Complimentary Webinar: Silencing the Voice of the Customer (VOC): New research methods to create breakthrough products and services

In association with Strategyn, The Institute for International Research invites you to join us for a one hour complimentary Web Seminar.

Silencing the Voice of the Customer (VOC): Focus on the "job-to-be-done" and create breakthrough products and services
Tony Ulwick, Founder & CEO, Strategyn
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 1:00 - 2:00 PM EDT

Reserve your Webinar seat now here.

Over the past 30 years, innovation experts have led companies to believe that it is impossible to know all their customers' needs. They contend that customers can't articulate their needs, and that customers have latent needs - or needs they don't know they have. What if it turns out that this thinking is wrong?

There is a new way of approaching your customer needs but it's not with the Voice of the Customer. Over the past 20 years Strategyn has created and refined an innovation process called Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) that invalidates this old thinking. In addition, a ten-year track record study reveals that when the world's most respected companies silence the voice of the customer and gather the right inputs for the innovation process, they experience an 86 percent success rate. This is a complete turn-around in the innovation industry.

In this webinar, Strategyn founder and CEO, Tony Ulwick will demonstrate how thinking about innovation and customer needs from a "jobs-to-be-done" perspective enables companies to create winning growth strategies and breakthrough products and services.

What you will learn:

* The shortcomings of listening to the "voice-of-the-customer"
* How to define a market from the customer's perspective
* How to create a growth strategy using the right customer inputs
* How to organize the innovation process around the right customer insights

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

About The Institute for International Research:
The Institute for International Research (IIR) is the world's largest conference company and has been the leader in the provision of business information for over 25 years. IIR produces over 5,000 events annually through its network of offices in over 35 countries.

Focusing on What The Customer Thinks

This interview on the Forbes MarketShare blog with Jim Bush, EVP of World Service at American Express, contains some great insights regarding the American Express customer experience strategy.

I was particularly struck by the following quote:

We also strongly believe that great service doesn’t come down to what we think about our performance internally. It’s all about what the customer thinks after every interaction. So we’re not measuring our performance by internal measures. Instead, we’re gauging it by looking at whether customers would recommend American Express to their friends based on their experiences.

Is your company doing anything to shift the focus from internal performance to customer reactions? If so, how? How are you measuring customer loyalty? The American Express study mentioned in the blog is interesting reading regardless of where your current strategy stands.

Thanks for Attending

Thanks to those who joined us yesterday for the Targetbase webinar on Engagement Optimization in Healthcare.

If you have additional questions for our dynamic presenters Trae Clevenger, Senior Vice President, Innovation and Brian Kaiser, Vice President, Healthcare Strategy they can be reached at brian.kaiser@targetbase.com and trae.clevenger@targetbase.com respectively.

Or follow Targetbase on twitter @TargetbaseRX

For more information about our ePharma events, visit the ePharma blog here.

The Customer Is Always...On Twitter?

Have you seen this article from Fortune exploring the efficacy of various customer service channels for eight real-life brands?

Not that long ago I was discussing the future of technology in regards to customer service. Here we have eight cases of companies using twitter, in addition to phone and web channels, to address customer issues...with varying degrees of success. Even Zappos, a known customer service champion, falls somewhat short when put to this test.

The fact is, customers are going to seek answers on channels like twitter - or worse, badmouth your brand. Refraining from having a twitter presence means you may not immediately hear the complaints, but they'll still exist. The best policy is therefore to listen and respond in the best way possible. (A topic IIR occasionally addresses on the Community 2.0 blog). Is the social media team at your company prepared to deal with this challenge? Where does customer service and social media intersect? It's an interesting conundrum.

Are you on twitter? We are, follow us @customerworld.