Voice of the Customer

ASQ's Quality Mission

The customer is the driving force of organizations. Your customer may be a manufacturing plant half way around the world or a department down the hall. Nevertheless, without customers to require goods or services, organizations would not exist.

The Voice of the Customer or VOC is the customer’s requirements for goods or services. It is their description of what they need. It is of huge importance. The VOC should be used by the quality professional to establish quality parameters within which to produce the goods or services.

Use face-to-face meetings to gather VOC standards

The best way to gather Voice of the Customer standards is through face-to-face meetings followed up by written and verified specifications. In my experience, the earlier the quality professional is involved in communication with the customer, the better. A relationship is built so an exchange of quality data can flow back and forth. This foundation of trust and professionalism creates a basis for quality improvement and superior products and services.

Part of this article appeared in ASQ's April 2016 Roundtable discussion.
 
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