• Communications and text analysis
• Surveys
• Postings by consumers, communities, review sites, and influencers
• Operational data, such as website interactions and production and supply chain changes that affect product and service availability and characteristics.
• Website search records( both successful and unsuccessful)
• Transaction failures
These last three categories of operational parameters are called the“ Voice of the Data” by Bill Price, CEO of Intendra and author of The Best Service Is No Service.
C. Use of multipliers
Companies use multipliers— the ratio of complaints to problems found in the marketplace, usually 1:8 to 1:15- to extrapolate complaint data to the market level.
These ratios surprisingly apply to business-to-business( B2B) environments as well; business clients behave like consumers and often don’ t complain.
This analysis allows complaint data to be combined with survey, warranty, and internal quality-inspection data.
Further, the loyalty and WOM / M damage associated with complaints and unarticulated problems can be layered onto those other sources to estimate the overall revenue and WOM / M losses of each issue or point of pain.
Nestlé Purina has introduced this analysis to quality and product managers to strengthen the impact of VOC analysis.
VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER
REVENUE ANALYSIS INCREAS- INGLY INCLUDES THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF LOST CUSTOMERS AND THE POSITIVE EFFECT OF NEW CUSTOMERS ACQUIRED...
Terri DeMent, Director of Consumer Service, Nestlé Purina, reports,“ Quality, Product Management, and Finance have all been receptive to using the complaint multiplier concept( e. g., for each complaint received, there are eight other cases in the marketplace).
“ This helps to make stronger business cases because it demonstrates that more consumers are actually encountering the issue than only those who have complained to us.”
D. AI on free text to find hidden associations
AI is being applied to free text to identify previously unknown associations and market segments. Examples include:
• Identifying which customer onboarding method is most successful at setting expectations for technology products, thereby preventing subsequent problems and churn.
• Linking higher turnover in rentals among single female apartment dwellers to a prior history of complaints about poor parking-lot lighting.
Both connections would have been difficult to identify without AI analysis across a wide range of data.
E. Inclusion of WOM / M impacts in revenue analysis
Revenue analysis increasingly includes the negative effect of lost customers and the positive effect of new customers acquired via delight stories.
In some environments, customers acquired through positive WOM / M are assigned a higher value because they tend to be less price-sensitive.
Robust positive WOM / M also drives customer acquisition at much lower cost than traditional tools such as advertising and promotions. The most successful companies acquire as many as 70 % of their new customers via WOM / M at extremely low cost. Further, as noted above, such customers are less price sensitive.
F. Translating impact into revenue
Output now includes the number of customers affected by each issue; in most cases, that number is converted into revenue implications using an extended customer value.
Many companies are moving away from traditional customer lifetime value( CLV) because Finance is often skeptical of very long-term estimates. Many now use a maximum of three years of revenue.
G. Revenue-based prioritization
In most leading companies, including Travelzoo, Michelin, and Nestlé Purina, the CX analysis group identifies priority issues based on business impacts and / or the number of customers affected.
Sometimes employee input and impacts are also included, as 30 % of customer points of pain( POP) are also employee POP.
WHAT COMES NEXT IN PART 2
Part 1 has focused on the structural choices that make VOC credible and analytically useful: executive ownership, unified data collection, and stronger analysis. Part 2 turns to execution: how leading companies report VOC insight, assign accountability, track results, and avoid the blind spots that weaken ROI.
John Goodman is Vice Chairman of Customer Care Measurement and Consulting( CCMC). He has assisted 45 of the Fortune 100 companies. Harper Collins published the second edition of his book, CX 3.0 featuring updates on AI and other technologies as well as research in April 2024.
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