9 voice of customer tools to improve your consumer experience strategy

Oh, the art of listening. Many businesses put their customers first, but how exactly should that be done?

Often, we believe that we know exactly how to cater to consumers’ needs. But in reality, there turns out to be a slight (read: huge) mismatch in what consumers really want and get from brands.

The solution? Not just giving your customers a voice, but actively listening to it—and implementing what they say (and even don’t say).

Here we’ll look at tools that help you collect and analyze the voices of your customers. 

Voice of Customer Tool	Key Features	Customer Survey Capabilities	Pricing
Attest	Demographics filtering to connect your brand to the right audience Designated customer research support to help you find the best insights in your data Easily share survey results across your organization to get everyone on the same page	Yes	$0.50 per response—more about pricing
XM Discover by Qualtrics	Sentiment analysis Pre-built, industry-specific improvement drivers Automated follow-up with customers	Yes	Available on request
Forsta	Access multiple survey channels such as web, mobile, CATI, CAPI Customizable dashboard designs Multilingual capabilities	Yes	Available on request
CustomerGauge	Sophisticated survey builder B2B customer experience analysis NPS score analysis	Yes	Available on request
MonkeyLearn	Create machine learning models (without coding) Data visualization Agent performance tracking and scoring	Yes	Available on request
Medallia	VoC analysis (including speech, surveys, and SMS) Competitor benchmarking Predict customers’ needs with a dedicated Action Intelligence tool	Yes	Available on request
SentiSum	100+ languages and channels available Multiple integrations available, including Zendesk and Freshdesk AI analytics for speech	Yes	Starts at $2,000 per month
Verint ForeSEE	Real-time alerts and dashboard AI analysis of customer sentiments	Yes	Available on request
NICE Satmetrix	Directly publish positive customer feedback on social media Sentiment and text analysis Actionable recommendations based on what the tool detects in your VoC	Yes	Available on request

But before we go into details, let’s dive into what we mean by the voice of the customer—it might not be what you think.

What is the ‘voice of the customer’?

In marketing we speak of the voice of customer (VoC) as the summary of their needs, expectations and preferences. It also crucially includes their aversions—what turns them off. 

It’s everything your customers say—through customer feedback. It’s also what they think and feel about the customer experience—even when they might not put that into words as clearly. 

That means you sometimes will have to read between the lines, or go looking for information in different places. It could be that you’re picking up on a specific preference or aversion in website behavior, which you’ll then further investigate using surveys—combining data for more context.

Tools that help you get insight into the voice of customer for your brand are useful for:

• Feedback collection: from surveys to online reviews
• Data analytics and reporting: get your voice of customer clear in a dashboard that shows what’s being said—and what’s being meant
• Tracking progress: there’s no point in listening to your customers if you’re not willing to implement their suggestions

Want to really understand your customers? Let’s look at some of the tools we recommend. 

The 9 best voice of customer (VoC) tools

Alright, we’ve been pretty picky with selecting voice of customer tools. 

We know that every organization uses different channels, has different types of customers (hello B2B readers!) and different needs. 

We’ve compiled a list of tools that cover voice of customer data collection all in their own way. 

Whether you’re a small business owner, a large B2B corporation or a startup looking to improve your business processes—we’re sure there’s something in here for you!

1. Attest

With our consumer profiling tools, you’ll get realistic and relevant information on your current and potential customers—how they think, act and buy. 

Get under their skin with a wide variety of question formats—from multiple-choice to grids, open text and much more! The answers are sent to a dashboard that gives a clear image of who your customers are.

The insights have been invaluable. I’ve used Attest to understand which messages resonate most with consumers, and also to understand what consumer usage and attitudes are towards new healthcare trends.

Rebecca Porter, Consumer Research Manager at Boots

We help you get started smoothly with templates written by experts: use the consumer profiling template to paint the picture of who your customers are, and get to know their preferences by using the Jobs To Be Done template.

We track shifting key metrics, like awareness and consideration very carefully and also how our brand is perceived… it helps us to identify areas of opportunity.

Charlotte Langley, Brand & Communications Director at Bloom & Wild

Key voice of customer features for Attest:

• You get access to no less than 125 million people in 58 countries
• Easily share survey results within your organization to get everyone on the same page
• Our demographic filters makes it quick and easy to find the right people
• Your designated Customer Research Manager is on hand to make sure your research is set up to give you truly valuable insights

2. XM Discover by Qualtrics (former Clarabridge Studio)

Some people are completely oblivious to social cues. If that’s the case, or you simply don’t have time to analyze every interaction with your customers, check out Clarabridge, now called XM Discover.

This tool works with automatic text and speech analytics, by detecting emotion, intent, and effort with 150+ industry-specific natural language understanding models. It will help you analyze emails, conversations with customer service reps, reviews and social media messages on the go. 

Key voice of customer features for XM Discover:

• Automatically uncover topics and sentiment in open text
• Makes it specific with pre-built, industry-specific improvement drivers 
• Set up automated actions to follow up with customers if needed

3. Forsta

Forsta helps you see ‘the human beings behind the data’. This sophisticated business insight software brings your data on voice of customer together in a visual reporting dashboard. It gives insight into the customer journey, analyzing what’s happening on every channel and every device. 

Key voice of customer features for Forsta:

• Send surveys through multiple channels such as web, mobile, CATI, CAPI and even good old paper. 
• Dashboard designs that you can customize to your needs
• Multilingual and adapts to any device

4. CustomerGauge

If your customers are businesses and big accounts, you might not feel like the usual voice of customers tools fit your needs. In that case, CustomerGauge might be the tool for you! 

It focuses on B2B needs when it comes to VoC analysis—or Voice of the Account, as they like to put it. 

Their Account Experience software shows you where in the customer journey you can close some gaps, for happier customers (that spend more money). 

Use their Monetized Net Promoter technology for a smooth survey delivery and reporting process and quickly get your priorities straight.

Key voice of customer features for CustomerGauge:

• Ideal for B2B customer experience analysis 
• Sophisticated survey Builder and reporting suite
• Analyzes NPS score better to find the financial value of drivers

5. MonkeyLearn

Not run by monkeys, but rather by state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, MonkeyLearn is a text analysis platform that helps you visualize your voice of customer analysis.

The tool can easily pick up on words that indicate aspects of your products, qualifiers that customers look at and sentiments they have—so you don’t have to.

All that data is sent to a slick reporting tool, where you can analyze it all in charts, graphs, and even word clouds.

Key voice of customer features for MonkeyLearn:

• Build your own machine learning models without coding
• Crystal clear and instant data visualizations 
• Option for tracking and scoring agent performance by ticket topic

6. Medallia

Improving the customer experience is a team effort—so all employees should be on board. Meet Medallia, the tool for experience management that makes the voice of customers accessible and understandable for everyone in your organization.

Their machine learning models analyze integrated data from web, social, videos, messaging and more.

Every team member gets value out of this with org mapping, personalized reports and real-time alerts, to stay on top of the VoC.

A neat feature of their core platform is the possibility to also include speech in your analysis, in no less than 30+ languages.

Key voice of customer features for Medallia:

• Analyze everything from speech to survey and SMS
• Benchmarking your own data to all major retailers, restaurants, and B2C brands to understand how well you’re performing
• Predict customers’ needs with their Action Intelligence tool 

7. SentiSum

If you want to focus on what’s being voiced in support tickets, SentiSum is the tool for you. 

Using AI, SentiSum automatically tags tickets by topic and sentiment. Good to note: it tags based on meaning, not keywords. 

The tool works in real-time, so you never miss an opportunity to improve. If you have some special areas of interest, you can prioritize those flagged tickets based on their topic and sentiment.

Key voice of customer features for SentiSum:

• Works in 100+ languages and channels 
• Connects with integrations like Zendesk and Freshdesk
• Transcribes voice calls into text to enable AI analytics for speech

8. Verint ForeSEE

Listening to the voice of customer isn’t enough—you need to act on it. 

Verint ForeSEE is a VoC analysis tool that makes sure your team gets not only the necessary notifications on important VoC data, but can also collaborate to act on it. 

Their Vering Experience Cloud is a multidisciplinary, multi-technique VoC analysis solution. It helps you get everything in one place: all the behavior, attitudinal and inferred inputs from your sites, apps, and contact center.

Key voice of customer features for Verint ForeSEE:

• Real-time alerts and an easy-to-use dashboard.
• Give your CX team easy access to the information they really need
• AI analysis of what your customers are saying to save you time

9. NICE Satmetrix

NICE Satmetrix was co-developed by one of the creators of the Net Promoter Score (NPS). This means that there’s a strong focus on brand loyalty and turning customers into brand ambassadors, by truly listening to what they need.

The software is more than just a VoC analysis tool, but a customer software that helps you design better customer experiences—based on the voice of customer. It takes your internal processes into account for actionable data. 

Key voice of customer features for NICE Satmetrix:

• Lets you directly publish positive customer feedback on social media
• Text analysis with thorough sentiment analysis 
• Get action recommendations based on what the tool detects in your VoC 

How can VoC tools improve your marketing strategy?

What’s the place of VoC in your marketing strategy? 

It’s important to understand that a VoC tool collects feedback that you can directly incorporate in your day-to-day business processes, but also in your overall marketing strategy. 

Everyone in your organization will benefit when you implement VoC tools: 

• Customer success teams are the most obvious ones on this list: they can directly implement their newfound knowledge to strengthen relations with customers in one-to-one conversations or customer support chats. Don’t underestimate how important a single interaction can be!
• Product development teams can use the knowledge emerging from VoC tools to build better products and design better services. Ideally, the use of a VoC tool is aligned with how they are usually gathering feedback in the product development process, so they don’t have to capture feedback across different channels. 
• Sales can seal the deal even faster if they know what the preferences and turn-offs of the customers are. In after-sales, they can even learn to optimize their timing with up- and cross-selling based on the outcome of the VoC tools on existing customers. 
• Marketing professionals can use the VoC to make their messaging more unique and tailored to your specific business and its audience. It also helps them in their timing, where to put the emphasis and connection to customers, creating a better customer experience. 

Let’s look at some of the benefits you reap by implementing VoC tools in your marketing setup. 

VoC tools help monitor what’s actually being done with customer feedback 

Ideally, if you listen to customer feedback, your VoC will become stronger and more impactful over time. 

These tools will help you combine the best of both worlds and see how customer experience evolves. 

Because customer experience is a whole lot more than just customer satisfaction. Voice of the customer data unveils not just what is being said and done in customer service interactions, but more importantly how customers feel about all that. 

VoC tools foster more connection, both internally and externally

Building trusting customer relationships means that you listen to the voice of the customer, and then act on what they said. 

Making the Voice of the Customer an integrated part of your business will make your employees feel more connected to the customers—by focusing on what they feel and think, instead of just showing sales numbers. 

This can also help improve internal collaboration, because there’s a central focus point: customers. 

VoC tools enable improved messaging: learn why your customers need you

Is your copywriter struggling to find the right words? Did the marketing department run out of ideas for the next campaign? Why not ask your customers?

Of course, this shouldn’t be taken too literally—they’re not on your payroll after all—but there’s a lot of useful data to be found in the voice of the customer.

Customer insights shouldn’t only be used to confirm whether your marketing campaign matches your audience, you can also use it as a source of inspiration to create a better customer experience. 

It can go as far as incorporating actual customer feedback in your marketing materials. What this will do, is that people will recognize themselves in the voice of the customer, quite literally, because they use the same words and have the same train of thought.

So next time you’re scrambling for inspiration, ditch the internal brainstorm and dive into the customer insights in your VoC tools!

You actually get the most insight from people verbatim. Just ask and they will tell you. Attest’s respondents are really happy to do it, which is great. Some people would leave sentences and sentences of things if you let them!

Ilona Sediha, Marketing Lead at Clim8 Invest

VoC tools help you build better products and services

Even the best Product Designer can’t come up with a hit on their own—they all need customers to test, improve and ultimately tailor their ideas.

VoC tools are incredibly useful in the product development process, and will also give you direct and indirect feedback on existing products and services, by analyzing customer sentiment in reviews and customer support tickets. 

You can use them to get insights into the Customer Effort Score, or to learn more about customer behavior related to using your previous products.

When the retailer was told this and they could see the evidence, with the physical quotes from people, it was really powerful. They definitely realized this was an issue they needed to address. Overall, that’s a basic thing—if you want to trade a shopper up within a category, it’s a bit difficult to do it if they don’t even see the value in the trade up offering that’s on the shelf there. So, really clear recommendations were coming out from that.

Claire Evans, Category Manager, The Big Prawn Company

VoC tools can help you improve findability

If you know what your customers are looking for, you know where to put it. 

Channels are an important part of the overall customer experience. If your customers think your products and services are great, but are struggling to engage or resonate with the channels you are using, the right VoC solution will give you insight in that, helping you pick other tools that fit the customer journey better.

VoC tools can help predict and prevent customer churn

If you gather enough customer data and unveil what their interests and behavioral patterns are, VoC data can help you prevent churn.

Real-time customer feedback can spot early warning signs of a crisis. If you are noticing survey data is worsening or your Net Promoter Score is dropping like it’s hot, it’s time to take a deep dive in your customer data.

VoC tools can help build customer loyalty

You don’t just want to avoid disaster, you want to steer directly towards success. 

With VoC tools, you can uncover whether there are opportunities for implementing customer programs to improve loyalty and increase customer retention. 

Want more engaged employees? Use VoC tools

Knowing who their customers are, what they feel and think and how to connect with them helps employee engagement. Instead of just dealing with tickets and numbers, give your customer service reps, marketing people and top sales staff access to the data from your VoC tools to show them how they directly impact how customers feel. 

Understand the voice of the customer with direct feedback

Getting deeper insights into what your customers are saying—and thinking—could be the missing piece of the puzzle for your marketing strategy.

There’s a lot of information hidden in the interactions with your customers and in multichannel feedback.

Now’s the time to start uncovering it!

If you’re looking for an easy way to collect VoC data through targeted surveys, Attest is the way to go. 

FAQs about the voice of customer tools