There are two typical success models that companies use to create high values. With one type, the company has a commanding lead in either technology or brand recognition. Their products or brands dominate the market place and become industry standards. Examples include Microsoft, Intel, and Google. The driver for value creation for this type of company is technical or brand dominance, or technology-driven innovation.

The other model for success develops products or services that capture the heart of customers; examples of this kind of company would be Starbucks and Apple. The driver for value creation for this type of company is customer-centric innovation. Some would argue that Apple has transitioned or is transitioning from one model to the other. In either case, a thorough understanding of the voice of the customer is very important.

With these two successful models, the real key to success is that the offering or brand brings exceptional value to customers, and that the customers are willing to pay good prices. It's clear that both sales volume and sustainable price are mostly determined by the customer's perceived value of the offering. Customer opinion determines a product's fate.

An offering that has high customer value is often associated with increasing market share, increasing client endorsement, word of mouth praise, reasonable price, and a healthy profit margin for the company that produces it.

Clearly, capturing the voice of the customer (VOC) is a very important factor, whether you're dealing with a technology product or service development. When placed in context of the product innovation process, many would say that this activity is conducted at the first, or front-end of the process.

While it's true that there are opportunities at the front-end of innovation process, it’s critical to continue gathering the VOC throughout the innovation process. Ideally, at each decision point in the process, you would consider the VOC. That's not to say you would have to follow it, but at least hear it.

I show this old NPD framework (O'Connor 1994) diagram that shows that even back then it was recognized that the Product Management team was making product decisions throughout what we would call today the activities of the Seven Pillars. These decision points should refer to the VOC, if not validate those decisions by gathering the VOC on those decisions.

Product Management teams need to let the VOC weigh in at every decision point, not just at the start of the product initiative. Not only does this interaction with the market help keep your activities aligned with the values of the market, but many times can even help shape those market values.

Capturing and analysis of the VOC is a very important part of the activities within all of the Seven Pillars of Product Management. If you only use traditional customer data collection methods, you may get inaccurate and incomplete information. Much like photographing a small piece of the elephant, it can be misleading. It can take a lot of effort and sophisticated methods to gather VOC accurately and distill valuable inputs into the decision process.

By staying aligned with VOC, the product management team can deliver products with higher perceived value. This in turn will increase sales volumes and maintain a higher sustainable price. At the end, those who gather and analyze VOC effectively increase their competitive advantage over those who cannot.