What types of research do you do to gather voice of customer insights?

• Product usage data

• NPS (I always prefer the standard calculation here as a bench mark but there’s other questions you should ask to determine how much value your customers get out of the product)

• Feature satisfaction ranking surveys

• Customer product requests

• Customer support requests

• Customer expansion or renewal data

First off, nothing beats primary research. Monitoring digital behavior, conducting focus groups, building customer advisory boards, embedding yourself into the customer’s ‘native’ environment, conducting win/loss interviews, visiting clients on site, interviewing your various customer-facing teams... those are all effective ways of getting a view on your customers. Of course, analyst research also has its place when it is finely targeted at your specific market.

But the most important aspect of all of this is not so much the collection of data but the ability to translate it into actionable insights. That requires a deeper level of strategic and critical thinking. I think this is where Product Marketing can truly drive value for the organization.