Voice of the Customer (VoC)


Voice of the Customer (VoC) captures what customers need, value and expect, then translates this into design and operations. Done well, it prioritises requirements, guides trade-offs and improves quality and experience. Lean practice embeds VoC into daily improvement and strategy deployment (Griffin & Hauser, 1993; Found & Harrison, 2012).

Technique Overview

Voice of the Customer (VoC)

Voice of the Customer (VoC) Definition

VoC is a structured approach to eliciting, organising and prioritising customer needs, often within Quality Function Deployment (QFD), to connect “the voice” to design targets and process controls. Techniques range from interviews and observation to analysis of reviews and digital signals; results are grouped and prioritised to inform decisions (Griffin & Hauser, 1993; Found & Harrison, 2012; Shen et al., 2022).

Voice of the Customer (VoC) Description *

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Business Evidence

Strengths, weaknesses and examples of Voice of the Customer (VoC) *

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Business Application

Implementation, success factors and measures of Voice of the Customer (VoC) *

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Professional Tools

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Further Reading

Voice of the Customer (VoC) web and print resources *

Voice of the Customer (VoC) references (4 of up to 20) *

  • Aguwa, C.C., Monplaisir, L. and Turgut, O. (2012) ‘Voice of the customer: Customer satisfaction ratio based analysis’, Expert Systems with Applications, 39(11), pp. 10112–10119. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2012.02.071
  • Ananthakrishnan, U., Proserpio, D. and Sharma, S. (2023) ‘I Hear You: Does Quality Improve with Customer Voice?’, Marketing Science, 42(6), pp. 1143–1161. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2023.1437
  • Caplena (n.d.) Customer Story: IKEA – How IKEA Uses Over 3 Million Feedback Comments. Available at: https://caplena.com/en/customer-stories/ikea
  • Denove, C. and Power, J., 2007. Satisfaction: How every great company listens to the voice of the customer. Penguin.

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