We’ve all heard it before… right? To stay competitive, organisations must listen to their customers, collect feedback, and genuinely be “customer-centric.”

And while that’s true in principle, the reality is more complicated. Most teams rely on quarterly customer voice surveys, glance at a few metrics, and assume they’ve captured the full picture. 

Spoiler: they haven’t.

High-performing organisations do something different. They don’t just measure satisfaction; they embed listening into their way of operating, turning customer insights into strategy, innovation, and action. Our research shows that adapting to customer needs is one of the seven business habits that separates top performers from the rest.

In this post, we’ll explore what a voice of customer survey really means in 2025, why traditional surveys are losing relevance, and how forward-thinking organisations turn customer feedback into a strategic advantage, with tools like TheySaid leading the way.

TL;DR

A Voice of Customer (VoC) survey captures customer feedback to understand needs, pain points, and perceptions of your brand, products, or services. By using surveys, interviews, digital feedback, support interactions, and AI-powered analytics, companies can turn insights into actionable strategies. Effective VoC programs enhance customer satisfaction, predict churn, personalize experiences, and drive growth.

What are Voice of Customer (VOC ) Surveys? 

Voice of customer survey (also referred to as 'customer voice survey or simply 'VoC' survey) is a process of capturing customer feedback to understand customer needs, and their perception of your brand, products, or services. 

These surveys can cover a wide range of touchpoints: product usage, support interactions, purchase experiences, and even brand perception. The key difference between a traditional survey and a VOC survey is depth and context. Instead of asking generic “Are you satisfied?” questions, VOC surveys dig deeper: Why did you choose us? What frustrated you? How can we make your experience better? The answers aren’t just data points; they are signals that guide strategy, product decisions, and customer experience improvements. 

Create intelligent customer voice surveys and get AI-generated insights for free. Just sign up on TheySaid with your email and get started.

Voice of Customer Survey vs. Voice of Customer Program

People often confuse a Voice of Customer (VOC) survey with a Voice of Customer program, but they are not the same. A VOC survey is a single-focused tool designed to capture customer feedback at a particular moment, like a pulse check on satisfaction, product experience, or service quality. A VoC program, by contrast, is a broader, ongoing strategy that collects insights across multiple channels and touchpoints, turning feedback into actionable intelligence that informs business decisions. 

In this sense, the survey is part of the program, one method among many to understand customers, uncover trends, and prioritize improvements. While surveys tell you what customers are feeling or thinking right now, a program gives context, continuity, and a framework for using that feedback strategically, helping teams not only respond to issues but anticipate them, improve experiences, and drive growth.

The Strategic Value of a Voice of Customer Survey

According to a guide to VoC, 81% of service professionals say customers expect a more personalised approach compared to previous years; 88% say good customer service makes customers more likely to purchase again. Source: These numbers highlight a fundamental truth:  companies that truly listen to their customers outperform those that assume they know what customers want.

A well-executed Voice of Customer (VoC) survey provides the insights needed to deliver on these expectations. By capturing authentic feedback across the customer journey from product interactions to post-purchase support, VoC surveys allow organisations to identify pain points, understand evolving preferences, and act quickly to improve experiences.

In other words, these surveys aren’t just a tool for measurement; they’re a strategic asset that helps teams personalize offerings, enhance satisfaction, and build long-term customer loyalty. For businesses aiming to stay ahead, leveraging a VoC survey effectively is no longer optional; it’s a key driver of growth and competitive advantage.

Techniques to Collect Voice of Customer Data

1. Surveys: Quantifying Satisfaction

Structured surveys like NPS, CSAT, and product-specific questionnaires provide measurable insights. They help track trends over time and benchmark customer satisfaction effectively.

2. Interviews and Focus Groups: Understanding the “Why.”

If surveys tell you what’s happening, interviews tell you why it’s happening. High-performing SaaS leaders know that strategic clarity comes from real human conversation. When you sit across from a customer (or even a Zoom window), you not only hear what they say, but you hear what they mean. Their tone. Their hesitations. Their aspirations. Focus groups and interviews give you context that dashboards can’t replicate. This is where product strategy is sharpened.

3. Digital Feedback Channels: Real-Time Insights

The most honest feedback often shows up in micro-moments:
A rage-click.
A hesitation in the onboarding flow.
A dropped feature sequence.
A frustrated tweet.

In-app surveys, website prompts, chat widgets, and social listening help teams capture this “in-the-moment truth.” It’s raw, real-time, and often reveals friction that customers never bother to report formally. The companies winning today are the ones turning these tiny signals into big insights.

4. Customer Support Interactions: Hidden Patterns

Analyzing emails, chat transcripts, and support tickets reveals recurring issues and pain points. Often, this is where the most candid feedback lives. Great SaaS companies treat support interactions as a strategic VoC channel, not an operational burden. They mine them for patterns, root causes, and systemic issues that silently fuel churn.

5. Analytics and AI-Driven Text Mining: Scaling Insights

The new era of Voice of Customer is not about collecting more feedback; it’s about understanding all of it. AI now reads thousands of comments, detects sentiment shifts, clusters themes, surfaces risks, and highlights opportunities with a level of precision no human team could achieve manually.

This isn’t automation. It’s an augmentation, giving teams superhuman visibility into what customers are thinking. AI doesn’t replace the human element; it amplifies it by making insights faster, clearer, and more actionable.

6. Combining Methods: A 360-Degree View

World-class companies don’t rely on any single method.
They build ecosystems.
Surveys create structure.
Interviews create depth.
Digital signals create immediacy.
Support interactions create honesty.
AI creates scale and intelligence.

When these pieces work together, companies move from “reacting to feedback” to predicting customer needs. They stop guessing. They start knowing. And that’s the real goal of a modern Voice of Customer program: clarity that drives action.

Did you know? 

A benchmark study of 150+ B2B SaaS companies found that organisations with “Expert” customer feedback systems are 6.5× more likely to significantly outperform competitors.
In that same study, 66.7% of companies with expert feedback systems reported improved satisfaction scores, versus only 28.1% of companies with basic feedback approaches.
Also, 83.3% of companies with advanced feedback practices reported increased upsells. Source

Read: Customer-Led Product Development: The Future of Building Products That Win

Different Types of Voice of the Customer (VoC) Surveys

Let’s break down the most powerful types of VoC surveys and how each one helps you capture, understand, and act on customer feedback.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys

CSAT surveys are the simplest and most popular way to measure customer happiness.

They ask a direct question like: “How satisfied are you with your experience?” High CSAT scores signal delight. Drops often signal growing frustration or usability issues. Tracking this over time helps benchmark performance across teams and customer touchpoints.

Use AI-based tools like TheySaid to automatically analyze CSAT text responses and detect emerging trends you might miss manually.

Read: Unlocking Success with Online Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Net Promoter Score (NPS) Surveys

NPS surveys are your loyalty compass. They measure how likely customers are to recommend your company to others — a simple 0–10 scale that reveals deep insights into retention and advocacy.

• Promoters (9–10) → Loyal fans who drive referrals.
• Passives (7–8) → Satisfied but unenthusiastic.
• Detractors (0–6) → At risk of churn.

NPS doesn’t just measure happiness; it predicts future behavior. Analyzing open-text feedback from detractors often uncovers the root causes of churn or dissatisfaction.

Read: CSAT vs NPS: Which Customer Experience Metric Actually Works?

Customer Effort Score (CES) Surveys

Customer Effort Score surveys measure how easy it is for customers to complete an action, whether that’s onboarding, upgrading, or resolving an issue.  In customer experience (CX), effort predicts loyalty. Customers who find it easy to achieve their goals are far more likely to stay.  A low CES score highlights friction in your product journey, giving your team the data to fix bottlenecks before they become churn triggers.

Read: Customer Effort Score: The Complete Guide to CES

Product Feedback Surveys 

Product feedback surveys help you collect input directly from users about features, usability, and satisfaction.

They answer questions like:

• Which features add real value?
• What frustrates users most?
• What do customers want next?

By integrating product feedback surveys into your roadmap process, you reduce guesswork and prioritize what truly matters to users.

Customer Experience (CX) Surveys

A CX survey identifies breakdowns between teams, departments, or channels that can harm brand perception. Understanding the full journey helps leadership create a unified, customer-first strategy that improves satisfaction and retention.

Onboarding & Implementation Surveys

The onboarding phase is the foundation of customer success. Onboarding surveys reveal whether new customers feel confident, supported, and ready to get value from your product. When customers struggle early, they rarely recover. These surveys help Customer Success teams identify friction points in setup, training, and first use, dramatically improving retention rates.

Read: How to Conduct an Effective Onboarding Feedback Survey

Pulse Surveys

Pulse surveys are short, frequent check-ins designed to track customer sentiment over time.

Instead of long, one-time surveys, these micro-feedback forms ask one or two quick questions, often monthly or quarterly, to detect shifts in satisfaction, trust, or engagement. They’re perfect for catching subtle changes in customer mood before they escalate into bigger issues. Pulse surveys are especially powerful when paired with AI, allowing companies to analyze trends and spot declining sentiment early.

Pre-Renewal and Post-Renewal Surveys

Renewal moments are make-or-break. Pre-renewal surveys help you gauge intent, uncover dissatisfaction, and spot upsell opportunities before the renewal cycle begins. Post-renewal surveys, on the other hand, reveal why customers chose to stay, insights you can replicate across similar accounts. These surveys tie customer feedback directly to revenue outcomes, helping Customer Success and Account Management teams align retention strategies with financial performance.

How to Create an Effective Voice of Customer (VoC) Survey 

Step 1: Figure Out Your Purpose

Before you even start thinking about questions, pause for a moment. Ask yourself: Why am I doing this? What do I really want to learn? Getting clear on your purpose is crucial; it helps you focus on the areas that matter most and ensures the feedback you collect is actually useful. Think about what decisions the insights will support and which parts of the customer journey you want to explore.

Step 2: Pick the Right Survey Type

Once you know your goal, it’s time to choose the kind of survey that makes sense. Do you want to measure loyalty? Go with a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. Want to check satisfaction with a recent experience? Try a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) survey. Curious about how easy it is for customers to interact with your brand? A Customer Effort Score (CES) survey is your friend. You can even use quick pulse surveys or interview-style feedback for more detailed insights.

Platforms like TheySaid make this step simple. The tool guides you to pick the right survey type based on your objectives, so you don’t waste time guessing.

Step 3: Write Questions That Actually Get Answers

Now comes the heart of your survey, the questions. Keep them simple, clear, and conversational. Avoid long, confusing sentences or questions that lead people toward a particular answer. This is where TheySaid’s AI-powered survey builder can really help. Just give it some context, and it will generate questions tailored to your audience. It can mix question types, suggest follow-ups, and even dig into the “why” behind each response, all without making it feel robotic.

Step 4: Share Your Survey Where Customers Will See It

A survey isn’t useful if no one sees it. Send it out through the channels your customers actually use: email, in-app messages, SMS, QR codes, or social media. Timing matters too. Send it right after a purchase, support call, or product experience to get the freshest, most accurate feedback. TheySaid makes multi-channel distribution easy, so your survey reaches the right people at the right time.

Step 5: Analyze the Feedback and Take Action

Collecting responses is just the start. The real value comes when you analyze and act on them. TheySaid automatically organizes responses, highlights key themes, and surfaces actionable insights. Suddenly, raw feedback turns into a clear roadmap for improving your product, service, or overall customer experience. When done right, a VoC survey isn’t just a form; it’s a continuous feedback loop that helps you build loyalty, trust, and long-term growth.

5 Advantages of Voice of the Customer (VoC) Surveys

Building on the techniques and survey types above, here’s why VoC surveys are essential.

Here are five big advantages of using VoC surveys in your business: 

1. The Fastest Route to Actionable Insights

If you want to know what your customers really think, ask them. It’s that simple. VoC surveys are one of the easiest ways to get targeted, real-time feedback. You can quickly uncover what’s working, what’s not, and what needs attention.

2. Understand Customer Sentiment at Scale

A well-designed VoC survey doesn’t just collect opinions; it captures emotion. It helps you understand how customers feel about your product, service, or brand overall. Are they delighted? Frustrated? Indifferent?

3. Strengthen Retention (Before It’s Too Late)

Let’s face it, not every customer who leaves will tell you why. That silence can be costly. A consistent VoC survey program helps you spot early signs of churn and understand where you might be falling short. When customers see that you’re listening and improving based on their input, they’re far more likely to stay loyal.

4. Prevent Small Issues from Becoming Big Problems

In today’s world, a single negative post or review can spread like wildfire. But when you give customers a safe, private way to share feedback first, you can resolve frustrations before they go public. VoC surveys act like a pressure valve, letting customers vent directly to you instead of the internet. 

5. Unlock Personalization at Every Touchpoint

Personalization isn’t just a marketing buzzword; it’s an expectation. VoC surveys let you understand customers on a deeper level: their needs, motivations, and preferences. This insight helps you tailor everything to match what they actually want.

Create a Voice of Customer (VoC) Survey with TheySaid 

Create a Voice of Customer survey effortlessly with TheySaid. Collect feedback across channels, analyze responses with AI, and turn insights into actionable strategies. Enhance satisfaction, reduce churn, and make smarter business decisions all in one platform. Book a demo or sign up for free today.

FAQs

When should I send VoC surveys to customers?

After key interactions like purchases, onboarding, support calls, or at regular intervals via pulse surveys to capture timely feedback.

How do VoC surveys help improve product development?

They reveal customer pain points, feature requests, and usability insights, enabling data-driven decisions for product improvements.

Which channels are best for distributing VoC surveys?

Email, in-app messages, SMS, website prompts, QR codes, and social media are all effective, depending on where customers engage most.