who have roles that are all about voice of the customer.

Right. And like the whole idea behind that, you see, you know, a good example of that is like, you see the, um, Uh, like the partner advisory boards, the customer advisory boards, like very, very intentional efforts, you know, and I'm not saying every small business is going to do this, right? Like keep in mind, I'm, I'm using HubSpot as an example here, right?

But like they put together very intentional programs to say like, Hey, How do we bring in our customers and get like a really good collective understanding of their sentiment and how they're feeling and then take all that information and use that as we go and make decisions in the future and change programs and stuff like that.

Versus like, this is what we think is right. Let's go do it. And let's go get feedback. No, give me wrong. That happens a lot. Right. But like, you know, another really good example that HubSpot does when it comes to voice of the customer stuff is like the ideas for them. Like you're literally using, you're literally using, you're literally letting your customers dictate the direction of the product, which is just like, talk about giving them a voice at the table.

You're quite literally giving them a voice at the table that dictates how this product gets developed and gets built.

Liz Moorehead: it? Chad actually shouted that out in the comment here. HubSpot project management team is always willing to have Zoom meetings during beta, during feature design for something upcoming. I love that they're willing to take this time to hear me out.

Max Cohen: yes.

George B. Thomas: to dive into that right there, because here's the thing I have had, which I know Chad has, Max, uh, you probably will on the other side of this, but like, I've had the opportunity to be the guy that they reach out to, to ask to have calls with. And I'm always like, yeah, I absolutely I'll, I'll brainstorm and you can show me stuff and like, without a doubt, every single time I leave one of those calls.

I feel valued. I feel at a, a deeper level part of the community. I feel like I've made an impact. Um, what's funny is because they are, uh, using a voice of custom, but because they are, as you so, uh, uh, eloquently said, giving us a seat at the table. I feel like I'm more than just a customer. I feel like I'm a human and I'm part of the team. And now all of a sudden, like I'm more invested. In the journey and the change and the updates in the ecosystem and the methodologies, because I'm not sitting at somebody, uh, just sitting in a dining room all alone, eating their lobster and steak dinner, I've been invited to come and eat the lobster and steak dinner with them.

And that's like, where I'm going with this is voice of customer. We could talk about it. Like it's a very selfish thing internally for organizations. But I want you to realize when done right, the emotional responses that it will invoke in the people who actually are already embracing your products, services, and you as human beings in an organization.

Max Cohen: yeah. And I think the other thing too is like everyone can do it in their own way. Like I think the basic framework is, you know, voice of the customer means being proactive with feedback before decisions are made. Whereas Most folks are reactive to feedback after decisions are made, right? And I think it's like, you don't have to go put together like the, the small business listening to this guys, you don't need to go put together a customer advisory council for your bean company, right?

But,

George B. Thomas: Coffee beans?

Max Cohen: but whatever it is, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like you don't have to do that. But,

Liz Moorehead: council.

Max Cohen: what you can do is, is before you make some big decisions, you can go talk to your customers and see how they feel about them. Right? Like that, like sometimes it's just a switch like that versus like we did it.

Can we have your feedback? It's more so. We're going to do it. We'd like to hear your thoughts on this first. Right? Like there's small, very attainable, approachable, accessible ways of doing that. You don't need a customer advisory board. Right? Like again, it's sometimes it's just asking questions before decisions are made versus after.

George B. Thomas: It's so interesting where my brain goes, Max, when you say that because, and I would say right now, just like in this moment, I'm like, Oh shoot. And like, that's the culture that I would want to build is a build it with them versus a build it for them mentality. Like having them come along every step of the way, which again, I'm so glad you brought up ideas.

hubspot. com because that is such a proactive way to have voice of customer and such a good way to build with. Instead of build four, because sometimes we'll get in our ivory tower and we'll start to build four and we, we actually build a big pile of like, it's just a big turd. And then all of a sudden there's a bunch of people in your organization trying to polish a turd.

And guess what? It's still a turd, but if we would've stopped, and we would've listened, and we would've asked questions, and we would've had a built with mentality, instead of a for, we would've been in a way different place.

Max Cohen: Yeah. And this, this reminds me a lot of about the conversation that we had around like the delight stage of the inbound methodology where, you know, a lot of people might hear about it and go, Oh, that sounds very Kumbaya. And yeah, the customer is always right. And be nice to your customers. Well, but it's like, no.

There is a, uh, a very important kind of business strategy behind legitimately taking care of people versus creating a bunch of detractors. Right. You can apply that same logic to this, right? Wouldn't you rather get feedback before you do something and do it the right way versus wasting time doing it wrong.

And then getting feedback about how you have to change it. Right now, granted, can you,

Liz Moorehead: says here. Sometimes you end up building and optimizing a thing that simply shouldn't exist because you didn't ask your audience or customer if it would be helpful for That's my favorite question, right, Georgie? You hear me say this all the time. Are we solving a real problem or are we solving an imagined one?

Have you considered asking the customer to find out?

Max Cohen: Yeah. Who's asking for this? That's a, that's a big thing. Right? Yeah.

George B. Thomas: So good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: I love that. So let's, we've already started talking about some real world examples of VOC in the wild and how it works well, but what are some other examples, George or Max, that you can think of that really articulate the value of the type of work that we're talking about here?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Do you mean from like organizational standpoint, or do you mean like, like channels and usage? Like what, when you asked that question, cause I was kind of torn, like immediately I started to think of things like, Okay. Um, apples, which Max, uh, historically working in Apple, like Apple's customer experience, you know, driven by like voice of customer data or like Starbucks and how they tailor their products based on customer feedback on those products.

Like, so I went to like brands and things that I fundamentally know that they do, but then there was this other side tangent of like, Channels and usage this question. So Liz, um, which direction?

Liz Moorehead: Either. What do you think is the most valuable? What is the one you think, when you think of our audience, right? Because I think your follow up question brings up a very valid point. We love the idea of voice of customer work, but when you're a small or medium sized business who is looking at inbound methodologies, the way you grow your business through marketing and sales, what is the most valuable?

Because I think, and this is true, I think, of any principle or any strategic objective that we talk about, right? There is a very different practical application set of, of tactics that you engage in if you're a Starbucks versus a smaller, medium sized business in Ohio. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's, that's an apples and bananas type of thing.

George B. Thomas: yeah. Interesting that you brought up Ohio, but anyway, um, they, they could have been in Montana or Texas as well. I'll just throw that out there. Any state they could be in

Liz Moorehead: King Arthur's Court.

George B. Thomas: in. Yes. They could have been in King Arthur's court as well on Merlin drive. Anyway, totally. People are like, what the hell are you talking about?

So here's the thing. Um, Stay tuned. We'll tell you more at a later date. Um, but, but here's the thing. I think that it's always good to have a, um, North star or, or something that you can look at. So like, it might be the Apple, it might be the Starbucks. It might be something else that you find as far as a real world.

Um, case study or, or usage, but where I go with this conversation, because, and I think it's why I made the kind of joke about like, we do surveys sometimes, um, is that I think channels, um, is a very important piece of this when I think about real world examples, because yes, um, you should be doing surveys.

It's honestly like table stakes and yes. You can use HubSpot Service Hub to do said surveys. Um, but I would say surveys and polls. Like, so are you, uh, do you have a community that you can poll them? Are you doing LinkedIn polls? Are you doing like, like wherever you can kind of get the, that type of data.

Are you doing that? Um, I also go to social listening as part of this. And by the way, have you checked out HubSpot social listening tools lately? Because while it used to just be Twitter, it's no longer just Twitter. Like you can literally do Instagram listening and LinkedIn. And, uh, if I remember correctly, maybe Facebook is even Anyway, there's more channels that you can do social listening with HubSpot.

Um, and you can get very targeted to the things that you want to listen to. And what I love is you can base it off of a list, which could be your customer or your human list. Right? So like

Max Cohen: That one was a

George B. Thomas: I got a little

Max Cohen: than they usually are.

George B. Thomas: I, I,

Liz Moorehead: That was

George B. Thomas: as I was saying it, I was like, that's a little aggressive. I might've scared

Liz Moorehead: be O. C. angry, kids.

George B. Thomas: yeah, but

Max Cohen: just typed? Chat

George B. Thomas: thing.

Like,

Liz Moorehead: Rob Zombie, voice of customer advocate.

George B. Thomas: right. Uh,

Max Cohen: that wasn't the voice of the customer. Wooooah!

George B. Thomas: that was like Friday at almost end of day voice.

Max Cohen: That was the Mucinex guy

Liz Moorehead: thriving, guys.

Max Cohen: That was the Mucinex guy doing mongolian throat singing, Is what that was.

George B. Thomas: Oh, that's funny. So, so social listening, but I also think about like. Um, support interactions like you have, hopefully in your organization, somebody that is on the other end of the sales process, supporting your products, your services, uh, your teams. And so, like, are you capturing that information? So my brain immediately goes to like.

Are you looking at historical tickets and like information that's being dumped into them when it's closed? Are you looking at notes that might be in tickets? Heck, are you using HubSpot's calling feature and being able to go back and listen or watch, depending on how you're supporting humans, that information and be able to like, or gong, I don't, I'm not like, Heck, we're a HubSpot kind of focused show, but like, my point is, are you paying attention to historical tickets, historical calls, um, where the voice of customers are already happening?

Um, and then, like, you gotta get to the sweet stuff, most of the time, like, are you taking into account. Online reviews and like testimonials because now, uh, you have a place and especially if we add in like an ideas. hubspot or ideasyourbusiness. com. Now you've got a proactive way that you're getting things from people who are using your stuff.

You're doing surveys and polls along the way. You're listening to what your customers are saying on social. Uh, you're looking at historical data in tickets and calls. Uh, and now you're also getting the flood of hopefully reviews, good, bad, ugly, maybe. By the way, address the ugly reviews too, because at least then you're like seeing them and being human while it's happening in front of the entire world that happens to see those, but then leverage the positive ones for your website and different places like that.

But so that's where I think of like real world examples is like all the places that you could be playing. But here's the thing. How do you take that and zone it into one area that you can pay attention to? That then becomes the main bank of voice of customer information and data that can be analyzed because this part I'm talking about capture.

Here's all the capture places. How can it be analyzed? And then the most important piece of, and how do you build. And here's the actions we're going to take based on what we've now heard.

Max Cohen: do something with it is the whole point Like it's not voice of the customer if the voice isn't actually being acted upon right

George B. Thomas: like when you clean your room, but all your ish is in your closet. And then your mom opens your closet door and all the stuff falls out.

Liz Moorehead: That's hurtful. What an attack. We don't need to say that to Liz out loud right now.

George B. Thomas: I mean, if it's, if it's, if it's that's your life. I mean,

Liz Moorehead: Hey.

George B. Thomas: yeah. Anyway, I'm not trying to get in a fight on this episode. I've done that in past episodes. It never works out. Well,

Max Cohen: get into a

Liz Moorehead: Says the guy who said, hey Max, did you see that thing in Slack where I intentionally tried to poke the

George B. Thomas: oh, was that this episode? Did I do that this episode?

Liz Moorehead: you know, it's fine. It's fine.

George B. Thomas: I should chill out a little. Yeah. Mmm.

Max Cohen: ways that you can collect it, but the question is, is like, are you actually doing anything with it? And are you using it to influence decisions that you're making? Right? Because a lot of the time people aren't doing that, right? Um, the other thing too, like, You know, I think we have this, uh, HubSpot blog posts that we're linking people to.

And, you know, one of the examples that they give is a way to collect feedback is obviously net promoter score. Right. And I think like, you know, it's, it's one thing, uh, like people oftentimes You know, when people see like, Oh, they gave us a, you know, a, a 10 or a nine or whatever, they were like a promoter.

Right. What's the first thing we do with that? We go, Oh, let's, let's see if they'll actually refer us to somebody. And like, that's what they use that data for. Right. We'll go, Oh, great. This person said they're highly like likely to recommend us to somebody. Let's go send them a refer a friend email or something, or tell them to go leave a review or something like that, right.

We're just kind of like redirecting this potential juicy, good feedback that they can give us into like, Hey, can you help help us sell to somebody else or can you go like tell the world that message instead of just leaving it in our net promoter score inbox. Right. The thing that I think we're missing there.

Right. Is that if you just said, Hey, saw, you gave a great review. I'd actually love to understand that even more. Would you like to just have a 30 minute chat with me? Right. Because here's the thing. If, if someone was to get themselves into a mindset of like, Oh yeah, I'd stake my reputation on.

Recommending this product, service, business, whatever to other people, right? Chances are they have some really good reasons why they feel that way, which would be good for you to know one, right? And two, even though they really, really like you, they probably have some good ideas on what would make it even better.

What would continue or what would, what would make me continue being a promoter? And what would take me from a promoter to a detractor, right? It probably has some pretty strong opinions on that stuff, right? So like one thing I would recommend is like an easy low hanging fruit example of something you can do.

If you're a company that's collecting net promoter score information on your customers, maybe do a little bit more than just saying, Hey, can you introduce me to a friend? Right? How about you introduce me to some ideas that you have in your head, right? So we can figure out what could we do to be even better?

What can we do to keep you a promoter? And what should we not do to one day turn you into a detractor? Right. So you can use all that information to guide the decisions that for, you know, no uncertain terms makes your customers, promoters or detractors are passive, right? So I think it's just like another way of just kind of looking at this feedback you're already getting.

And it all comes down to just how you're using it a little bit differently. Right. Or how you can use it a little bit differently to like really make it true. Voice of the customer instead of, Oh, this is some feedback we got. Yep. We're doing a good job. Right. But it's, there's so much more past. Yeah, we're doing a good job.

It's like, yo, why are we doing a good job? How can we do even better? What's going to keep us doing a good job? Right. That kind of stuff. And I think there's probably deeper conversations sitting behind those nine and 10 net promoter scores, other than this is my friend, Jeff, and he might also like to buy what you have.

Right?

Liz Moorehead: Or can we get a testimonial?

Max Cohen: Yeah, can we get a testimonial? Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: I

Max Cohen: Craziness.

Liz Moorehead: So let's flip the script here a little bit. I want to talk a

George B. Thomas: flip the script.

Liz Moorehead: That's right. There you got your wrapping and you did

George B. Thomas: No, no, no, no.

Liz Moorehead: You did it.

George B. Thomas: There'll be more.

Liz Moorehead: Oh, God. Oh, no. Okay. Fantastic. That's not at all terrifying

George B. Thomas: it may or may not be in the voice and tone of Eminem.

Liz Moorehead: I'm fine and not dry heaving. I'm fine and not dry heaving. Okay, so I want to flip, flip, flip the script here a little bit and talk about where voice of customer work goes wrong. And, and I want to start this part by saying where my immediate, my, where my brain immediately goes based on what I'm hearing is, first of all, where does the voice of customer work go wrong?

By avoiding it. By not doing it. That sounds like a big way that this kind of goes wrong right off the bat. What do you think, George?

George B. Thomas: obviously, I mean, what you said, like, the thing. Um, it's almost like I want to lean into how earlier we said, um, building a product that shouldn't exist, uh, based on not like paying attention. Don't just gather feedback. Don't just take polls. Don't just do social listening. To do it, like have clear goals, like what, what are the goals of your voice of customer program?

Right? Um, the other thing is, I think people will say, Um, well, we've only got a hundred customers or we've only like for us, I could say we only have 15 customers per se. Like let's just throw that out there as a number. What is, why should I do VOC? Like it makes sense for a big SAS company that has like 600, 000 customers.

No, no, no, no, no. Because here's the thing, what they're trying to do, or what their brain might be going after is like voice of customer equals quantity. That's a fity voice of customer equals quality. If I get 15 quality insights from 15 conversations, I don't need to have 500 more. Now, would I have 500 more?

Sure If it was formulated in a way that. The outcome was quality insights versus a bunch of quantity junk. So, right. It's clear goals. And then it's this idea of quality versus quantity of what you're trying to get. And then we already, we already alluded to this one, but like act on the. I don't want to swear on this podcast.

It's not, it's, I don't want to get us canceled. Uh, I don't want to be that guy. That's yeah. I have other people on this podcast for that, but like

Liz Moorehead: You are welcome.

George B. Thomas: Yes. Uh, Noah, thanks you for job security. Um, it, it's like, it's like on the data, it's on the conversations. Like make the pivots and transitions on the insights that your brain now has that you.

Didn't previously have so I those are three. I don't know you guys might have more but that those are three that immediately come to my mind

Max Cohen: Yeah, uh, so we were saying like what goes wrong? Well, I mean, yeah, like one thinking that oh, I have to be a certain type of business or I have to be a Certain size business to do any sort of voice of the customer work is insane, um Like if you have customers, guess what? You can do voice of the customer stuff.

Like it's all you need is

Liz Moorehead: you have customers? They have voices.

Max Cohen: they have voices, like they talk, right. And they say words and you can hear them and make decisions based on those words. Right. Um, so like, and we don't even have to, I think like when we start calling it voice to the customer program, I think that scares a lot of people away because there might be some folks are saying like, Hey, I can barely pay my salespeople, I don't have room for another program.

And to think of it as like voice to the customer efforts. Right. There are things you can do that make the voice of the customer heard and get woven into your decision making process. Right. Um, but I think in terms of like, what can go wrong, right. Um, you know, if we do, if you are developing any kind of product and when I say develop, I'm not meaning like typing coding, like I'm just saying, building any sort of product, thinking of the next iteration or how you can make a product better.

Um, you know, scope creep or whatever the, uh, you know, whatever the, um, uh, the, the same term would be for anything that's not like, you know, building software, trying to do everything for everyone, right. Can be really tough because if you try to make. A product that does everything for everybody. Then all of a sudden it does nothing for nobody.

Right. Um, so being able to like, not only make sure you're hearing those voices, but being able to weigh those voices and being able to be comfortable. Choosing what you are and are not going to do based on those voices, right? Uh, cause you might have a really, really loud customer that really, really wants something, but like, if that's not something, the majority of the customer voices you're hearing, it might be something you need to omit.

Right. And you have to make tough decisions around that. Right. So, uh, yeah. Rip timer, man. Um, so rip to the goat. Um, so I think, yeah, like it is one of those things, like, you know, whenever we're building something and we're talking about like a new feature or something else, the products can do, um, the best sort of like voice of the customer gut check that I get is like, when I hear from Connor or Ryan say, um, he'll say, has anybody actually asked for this?

And sometimes it'll be like, yeah, people ask for it all the time. Right. Or it'll be like, I know people are going to ask for this because I know what causes people to get really annoyed and HubSpot. And then sometimes it's no, nobody's asking for this, but I know it would be really cool. And it's just something that I don't think they know to ask for yet.

Right. And you know, you start to get into these like weird places where it's, you know, You know, you got to make a lot of decisions around a lot of the data and you got to gut check your own sort of, uh, beliefs on what you think your product needs. You think your service needs this, that, and the other thing.

And it's always really important to kind of like center yourself back down to like, has anybody actually asked for this? Right. Um, and, and using that in the decision

Liz Moorehead: see that a lot on the sales enablement content side where like when I'm, whenever I'm doing like a, uh, brainstorm with them, it'll be like, are they actually asking this question or is this what you want them to be asking? But George, what were you going to say?

George B. Thomas: so it's it's interesting because Yes, to everything that we're talking about, but, but what hit my brain like a two by four on a like cold winter's day was the amount of humans who are almost not willing to follow their gut and have the Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. Moments, because there is the importance of voice of customer and listening to the customer, but sometimes they wanted a faster horse.

Sometimes they wanted a, another MP3 player or cassette player, like, and so sometimes when, and I'm talking specific to, you know, products here, maybe even services, but sometimes you have to step out and take a chance. To transition to something that might be what they're looking for before they're looking for it.

Now, here's what I think the problem is that many people think, well, we can't do that because we might fail. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, here's the thing. It's not about failing. It's about learning the lesson. And by the way, the reason I'm bringing that up is because that's one way you can learn lessons.

But voice of customer. It's lessons. It is literally free. Well, depending on if you pay a team and all that, because I don't want to get hate mail, but it is, it is lessons delivered to you from the humans. But also if you lean into what I am talking about here with the Henry Ford, the Steve jobs, it's just lessons of life of doing business.

And we, we can't be afraid of that. We have to embrace both lines of learning. Anyway, I'll,

Liz Moorehead: I said in the chat, RIP Microsoft Zoom, because we needed another mp3 player

George B. Thomas: Mmm.

Liz Moorehead: for my

George B. Thomas: mini disc player. Anybody remember the mini disc player? I bought one of those. Good lord, why did I do that?

Liz Moorehead: We did a lot of things back then. We did a

George B. Thomas: Phew, I sure did. Oof. Mmm.

Liz Moorehead: Moment of silence, except not really.

George B. Thomas: Yeah, no.

Liz Moorehead: No, I love what you brought up there, George, because I think it's really important how, to understand how we limit ourselves. Because the other way in which I could see this going wrong is Is the reasons why we don't engage this kind of work right like on the top level in the superficial way.

We might say things like, oh, we don't have time for another program. We don't have time for this. We don't have time for that. Are those excuses because you're not ready to hear from the voice of the customer. You're not ready to hear what they have to say. I think it requires

George B. Thomas: Thick

Liz Moorehead: posture. It was.

Max Cohen: sounds scarier when we call it a program. When it should just be you can do these tiny little efforts. It's just a change in the way you use feedback.

Liz Moorehead: well, that's less of what I mean, Max. What I mean more is like we will hide behind excuses like, Oh, it's too difficult. It's too challenging. When the real spooky scary reason is, well, I don't want to open the door to feedback from customers because what if they hate us? like, there are some organizational leaders who are just straight up resistant to change.

Like, it's the negative extreme of the Henry Ford and Steve Jobs effect. Our customers just do not know what's best for them at all.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: And so, there's an openness to feedback you have to have.

Max Cohen: Yeah. True.

George B. Thomas: and I don't know why my brain works this way. I really don't, but it's almost like, There's two things that are popping my brain. One, you have to have alligator skin because you just have to realize like it's, you're going to hear things you don't want to hear, but it's out of that pain that you're going to be able to create something that is absolutely amazing.

And you know, not that alligators are the most flexible things on the planet, but that's the other thing that came to my brain was the flexibility And the actual like digital transformation business gymnastics that this voice of customer will enable you if you have the thick alligator skin to push through the fear of what we're talking about and put together the many processes that feed you.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Not 

Max Cohen: And I think also too when it comes down to business. Right? Uh, I think survival of the fittest. And natural selection. Kind of comes into play. I think the companies that have evolved the ability to listen, listen, listen to your customers, right? Are the ones that are going to have a higher chance of survival than the ones that don't.

Because the ones that don't keep going towards the cliff. The ones that do turn away from the cliff because they heard that little voice of the customer saying Hey, turn left, turn left away from the cliff, right? And they chose to listen to that voice versus the ones that were just like, we're just going to do things the way that we want.

We're not going to listen to our customer. Oh, we fell off the cliff and we're dead and we're gone. Right. You know, I mean, sure. It's scary. Sure. It's scary to listen to your customers sometimes because you might get your feelings hurt. Well, hey, feelings are going to be much more hurt when no one's buying anything from you and you're laying everybody off.

Right. So it's like, what's worse?

George B. Thomas: bro, unemployment or being out of business is much more painful than listening to your customers.

Max Cohen: I'd much rather read an NPS survey that's about a company and not me, myself, a human being, right? Than, you know, lose my job or like fail at hitting our metrics or like whatever, right? Like, yeah.

Liz Moorehead: So, George, I know this is a conversation that we could literally run another couple hours on, and there's an ex Numerous resources that I know you definitely want to share with our audience if they want to start digging deeper into this idea of voice of customer. Can you share those with us?

George B. Thomas: Yeah. So, um, first of all, there is, um, Nate Brown. I mentioned his name earlier. You can search it. Uh, you can literally look for the podcast, uh, episode we did. I also did like, I think a Facebook live, uh, going over that podcast if you want the short version. Um, yeah. Um, there's also, um, and dang it, if I don't have my show notes up, uh, but there's CX, um, Community, which

Liz Moorehead: The CX

George B. Thomas: yep, CX Accelerator, uh, which will put in the show notes because that's a place that you can, uh, tune into and kind of get more information.

And then, um, there's a quite large, um, I I'll call it a pillar page. Uh, it's a blog, but dang gone. Like I was there for a hot minute. Um, HubSpot put it on and, or created it and it has a bunch of tools that you can dive into. It has a bunch of questions that you could be asking. Um, they're really smart because they have a CTA where you can download 61 templates to do some of the things that you're trying to do when it comes down to this voice of customer.

So like. Um, HubSpot's, uh, 12, which by the way, it sounds like it's not a big number, but it's a big number and the article is big, but it's 12 voice of customer methodologies to generate a goldmine of customer feedback. And so it goes deep into the channels, goes deep into the templates, goes deep into the like different softwares or stuff that you could use.

So that's a good resource. And, and I think those three places, uh, other than just Googling. Voice of customer and doing your own little journey on what that means to you and your organization, um, are some of the places I would send you first again, Nate Brown, like the dude is, by the way, he's the inspiration for this episode and for a future episode, because I can't wait, Liz, till we get to the, uh, conversation that we're going to have in the future of voice of employee

Liz Moorehead: I'm very

George B. Thomas: that will pair with this voice of customer conversation we're having today.

Liz Moorehead: Outstanding. Well, George, land the plane, take us home. What do you want our people to take away from this conversation today? Because we covered a lot of ground.

George B. Thomas: Yeah, start listening, start asking questions, and start taking action. Like, if, if I were to wrap up this thing, like, so many times we get stuck in the weeds of the day in, day out doing, I clock in, I get my coffee, I check my email, I design this thing, I build this thing, I watch this YouTube video while I'm eating lunch, then I check my email and we just. easily forget that there are hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions of wanting to feel like they belong, wanting to feel like they're being heard, wanting to feel like they're being seen. And we're just letting it all slip through the cracks and literally you are one voice of customer piece of information to the next great idea that may explode your brand or business to a place that you never thought it could achieve. Max, it looks like you have something to say.

Max Cohen: I didn't know if you I was waiting because I didn't know if you were gonna like end it on that.

George B. Thomas: No, no,

Max Cohen: Yeah, I mean

Liz Moorehead: something special.

George B. Thomas: have something special, which by the way, you didn't like Eminem when I said that. So I, I. I have, I might have a different special thing for you, but Max, what are your, what are your thoughts? What are you

Max Cohen: uh, yeah, I mean I think the thing Much like many of the topics that are more esoteric that we talk about on this show I think the big thing would be is like don't overthink it, right? Everyone can do this. All you have to do is Think a little bit differently about where you're applying the feet wet.

Sorry when You're applying the feedback that you're getting, right? Are you being proactive with it? And just start to ask yourself, there could be millions of ways to do it, but just start asking, ask yourself, what's the simplest way that we could give our customers a voice at the table when we're making big decisions that impact them and how we can, we take that into account before we make the decision.

Every business can do that in some way, shape or form, right? It doesn't have to be a. Again, it doesn't have to be a program. It doesn't have to be a advisory board. It doesn't have to be something that is completely unique to specific industries. Everybody has people that give them money for something. So you have customers, those customers, for the most part, can communicate with you somehow.

How do you take that voice and apply it to decisions you're making that have an impact on them before the decision is made? Okay. You go go figure it out. All right, it's not rocket science. That's what i'm gonna say

George B. Thomas: Love it. So now let's play a game. Max, get your hand close to the buzzer. Liz, get your hand close to the buzzer. Um, because I regenerated

Max Cohen: That's my

George B. Thomas: another voice and I'm going to read the first line and if. The person that tells me what voice I regenerated this in before I do the rest of the rap song on Voice of Customer, I'm, I will buy them a, uh, breakfast burrito at Dunkin Donuts at inbound.

No, I'll,

Max Cohen: Yes, I fucking love breakfast burritos

George B. Thomas: Breakfast burrito at Dunkin Donuts at inbound, okay? So,

Max Cohen: this is a rapper's voice that you'd meet an am rap thing

George B. Thomas: is a rap song, um, that I'm going to rap slash read through. But I'm gonna give you the first line, you're gonna hit the buzzer, and you're gonna tell me who the rapper is. Cause it's not Eminem, cause Liz had a visceral response to like,

Liz Moorehead: I actually really like Eminem, I was just more like, oh god, is he gonna pretend to be Eminem? It was more of a,

George B. Thomas: I can't, yo, I'm not the goat, I can't rap like him, so, no way.

So, ready? Here it goes. Um. Now, this is a story all about how. I mean, Max, how did you get, like, you, you got torched, bro. Alright, so

Max Cohen: I thought you were gonna play audio

Liz Moorehead: No!

Max Cohen: Oh

George B. Thomas: it's not that

Liz Moorehead: Suck it, I get the breakfast burrito of destiny, you are a loser.

Max Cohen: Oh my god, I f ing suck.

George B. Thomas: um, so here we go. Now, this is a story all about how your feedbacks the crown that we rock right now from five star reviews to what's on your mind.

We ain't just chilling. We're pressing rewind. We flip the script. When things go wrong, customer service, smooth, like a 90 song. No assumptions here. Now we dig and explore peep in every detail. Then you give you, and then we give you more now. That's the first verse. But I gotta, I gotta do the chorus and I gotta share the bridge because they're hilarious.

By the way, there's other verses. I'm not going to do them all. But the chorus goes, so tell me how you feel. Don't hold it in. We're here to vibe with you. Let the convo begin. We ask the right questions. No guessing the deal. Then take action, take action, keeping it real. All right. So I had to get the take action piece in.

Now the bridge is. It's a back and forth. It's, it's a back and forth like a ping pong game. You speak, we groove, keep shaking the frame. No canned response. Mmm. We straight up flow innovation together. Let the energy grow.