Voice of Customer | Avriel OConnor

RESEARCH / COMPANY CULTURE

Voice of Customer:
Centralizing Research to Drive User-Centric Design

My Role

Director

Timeline

2023-2024

Voice of Customer :
Centralizing Research to Drive User-Centric Design

Understanding our customers is critical to the success of any organization. At Swing Education, the Voice of Customer (VoC) program was designed to address challenges related to disorganized and siloed research processes. By implementing this program, the Product Design team aimed to centralize research efforts, promote cross-departmental collaboration, and create a culture of shared insights to ensure products aligned with user needs.

The VoC initiative is a significant step toward fostering a customer-centric culture by providing employees with standardized tools, resources, and methodologies to collect, synthesize, and apply customer feedback effectively.

Why We Created the Voice of Customer Program

The impetus for the VoC program arose from key challenges identified at Swing Education:

Disorganized Research Efforts: Departments conducted research independently, leading to duplication of efforts and missed opportunities for shared learning.

Lack of Accessibility: Research findings were often inaccessible to employees outside the originating department.

Limited Collaboration: Cross-departmental insights were rare, and valuable customer feedback was underutilized.

The goal was to create a structured and sustainable system that would empower teams across the organization to better understand and serve users.

Key Objectives:

Centralizing research to create a single source of truth.

Standardizing data collection methods and tools.

Encouraging a culture of user-focused decision-making.

How the Program Worked

The Charter

The Voice of Customer Charter served as the backbone of the program. It outlined the vision, scope, and organizational roles essential for its success.

The charter highlighted:

Vision: To foster a customer-centric culture where every customer feels valued and their feedback drives product and service improvements.

Components: The program emphasized standardized data collection, actionable recommendations, and continuous improvement.

Roles and Responsibilities: Defined leadership and ambassador roles to maintain, organize, and evangelize the program.

Centralized Research Hub

The VoC program introduced a Notion-based Research Wiki, which included:

A central repository for research findings, organized by user type, state, and project.

Templates and guides for conducting user research, synthesis, and reporting.

Quick links to key resources like compensation forms and segmentation guidelines

Ambassador Program

A cross-functional team of VoC Ambassadors was established to:

Promote the VoC initiative within their departments.

Ensure consistent updates and maintenance of the research hub.

Collaborate on the synthesis and sharing of insights

Process Standardization

To enable broader participation in research activities, the VoC provided:

Standardized templates for interview scripts, surveys, and synthesis.

Clear guidelines for legal and compliance considerations in user research.

A dedicated Slack channel for communication and updates

Incentives and Outreach

Though traditional incentives like discounts weren’t feasible at Swing Education, the program focused on:

Building trust and collaboration by valuing user contributions.

Creating opportunities for users to influence product direction through workshops and beta testing

Outcomes & Reflection

Outcomes

Increased Accessibility: Research findings were centralized, making them easily accessible to all employees.

Enhanced Collaboration: Regular ambassador meetings and a shared Slack channel fostered a culture of collaboration.

Actionable Insights: The standardized approach led to more consistent and actionable recommendations for product and service improvements.

Organizational Alignment: Teams across Swing Education began prioritizing user needs in their planning and development processes.

Reflection

The Voice of Customer program at Swing Education showcased the importance of aligning research efforts across departments to drive meaningful improvements in user experience. While limited by constraints such as the inability to offer traditional incentives, the program’s emphasis on centralization and collaboration laid a strong foundation for user-centric design.

By integrating customer feedback into decision-making processes, Swing Education took significant strides in creating products that better meet the needs of its users, ultimately driving engagement and loyalty.