You too… Do you think that the VOC (Voice of the Customer) doesn’t Work? I don’t!

I have already analyzed; the fundamentals of the Voice of the Customer (VOC) in my previous post, and today I will go through some ideas against the VOC.

Introduction

Speculations have already been raised, as to the effectiveness of VOC, and to some, they feel that it’s actually not needed in the process of developing medical devices.

In case you’re wondering if there’s really a need to clarify this, the instances below should clear your doubts.

A couple of friends; experienced medical device marketers once said to me that VOC is not working. And they explained further, saying that real innovations are generated by visionaries.

Likewise, two sentences supporting this thesis, that I’ve heard more than once are:

“If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse!”

Henry Ford

“It’s hard for “customers” to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.”

Steve Jobs

The First Misunderstanding

Let’s clear the air:

The truth remains that these ideas have in common a misunderstanding of the role of VOC in medical device development and how proper VOC research should be conducted.

Ideally, the question supposedly asked by Ford and Jobs, ”What do you want?” is not the correct question to ask a customer. Reason being that this approach forces the customer to describe the solution and not the need or the problems they are facing.

As I explained here, customers aren’t very good at coming up with innovative solutions. And I firmly believe, that’s not their job.

The goal of the VOC, at the start (“Fuzzy Front End”) of new product development, is to understand what the customer is doing, why they are doing it, and what makes it difficult to achieve the result or the desidered outcome.

According to Griffin and Hauser, a customer’s need is “A description, in the customer’s own words, of the benefit to be fulfilled by the product or service.”

Using multiple techniques like interviews, focus groups, observation, etc… during the VOC process, you will understand the customer needs, both manifest and latent.

From then on, it is the responsibility of the development team to find a technical solution that responds to those needs.

The Second Misunderstanding

Another common critic of the VOC is that it produces needs and benefits that are vague and difficult to be properly defined in order to be really useful for the development team.

Typical examples are a device that is “easy to use”, “easy to set up”, “easy to repair”, and is “reliable.”

Although this is quite a common problem when collecting user’s requirements, it is the job of the interviewer to ask questions and deeply investigate the desired outcome for every single need.

Understanding what it means for the customers “easy to use” or any other vague requirement is the core of a properly conducted VOC.  

Bonus

There is conflicting information about whether Steve Jobs used or did not use market research; sadly, it is too late to ask him directly.

However, if you are not him or any other visionary leader, then I strongly suggest investing time and money to properly research your customers’ needs in the front end of innovation.

The process of developing a new medical device is so long and complicated that it is simply stupid to keep working yet not solving the right problem.

Likewise, considering how much time, resources, and effort goes into developing a new medical product, why would you want to wait till the end product to learn if customers need the product at all?

Conclusion

Although a VOC project cannot guarantee a successful product, a properly conducted VOC will surely produce the fundamental insights for innovation and product or service development.