How do you start an effective Voice of Customer (VoC) program on a shoe-string budget?

Sure.

• Begin by clearly defining the objectives and key metrics, such as improving customer satisfaction or identifying product improvement areas. From there, map out the key touchpoints in the customer journey where feedback can be collected, such as post-purchase interactions or after customer support.

• Utilize free or low-cost survey tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform to create and distribute surveys, and collect feedback through existing email marketing platforms like Mailchimp.

• Engage customers directly through small, informal focus groups or phone interviews. Also, the website can have feedback channels through in-product forms.

• Regularly analyze the data to identify trends and actionable insights. Obviously, share these with the relevant teams.

• Focus on quick wins that require minimal resources but have a significant impact

• Track the progress of changes made based on feedback and refine the VoC program as needed

• be consistent vs one-off. this takes some planning

VOC doesn't have to be expensive at all, it just needs to be programmatic. You can get customer insights from a wide variety of sources, including digital behavior monitoring (campaign responses, website tracking, social media, etc.), customer focus groups and user group meetings, win/loss interviews, feedback surveys and so on. Heck, even your customer support teams can provide you with valuable information.

The key is to be able to systematically analyze all of those varied data sources and strategically turn it into actionable insights for the business.