Voice of the customer: Customer satisfaction ratio based analysis

Voice of the customer (VOC) is a critical analysis procedure that provides precise information regarding customer input requirements for a product/service output. The ability to conduct a voice of the customer analysis, which could be gained through direct and indirect questioning, will enable engineers and other decision makers to successfully understand customer needs, wants, perceptions, and preferences. The information obtained from the customers is then translated into critical targets that will be used to ultimately satisfy the customer requirements. During this research project, different forms of customer input, including qualitative and quantitative data, were transformed to a common data format to develop a correlation between design input requirements and product/service outputs. We have developed a new method for measuring customer satisfaction ratio (CSR) by considering the following: mining both textual and quantitative data, multiple design parameters, mapping output on a scale of 0–1, and a decision template for means of measure. Previous measures of CSR fail to incorporate the cost implication of fixing customer complaints/issues; however, we include this important and unique measure in our research. The implication of this research will reduce Things Gone Wrong (TGW’s) and engineering development time and will achieve improvements in JD Power ratings, quality perception, marketing tools, and customer satisfaction.

► Voice of the customer analysis is important for company competiveness.
► The textual comments from customers are correctly interpreted.
► These are converted to quantitative data through data mapping.
► Customer satisfaction ratio is calculated and mapped.
► The result is a decision making tool to assist in prioritizing customer issues to be addressed.