Voice of the Customer (VOC)

How often have you encountered products, services, or processes that weren't useful or practical for you as a customer?

Or, even worse, have you noticed that some websites or apps became more complicated to use after updates, requiring more steps or clicks to complete your task?

It's essential to remember that quality essentially means whether something fits the needs and expectations of users – in short, whether it's "fit for use." Therefore, it's crucial during quality planning to carefully identify customers and their needs to ensure that the right features and capabilities are designed and developed appropriately. This is where the voice of the customer, or VOC, comes into play.

But what exactly is VOC?

It encompasses all the needs and expectations customers express in their own language. These needs and expectations are then translated into CTQ (critical to quality) requirements.

How do we gather VOC?

Firstly, we need to identify and list all our customers, which includes anyone who uses our product, service, or process output. Customers can be internal or external, with external ones being outside our organization or company. Segmenting customers based on their different needs is crucial, which can be done based on sales, industry, location, demographics, or usage.

There are two types of VOC: First, there are expressed customer needs, and second, there is feedback after using the product or experiencing the service. Expressed needs are particularly important as they help us determine which features and capabilities customers truly want and expect. And of course, this information is critical for quality planning, which is the first step in the "quality trilogy."

On the other hand, feedback after use helps us assess product or service performance in the real world, which can be invaluable for identifying areas for improvement or addressing issues that arise.

There are several methods for collecting VOC, including surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observations.

So, how does VOC drive quality planning?

VOC encompasses customers' needs expressed from their perspective, in their language. During quality planning, VOC must be translated into language that your designers can understand. In other words, VOC must be translated into critical to quality requirements or CTQs. CTQs represent the performance of a product, service, or process that is crucial to customers. They enable the quality planning or design team to identify features and capabilities that are essential to users. And since CTQs are measurable, the design team can set specifications and goals that will meet or even exceed customer expectations.

Having the right features, without defects, is crucial for quality, as you already know.

Document title: QF-04_Voice of the Customer (VOC)_V1.0

Category: QMS Foundations, Customer focus

Document type: Blog article

Level: Beginner