Translating VOC into CTQ’s

Voice of the Customer

Customer focus drives such questions as:

• Why are we in business?
• Where do we need to be in the future?
• What is the source of our ‘Competitive Advantage’?

Customers align cross functional organizations:

• What drives purchasing behavior?
• What is a defect, what is Value?

Who is the Customer?

All end-users or recipients of the service, product, or process. The customer can be either internal or external. Examples of customer:

• Consumers of our products and services;
• Internal Functions: Sales, Marketing, Operations;
• Equipment, Machine or Computer System;
• Process step;
• Employees;
• Management;
• Anyone whose success or satisfaction depends on the performance of our process.

Customer needs

• The “Voice of the Customer” (VOC) is the qualitative or quantitative expression of the things that drive customer satisfaction;
• In a commercial setting, VOC is all those things that drive intent to purchase or repurchase VOC is the true customer voice – in the words of the customer.

Examples of VOC

• “l will buy the lowest cost product”
• “l am not satisfied with the speed of the service”
• “l don’t want to wait for too long to see the doctor”
• “l just want good service”

Sources of collecting VOC

Reactive Sources:

• Complaints;
• Problem or service hotlines;
• Customer service/support calls;
• Decreased, increased, or repeat business
• Contract cancellations;
• A web page or social media activities;
• Internal complaints, etc.

Proactive Sources:

• Interviews;
• Focus groups;
• Surveys;
• Sales visits/calls;
• Market research/monitoring;
• Benchmarking;
• Scorecards / Dashboards.

Understanding Customer needs

• Remember it is difficult to access and understand meaningful information;
• Customers tend to be vague;
• Customers do not always know their own requirements;
• Not all customer needs are equally important and can be met economically;
• Testing, probing, and further research is often required and ongoing.
• VOC needs to be quantified, converted into metrics that can be measured;
• Critical To Quality (CTQ) Metrics are the measurable elements of a product or service the defines customer satisfaction;
• CTQ Metrics allow us to:
  • Avoid misinterpretation of the VOC;
  • Identify key metrics;
  • Understand the gap between the current and desired state;
  • Validate the impact of improvement actions.

The CTQ tree

• “Critical To Quality” Tree/Flow down:
  • A CTQ Tree is a tool that translates needs considered vital by the customer into product and service characteristics and links these characteristics to organizational processes.
• Generally, VOC is:
  • Not measurable;
  • Complex;
  • Not specific.
• CTQ’s are:
  • Measurable;
  • Simple;
  • Specific.
• Converting the VOC into measurable CTQ’s is a key step in the improvement journey.

Read more: KANO Analysis