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Niklas Myhr, Ph.D.

The Social Media Professor | Digital Marketing Strategies

Voice of the B2B Customers’ Customers

January 31, 2013 by Niklas Myhr

In the early 1990’s, companies started to listen more systematically to the “voice of the customer” (VOC)* after the quality movement made it clear that companies had room for improvement in this regard. Companies could more precisely identify how to provide the most value by dissecting the customers’ voice so that they could hierarchically structure and prioritize their needs. Many companies learned from this exercise and customers benefited.

However, VOC also missed the boat in one major way. The voice of the customer approach assumes that the customer is talking to you. But what if the customer is either unwilling or unable to articulate anything? This is the “silence of the customer” which could be equally if not more important than what customers actually say such as when “96% of customers who are unhappy don’t complain.”

Thinking about it, in a B2B context this could also mean that social media listening efforts could be misdirected if listening is limited only to direct customers. Instead of trying to listen to direct customers when they may not have anything to say, companies could be better off holding their ears close to the ground where the customers of the customers interact instead. Why? Well, imagine if we could hear customers’ customers concerns. Wouldn’t that put us in a better position to also predict what our customers’ needs are, articulated or not?

* Abbie Griffin & John R. Hauser (1993), “The Voice of the Customer,” Marketing Science, Vol. 12, No. 1, Winter 1993.

Filed Under: B2B, Innovation, Relationship Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: #blogg100

About Niklas Myhr

Niklas Myhr, PhD, CSP, The Social Media Professor, is an international TEDx and keynote speaker serving as an advisor to HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. Dr. Myhr is a CSP® (Certified Speaking Professional™) and a Certified Virtual Presenter offering keynote presentations, talks, workshops, and executive education programs at conferences, businesses, public sector organizations, and universities. Dr. Myhr has spoken in Europe, in the United States, and in Asia, and his expertise on social media and digital marketing has been featured in BBC, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Dr. Myhr is Google’s #1-ranked “Social Media Professor," and he teaches at Chapman University in California. Niklas Myhr holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Virginia, and an MS from Linköping University in Sweden.

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Niklas Myhr, Ph.D.

Please email me at niklas [at] thesocialmediaprofessor.com if you have any questions!

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