Voice of the Buyer
The Voice of the Customer concept is becoming a popular approach for marketing functions to develop a better understanding of customer interests, and, therefore, behavior. Back in March, CRM Magazine ran a short piece on this method for getting into the customer’s proverbial head. The article provides some insight for infusing this customer-orientation mind set into the organization at a number of levels. Good stuff. Here is an idea for how you might be able to leverage this approach for very effective outcomes.
You may have read a posting on this blog site, Balancing Act, which looks at the need for striking a balance along a number of different dimensions to run an effective CRM program. I think the concept of the Voice of the Customer is a beautiful way to accomplish a balancing act of one type, and enable the Marketing function to provide some critical value to the sales function.
In this case the balance dimension is a selling versus buying orientation. When we focus on sales effectiveness we tend to focus on what things to do to sell more things. In this case the perspective is from that of the seller. But there can be some value in understanding the sales process from the perspective of the buyer. Could we do better if we were more understanding of the buying cycle, buying criteria, the needs of the buyer? There is no question.
The voice of the customer can serve as a mechanism to help better understand the needs and requirements of the buying process. Should the marketing function become effective at gathering this kind of valuable insight, it could then share this knowledge with the sales force to better tailor their process to be best aligned with their customers and prospects.
And what good would this do? Well, there was that research study reported last summer in the Harvard Business Review, which indicated that customers prefer to work with sales professionals who understand, are sensitive to, and follow the customer buying process, not just push the deal through their own selling processes.
Listening to your customer is not good enough. How you act on the information you hear is the real opportunity for success. Gathering buying information is a great value from the Voice of the Customer tool. Helping sales utilize this data to sell more effectively is priceless.