3: Technology

The organization that hears the voice of their customer on a regular basis and is constantly monitoring what the customer is saying, has an enormous and ongoing advantage over its competitors. That organization has the luxury of being in a proactive stance in the marketplace. So how does an organization go about actually hearing the voice of the customer?

Fig 3.1 shows that there is technology needed to capture, listen to, and analyze what the customer is saying.

Once upon a time, the technology to hear the voice of the customer did not exist or was ineffective. But over time, technology kept improving to the point that today it is absolutely possible to hear the voice of the customer.

The improvements to technology useful for hearing the voice of the customer came on different levels:

• Cost. One way improvements in technology have come is in the form of lowered cost of technology. The dramatic drop in cost of technology has afforded the voice of...