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Voice of the customer (VoC) is the process of collecting and analyzing customer feedback to understand their needs and preferences. It adds business-specific insight to market research by revealing what existing customers think about a company’s brand.
In PwC’s 2025 survey of 406 executives, 70% said customer expectations were evolving faster than their companies could adapt. A VoC program gathers feedback from surveys, reviews, interviews, and support interactions.
Businesses can use the findings to improve products and customer experiences and build loyalty. This guide covers how to create a VoC program for your business.
What is the “voice of the customer”?
Voice of the customer is a customer research process for understanding customers’ needs, preferences, and experiences when they interact with a business. It uses three types of information:
- Direct feedback. Responses customers provide through surveys, interviews, or focus groups.
- Indirect feedback. Opinions customers share in reviews or social media posts.
- Behavioral data. Customer actions, such as repeat purchases, product usage, or cart abandonment.
These sources help businesses find recurring issues, set priorities, and decide which product or service changes to make. A customer-led growth strategy uses this insight to guide products, service, and marketing. VoC programs can also include following up with customers to clarify their feedback and explain what changed.
The concept of VoC grew out of quality function deployment (QFD), a product development method created at Mitsubishi’s Kobe shipyards in 1972 and later adopted by Toyota. In a 1993 paper on VoC, researchers Abbie Griffin and John Hauser described voice of the customer as a process for identifying, organizing, and prioritizing customer needs.
What to consider before starting a voice of the customer program
The purpose of a voice of the customer program is to collect customer insight that informs a specific business decision. Before collecting feedback, define the business goal and result you plan to measure. For example, a program could conduct brand perception research, investigate why shoppers abandon checkout, or identify which product problem to fix first.
Plan to collect more than survey responses. Qualtrics surveyed 20,000 consumers across 14 countries and found that only three in 10 explain why they leave a brand. Another 30% tell no one before switching. Reviews, support conversations, and behavioral data can reveal issues that direct feedback misses.
If personalization is a goal, decide what customer data you need and how you will explain its use. The same research found that 64% of consumers want tailored experiences, but only 41% believe the benefits justify the privacy costs.
Goals for a VoC program include:
- Better products or services. Rank customer problems and identify the product changes that matter most.
- More focused sales and marketing. Use customer language and purchase data to refine campaigns. Shopify’s 2025 Merchant Survey found that marketing was the biggest year-one hurdle for 37% of established merchants, followed closely by finding customers at 36%.
- Improved customer experience. Find problems in a specific interaction, such as delivery updates, and measure whether a change reduces complaints.
- Increased customer loyalty and retention. Address the issues that cause customers to leave or spend less. Qualtrics found that satisfied customers were 4.1 times more likely to recommend a company, 3.8 times more likely to trust it, and 2.3 times more likely to purchase more.
How to gather voice of the customer feedback
You can gather voice of the customer feedback through six methods: customer interviews, focus groups, surveys, feedback forms, review analysis and social listening, and support or chat conversations.
The right mix depends on your goal, budget, and team capacity. These methods capture what customers say.
Pair them with behavioral data, such as repeat purchase rates, product usage, and checkout abandonment, to see what customers do. Behavioral data can confirm a stated problem or reveal one customers never mention.
1. Customer interviews
Customer interviews provide detailed, direct feedback. Ask each participant the same core questions, then follow up when an answer reveals an unmet need or unexpected use case.
Research by Abbie Griffin and John Hauser found that interviews with 20 to 30 customers should identify at least 90% of customer needs within a relatively similar customer segment. The researchers also recommended having several team members review the transcripts.
Daphne Williams, chief growth officer at Sweet Beginnings, used an interview to observe a customer’s buying habits. One customer brought the product and showed Williams “what else is in their cabinet.” This gave her direct evidence of what the customer purchased.
Conduct interviews in person, by phone, or by video. Ask permission before recording or transcribing the conversation.
2. Focus groups
Focus groups bring a small group together to discuss a product, brand, or new idea. A facilitator asks prepared questions and follows up on comments that need more detail.
Participants can react to one another’s views, revealing areas of agreement or disagreement. This group dynamic can also create bias if one person dominates the conversation. A facilitator can invite each participant to contribute so one person doesn’t dominate the conversation.
With permission, record and transcribe the session. The transcript preserves the customers’ wording and gives several team members the same material to review.
3. Surveys
Surveys collect direct feedback from many customers in a consistent format. Use closed questions for measurable data and open questions when customers need space to explain an answer.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS), developed by Bain & Company through research led by Fred Reichheld, asks how likely a customer is to recommend a company, product, or service on a scale of 0 to 10. Add a follow-up question asking why the customer selected that score.
Ryan Zagata, founder of Brooklyn Bicycle Co., surveys people who didn’t purchase.
“A lot of the best feedback is from people who didn’t buy our bikes,” he says.
Their answers reveal whether they chose another product, postponed the purchase, or decided not to buy anything.
Shopify checkout supports post-purchase apps that insert a short survey after payment and before the order confirmation page. Tools such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms can collect responses outside checkout. Grapevine can automate survey sends based on customer activity.
4. Feedback forms
A feedback form gives customers a private place to report an issue, request a feature, or comment on their experience. Place the form where the question is relevant. For example, add a short product feedback form to an account page after a customer receives an order.
Shopify Forms lets stores create customized pop-up or inline forms. You can select the information collected, add customer tags, receive submission notifications, and review form analytics.
Limit the form short to information your team plans to use. Route complaints to the person responsible for responding, and tell customers when they can expect an answer.
5. Review analysis and social listening
Review analysis examines comments customers leave on product pages and sites such as Google Business, Trustpilot, Yelp, or Capterra.
Social listening tracks public mentions on social networks, forums, and online communities. Group comments by topic and record how often each issue appears.
Shop product reviews prompts customers who purchased a product to rate it and leave an optional comment after delivery. Only customers who purchased from the store can submit a Shop review.
“Reviews are probably the cheapest and most scalable way of including customer feedback in your research and development process,” says Coop Sleep Goods Cofounder Jin Chon in an interview with Shopify Masters.
Her team still reads reviews and discusses reported issues during product meetings.
Note that the US Federal Trade Commission’s rule on reviews and testimonials prohibits businesses from creating, buying, or selling fake reviews. It also prohibits incentives conditioned on a positive or negative opinion.
6. Support and chat conversations
Support tickets and chat transcripts capture feedback when customers are trying to solve a problem. Review them for repeated questions, confusing policies, missing product information, or product defects. Tag each conversation by topic and track how often the issue appears.
Service quality is also part of the feedback. Zendesk’s CX Trends 2026 research, based on a survey of 6,182 consumers across 22 countries, found that 86% said responsiveness and accurate resolution highly influence purchase decisions. Another 74% become frustrated when they have to repeat information.
Shopify Inbox lets staff manage online store chats on desktop or mobile, search past conversations, and view topic labels for issues such as checkout, shipping, or returns.
Staff can also see relevant customer, cart, and order details. Review conversation themes regularly and send recurring issues to the team responsible for fixing them.
How to create a successful voice of the customer program
A voice of the customer program is a continuous cycle: define the goal, collect feedback, analyze it, close the feedback loop, and act on the findings.
1. Determine your objectives and select a methodology
Define the decision your research will inform and what a successful outcome looks like. Success could mean identifying the top three reasons customers abandon checkout or confirming whether a proposed feature solves a common problem.
Select a collection method after setting the objective. A survey can measure patterns across a large group. Interviews or focus groups provide more detail about customer needs and reactions. Also consider your budget, timeline, and capacity to analyze the responses.
2. Develop questions and collect customer feedback
Ask only questions that relate to your objective. Keep each question neutral, specific, and limited to one topic. Pair rating questions with an open follow-up so customers can explain their answers.
Test the questions with a small group before sending them to everyone. Check that participants understand each question and that their answers provide information you can use.
Heaven Mayhem Founder Pia Mance holds monthly Zoom calls with customers to discuss recent and upcoming launches.
“I always ask, ‘What can I do better?’ rather than ‘What did you think?’” she says. Pia finds that the more direct question prompts more constructive feedback.
3. Analyze feedback
Organize responses by theme, customer group, and point in the customer journey. Review qualitative comments for repeated problems or needs. Use quantitative data to measure how often each issue appears and compare results across customer groups.
For example, responses about preparing children’s lunches might mention nutrition, convenience, mess, or child preferences. Categorize each response, then calculate the percentage that mentions each factor.
AI-powered feedback tools can transcribe conversations, group comments by topic, and summarize sentiment. Have a team member review the output for missing context or incorrect classifications before making a decision.
4. Follow up
Following up closes the loop between customer feedback and business action. Thank participants and contact dissatisfied customers when their concerns need a direct response.
Tell customers when their feedback leads to a change. A short email explaining what changed and why shows that the business reviewed their input. If a request cannot be addressed, tell the customer rather than leaving the request unresolved.
5. Make changes to your products, services, or processes
Prioritize each change based on customer importance, cost, and the program’s objective.
Small businesses don’t need a formal research department or a long report. Share a one-page summary or discuss findings during a short team meeting. Bandit Running Cofounders Tim and Nick West visit the brand’s store each day and talk with the people there. “Those interactions have quite literally driven our decision-making for the next collection,” Tim says.
Record the main customer themes, the decision made, who owns the next action, and when the team will review the result. Use those results to set the objective for the next VoC cycle.
Voice of the customer survey questions
Use open questions to understand customers’ reasons and rating questions to compare responses. Select only the questions that match your current objective instead of sending the entire list in one survey.
The table below shows example questions you can ask.
| Question | What it reveals | When to ask |
|---|---|---|
| What problem were you trying to solve? | The customer’s main need and desired outcome | During discovery interviews or after purchase |
| What were you using before this product? | Competing products, workarounds, or unmet demand | During interviews or product research |
| How did you first hear about us? | The channels that introduce customers to the business | Immediately after purchase |
| Why did you choose this product? | The features or benefits that influenced the purchase | After checkout or during an interview |
| What, if anything, nearly stopped you from buying? | Purchase objections and points of friction | After purchase or in an abandoned-cart survey |
| How easy was it to complete your task? | Friction during checkout, onboarding, or support | Immediately after the interaction |
| Did the product meet your expectations? Why or why not? | Satisfaction and differences between expectations and use | After delivery and enough time to try the product |
| Which part of the product was most useful? | The features customers value most | After product use |
| What is the most important change we could make? | The customer’s highest-priority improvement | During product research or a satisfaction survey |
| How likely are you to recommend us to someone else? | Customer loyalty and referral intent | After the customer has used the product |
| Why did you return the product or cancel your account? | Product, service, or pricing issues linked to customer loss | Immediately after a return or cancellation |
Pair rating questions with a short “Why?” follow-up. The score measures the result, and the explanation identifies what influenced it.
Test each question with a small group before sending the survey to confirm that customers interpret it as intended.
Voice of the customer tools
Voice of the customer tools collect, organize, and analyze feedback. Select tools that fit your research method and response volume. A small business can start with a single collection tool and a spreadsheet, then add specialized software as the program grows.
Survey tools
Shopify Forms creates customized pop-up or inline forms for an online store. SurveyMonkey provides survey templates, question logic, response collection, and reporting.
Shopify stores can also install a post-purchase checkout app to place a short survey between payment and order confirmation.
Chat and support
Shopify Inbox stores online store conversations, customer details, and message topic labels. Teams can search past chats for repeated questions or complaints. Zendesk unifies tickets and conversations from email, messaging, voice, and other service channels.
Review and social monitoring
Shop product reviews collect ratings and comments from customers who purchased a product. Businesses with many public mentions can use Brandwatch to search online conversations, categorize posts, and compare large datasets.
Recording and transcription
Loom records video sessions and generates transcripts and captions. Rev has AI and human transcription for recorded interviews or focus groups. Obtain permission before recording customers.
Analysis
A spreadsheet works well for tagging themes and counting responses in a small dataset.
SurveyMonkey can categorize open-text responses by theme and sentiment. AI analysis tools can quickly summarize large volumes of feedback, but a team member needs to review the results for missing context, incorrect labels, and unusual responses.
How to analyze the success of a voice of the customer program
Measure VoC program success at two levels: the quality of the feedback collected and the results of the changes made in response to it. Track the same metrics over time so you can compare each feedback cycle.
Three metrics you can use to evaluate your VoC efforts are:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS measures how likely customers are to recommend a business. The score subtracts the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
- Customer satisfaction score (CSAT). CSAT measures how satisfied customers are with a specific product, purchase, or service interaction. It’s usually collected immediately after the experience.
- Response rate. Response rate is the percentage of invited customers who complete a survey. A low rate can make the results less representative of the target customer group.
Compare response rates with benchmarks for the same distribution channel. Based on SurveyMonkey’s 2025 platform data, email surveys averaged a 49.17% response rate. Web link surveys averaged 29.95%, SMS surveys 18.54%, and pop-up surveys 3.65%.
Review metrics by customer group, not only as store-wide averages. Customer segments in the Shopify admin group customers with shared characteristics. Stores can compare response rates, NPS or CSAT scores, and feedback themes across segments.
Next, analyze the feedback itself:
- Qualitative feedback. Group open-text responses by theme and record repeated needs, complaints, or requests.
- Quantitative feedback. Compare scores, response counts, and themes across questions, segments, and time periods.
Finally, compare VoC findings with business key performance indicators (KPIs). The Shopify Analytics overview dashboard displays sales, sessions, conversion rate, and returning customer rate. It also generates daily insights for stores that averaged at least 10 orders per week over the previous six months.
Check whether those metrics improve after a VoC-driven change. Account for other influences, such as promotions or seasonal demand, before attributing the result to the program.
Voice of the customer FAQ
What is a good VoC score?
There is no single “good” VoC score. Businesses use NPS, CSAT, and survey response rates to evaluate their voice of the customer programs. A good VoC score improves against your baseline over time and compares well with a relevant benchmark. Compare the same metric, audience, and survey channel since these metrics all use different scales.
What is an example of voice of the customer?
A retailer asks customers what nearly stopped them from completing an order. Many mention unexpected shipping costs, so the retailer displays delivery estimates earlier in checkout. It then watches conversion rates and CSAT to see whether the change worked.
What are some common challenges businesses face when implementing voice of the customer programs?
Common challenges include getting enough responses, hearing from a representative group, and finding time to analyze the feedback. Programs also stall when no one owns the next step. Set a narrow goal, assign responsibility, and report back to customers when their feedback leads to a change.
How often should a company gather and analyze voice of the customer data?
Collect feedback after key moments, such as checkout, delivery, or a support conversation. Review urgent service issues weekly and overall trends monthly or quarterly. The schedule depends on how often customers buy and how quickly your team can respond.
How do you improve a voice of the customer program?
Cut questions that don’t lead to a decision. Check whether the survey reaches the customers you need to hear from, compare responses by segment, and assign each follow-up task to someone. Tell customers what changed so they know their feedback was reviewed.
