Transcript

Last lecture we were understanding different tools which are used for empathy study. So now, we will go through this lecture about Voice of customer. We are now focusing, what are the voices of customer? How do you capture the voice of customer, how do you classify them so that you can come out with some engineering specification. Ultimately, we will have to work on engineering specification so, that we can make a product to take it to the customer. So, this lecture is more focused towards Voice of the customers. The voice of a customer is a term used in business to describe the process of capturing customer requirements. Customer requirements are very, very important without properly understanding the customer requirement. I always used to think this time my son will like, this saree my wife will like, this tool will be useful more to this farmer. But no, I have to go understand what really they want.

And then if I come back and find you on my solutions, I can develop something which is useful for them or which they will easily accepted. Many are times sitting in an AC room or sitting in a closed room trying to solve a field problem is very difficult. Recently, when we were trying to develop tools for our amla pricking or for grapes crimping, we just sat in our lab and we were just thinking that, okay, the weight of the bunch of grapes will be hardly 200 grams. But when we went to the site, we realized that it will be close to a kilo. And second thing is when it is to be crimped, we tried to do a crimping exercise when we tried to crimp because of the weight, it just drops down, when it falls on the floor, the fruits gets shattered. So now we realize that, Oh, there has to be a device which is to be held.

So all these things I can understand more and more and more when I go to this site. And other thing is today, we see lot of robots which are used for plucking. So where in which all these robots work on image processing. So in image processing, it is pretty interesting, the fruit will be still in a raw condition but it would have got ripened, until and unless you touch and have a feel for it, you will not be able to analyze the status. So here my understanding is one side, but understanding the voice of the customer is other thing. So, we will focus on voice of the customer.

There are four aspects of VOC, customer need, hierarchy, hierarchial structure, prioritizing and customer perception of performance. So there are four steps, understanding customer need and then what we have to do is we have to make them primary, secondary, tertiary, we will see them in detail and then we have to say which are all important, which is not important. For example, if you want to take the tree plucking device, the most important thing is going to be the weight of it. The second thing is going to be the tree life. The third thing is going to be the cut leaves, scoop quantity, right? And the fourth thing is going to be the color. So if I don’t prioritize then I will not be able to get to the solution properly.

A customer need is description in customer’s own words. So this is very important when you try to talk, when you try to capture, you tried to put your thought process and then you put your objective you, try to put a filter and pick those words what you like, but you are not recording what is the description given by the customer. So description in customers, own voice is very important. Next is customer need is not a solution, not a physical measurement. A customer does not need to have a solution to it. But if you can have an improvised advancement in the existing product, that is also okay. So how the customer want is his or her product to help him completing his tasks. This is also to be noted from the customer.

The next thing is the distinction between physical measurement and customer need has proved to be one of the key to the success of designing. So this is a very, very important point. So the distinction between physical measurement and the customer need, both are trying to be put together to form a very good product. So once you have collected the customer voice, now you have to put them in a hierarchial structure. So hierarchal structures, you have collected lots of data now. Now this lot of data has to be structured. So once it is structured then it becomes easier for you to put some strategy in solving the problem. So the hierarchical structure is nothing but a simpler structure which needs to focus both on strategy and practice. The voice of the customer structure needs into a hierarchy of primary, secondary and tertiary needs are done.

So from the voice of the customer, now I am trying to classify the data into primary needs, secondary needs and tertiary needs. Primary need will have a basic information. Then this basic information will be split into several small milestones or objectives. That will be the next secondary level. And how do you technologically solve the problem will be that tertiary one. So, primary need also known as strategic needs that are used to by the team to set the strategic direction for marketing. Each primary need is elaborated into 3 to 10 secondary needs. Primary is now split into secondary. The secondary need indicates more specific what the designer must to do to satisfy the corresponding primary need. The tertiary need, also known as operational or detailing needs, provide greater details so that engineering, R&D and perhaps the advertising agency can develop a detailed set of product characteristics. And then now what have you done?

You have collected data. This collected data is now arranged into primary, secondary, and tertiary. Now, we have to classify that data and we have to give them priorities. Some need have higher priorities for customer than the others. The designer uses these priorities to make the system that balance the cost of fulfilling a customer need with that desirability of fulfilling that need. So this is a very important point to be noted. The designer uses these priorities to make decision that balanced the cost of fulfilling a customer need with the desirability of fulfilling that need. In the voice of customer these priorities applied to perceive customer needs rather than product features or engineering solutions. This is very important, perceive customer need rather than product features or engineering solution.

The customer perception of performance – the customer perception is also very, very important. The customer perception are also derived from quantitative market research about the customer perceived the performance of the product that compete in the market being studied.

If there is no product available or it is yet to be developed, the perception indicates how customer now fulfill those needs. Okay. Ask the customer how the presence of the power toll affects their life and how they perceive the performance of this tool.

To summarize the voice of the customer, what we studied, we studied a detailed understanding of the customer requirement is done. Common language for the design team for going forward from this point. Key input of setting of appropriate design specifications for the new product or service. Highly useful design board for product innovation is developed from the voice of the
customer.

Thank you.