Voice of the Customer Programs Explained: Challenges, Insights, and How to Get It Right

This article originally appeared on Edge Signals – Bart Lehane’s LinkedIn newsletter on customer experience, analytics, and AI. Follow for future insights like this! Understanding the Voice of the Customer (VoC) is no longer about collecting more feedback – it’s about transforming customer conversations into actionable, measurable insight. Most organisations already listen; few truly understand. This article explores why many VoC programs fail to deliver impact, and how to bridge the gap between listening and acting through better data, credibility, and alignment. Here’s what you’ll learn: ✔ The key barriers that stop Voice of the Customer programs from driving change. ✔ How CX leaders can turn unstructured feedback into trusted, evidence-based insight. ✔ Why credibility and consistency are the foundation of effective customer understanding. ✔ Practical steps to align KPIs, technology, and culture for a stronger VoC strategy.

Customer experience leaders everywhere are gathering feedback, analysing surveys, and running Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs. Yet, despite all this listening, one question remains: is anyone really understanding what customers are saying?

That question came to life recently when Shane Lynn and I hosted a session at the Consero Customer Experience & Contact Center Forum in Arizona. There was laughter, honest reflection, and even some gin and chocolates as CX leaders shared what they truly want from their VoC programs – and what’s holding them back.

The Real Goal of VoC: Turning Data Into Action

When we asked attendees what they hoped to achieve with their VoC efforts, three goals stood out:

1. React to issues faster
2. Give other departments reliable, actionable insight
3. Quantify the size and business impact of customer problems

In short, CX teams don’t need more data – they need answers. And not gut feelings or anecdotes, but clear evidence of what’s going wrong, how often it happens, and what it costs.

Yet when asked about the biggest barriers, 62% cited weak toolsets, 40% blamed poor data quality, and 38% said they lacked analytical skills.

The insight gap isn’t about awareness. It’s about accessibility. Valuable data sits trapped in silos — call recordings in one system, chat logs in another, and emails in a third. Everyone knows there’s gold in that customer conversation data; few have the tools to mine it effectively.

The Credibility Challenge: Making Insights Believable

Even when CX or support teams surface great insights, there’s another hurdle – credibility.

Product, marketing, or operations teams often ignore customer data unless it’s pushed to them regularly and backed by numbers. The most successful CX leaders have learned this lesson: you can’t wait to be asked for insights – you have to deliver them proactively.

Many leaders in the room shared practical tactics: short weekly summaries, trend snapshots, and cross-functional CX forums where insights are shared consistently.

The pattern was clear – credibility comes from consistency and accuracy.

If you stop sharing insights, people forget about the customer’s voice. If you share data that’s inaccurate, trust disappears instantly.

The best CX programs deliver both: regular, data-driven updates that elevate customer support from “cost centre” to “strategic advisor.”

The KPI Disconnect: When Speed Conflicts With Understanding

A theme that resonated with every CX leader in the room was the misalignment of metrics.

Support teams are still judged on cost, handle time, and SLA compliance – while simultaneously being asked to deliver deep customer insight. Those goals often conflict. When performance is tied to speed, there’s no time to analyse conversations, uncover patterns, or propose changes.

Until organisations start rewarding understanding as much as efficiency, Voice of the Customer programs risk remaining side projects instead of strategic levers.

When feedback analysis is prioritised, businesses don’t just fix service – they improve retention, lower costs, and grow loyalty. That’s the real ROI of VoC.

The Real Test of a Voice of the Customer Program

Every company claims to be customer-centric. But ask this simple question:

“Can your leadership team quantify the top customer pain points – how often they occur, who they affect, and what they cost?”

If the answer is no, then you don’t truly have a Voice of the Customer program. You have an expensive way of ignoring your customers.

Your customers are speaking to you every day – through your agents, your chatbots, your surveys, and your systems. They’re telling you what’s confusing, what’s broken, and what’s driving them away.

The challenge for CX leaders isn’t listening. It’s making sure those insights are understood, quantified, and acted upon by the people who can actually make a difference.

Final Thoughts

The Voice of the Customer shouldn’t just live in reports or dashboards. It should live in the decisions your business makes every day.

By connecting conversational data across channels, proving impact with numbers, and sharing insights consistently, CX teams can bridge the gap between listening and understanding – and finally make the customer’s voice impossible to ignore.

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🔗 Read the full article on Bart Lehane’s LinkedIn post for examples, stories, and community discussion.

Bart Lehane is the Co-founder & CCO at EdgeTier and a PhD engineer who’s spent 20+ years building and delivering advanced technology. His background spans applied research, software development, and product management. His interests lie at the intersection of CX, AI, and tech.