The Voice of the Customer (VOC) is about understanding the customers' needs. Vital information from the customer can be used for many different improvement activities. The primary objective for collecting the VOC is to provide improved products and/or services. The basic premise for using the customer's voice is to define expectations and needs. Needs that they may not even know they have and expectations that exceed their wildest dreams.

Both time and money can be saved by carefully listening to what a customer says. Eighty percent of new products fail in the market place because no one paid attention to this most critical aspect - - the customer. For that reason, collecting the VOC is the first thing an organization should embark on when entering the market with a new product or service, or in the redesign of an existing product or service.

Getting good data from your organization’s customers means really listening to what they are saying. Having the entire team involved in collecting data is ideal. Team members need to understand how to gather objective data and how to build rapport with customers. This step in the VOC process can also be the most consuming. However, out of all the activities that a VOC project entails, getting input from the customer is by far the most important.clear and concise, context specific, in the customers’ own words, free of technical solutions to the problem.