Collecting data, voice of the customer or otherwise, requires a sample collection plan. It is important to know what you want to know, how to get the information, where to get the information, who to get the information from, and other details. You begin this process by knowing what you are trying to learn from the data.

Reactive Data

Business receive reactive data after the customer has experienced the product or service. Many times businesses get reactive data whether they want it or not through complaints, returns, and credits. This data is normally easy to obtain and can help to define what the defects are and how frequently they are occurring.

Sources of reactive data are customer complaints, technical support calls, product returns, repair service hits, customer service calls, sales figures, warranty claims, web site hits, surveys, and the like. Most businesses make it a point to track this information and make it available to process improvement teams.

Reactive data can be used to find out what aspects of the product or service the customers are having issues with, what needs are not being met, and what the customers may be expecting from the business in the future (new services, products, and features). The danger with reactive data is that some customers will tell the business about the defect by not buying from that business again. This insidious problem can sneak up on an unsuspecting organization. A business should never assume that they have all pertinent reactive data.

Proactive Data

Data that is collected before the customer experiences their first, or next, encounter with the business’ product or service is proactive data. An example of this type of data would be the information collected in a market research effort regarding potential new products or services.

Sources of proactive data are interviews with potential customers, focus groups, surveys, market research, and benchmarking. This type of data can be difficult to obtain. Customer surveys and focus groups can miss customer segments or ask the wrong questions. Market research may be expensive, hard to obtain, or be unreliable for the business’ customer base. Proactive data collection requires careful planning.

A business can use reactive data to point the way to where proactive data collection will do the most good. This helps to focus data collection activities on important customer issues. Without this focus, the business will be shooting in the dark. Consider, for example, asking customers what color of widget they prefer when the sharpness of the widget is their real concern. Not only will dull widgets turn away customers (regardless of color), asking the wrong questions will indicate that the business is out of touch with its customers. The customer may feel that a business is not focusing on their needs (and they would be right in this case) and buy from a competitor instead.

Proactive data helps focus the business on the important issues of the future. The future could be anything from the next customer visit, to consideration of where the business is investing their research and development dollars. Where reactive data helps a business to define defects in the customer’s language, proactive data helps to prevent defects before they affect the customer. Both data types are important and depend on each other for the synergy to improve the customer’s satisfaction level.