Most organizations today recognize the need to track customer loyalty over time, but many do so in a manner that renders a panoramic view of the customer difficult or impossible to obtain. That is, customer satisfaction surveys are often conducted at different customer-to-company touch points with no coordinated effort to ensure that the results can be interpreted in tandem for a holistic view of the customer experience and resultant levels of loyalty. This disconnection between separate customer loyalty surveys typically stems from different business managers commissioning research within and not across organizational units (for example, within sales, customer support, product development, and billing). To move beyond this sort of measurement myopia, Burke conducts Voice of the Customer (VOC) Architecture Assessment for many organizations.

VOC Architecture Assessment begins with examination and detailed analysis of existing customer measurement systems. These systems often include transactional surveys focusing on the sales process, installation, service events, and so forth, as well as relational surveys that go beyond event-driven satisfaction occurring at specific touch points. Other surveys might include lost or lapsed customer surveys, and research on aspects of specific products. Burke consultants catalog the specifications of these surveys, including sampling frames, measurement frequency, scaling, and numerous other aspects of each customer-oriented survey. Within the context of both the business objectives of the organization and the information needs of various decision makers, Burke identifies redundancies, gaps, and inconsistencies in the measurement program as a whole.

The top benefits of VOC Architecture Assessment include the following:

• A revised measurement program architecture that provides a holistic view of the customer experience
• Increased strategic relevance of customer survey data to business managers and decision makers
• Optimization of research dollars spent to ensure maximum coverage and minimal or no redundancy
• Survey program design that enables linkage of customer perceptions and loyalty to operational and financial metrics that executives use to run the business

Having a coordinated customer loyalty measurement program is a prerequisite to understanding an organization's customers. Burke's VOC Architecture Assessment leverages the experience and expertise of research consultants who know how to help companies achieve their customer retention objectives.