Gerry Katz
Executive Vice President, Applied Marketing Science, Inc.

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What Is This Thing Called VOC, and Why Is It Different From What You Think?

The concept of listening to the Voice of the Customer has been around for nearly 20 years now, and has been empirically shown to be a clear “best practice” in new product development. Yet VOC is still too often misunderstood, misused, and poorly executed. True VOC is not just any kind of market research, and it is definitely not just asking the customer what they want! This highly regarded course, taught by one of the most experienced experts in the field today, will set things straight and teach you how to gather, analyze, and effectively use VOC in your own new product development initiatives.

Objectives

After completing this seminar, you will:

• Clearly understand the true definition of Voice of the Customer
• Have a well thought out plan for your own VOC project(s)
• Understand both the qualitative and quantitative parts of VOC
• Know how to design a sample and write an interview guide
• Be ready to interview customers yourself
• Be able to analyze the mountain of data that results from a good VOC study
• Know how to use that information to set priorities and make better new product development decisions
  
  

Who Should Attend

People involved in new product development, including team members from marketing, market research, engineering, R&D, sales, and product management— virtually anyone charged with the development of new products and/or services in a business-to-business setting, and who are in need of a better understanding of their customers’ wants and needs. 

Content

• Course Overview

      Why You Should Listen to Customers
      Correctly Defining the Voice of the Customer
      How Voice of the Customer Fits Into the Product / Service Design Process

• Designing the Interview Process

      Who to Interview – Designing a Sample
      Where and How to Interview Them – Focus Groups vs. One-on-Ones, Ethnography / Contextual 

•  Observation

      Logistics of Interviewing – Recruitment, Facilities, Technology
      Writing the Interview Guide

• How to Interview Customers

      Introducing the Interview
      Active Listening
      Probing – Getting Past Generalities Like “Durable”, “Good Quality” , and “Easy to Use”
      Role-playing and Practice Interviewing

• Analyzing the Interviews

      Transcribing, Highlighting, and Winnowing
      Needs vs. Solutions, Engineering Characteristics, Target Values, and Opinions

• Organizing and Prioritizing What Customers Say

      Affinitizing Customer Needs
      Importance vs. Performance

• What You Can Do With Voice of the Customer Information

      Avoiding the Pitfalls

• Translating The Voice of the Customer into Product and Service Design Specifications using QFD

• Translating The Voice of the Customer Into New Features and Solutions

      Traditional vs. Web-based Brainstorming and Ideation

Format

This seminar will begin both days at 8:30 a.m. and will go until about 5:00 p.m. on the first day and about 2:30 p.m. on the second day. A combination of presentations and hands-on exercises will be used throughout the seminar with many examples from real world cases.

Instructor

Gerry Katz is a recognized authority in the areas of new product development, design of new services, product marketing, and market research, with nearly 35 years of consulting experience. At AMS, he has led more than 100 major client engagements employing The Voice of the Customer (VOC), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and a large number of other marketing science applications. His client assignments have covered a wide variety of industries, with particular emphasis on healthcare and medical technology. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA), the world's leading professional society devoted to the study and practice of developing and commercializing new products and services. He is also certified as a New Product Development Professional (NPDP) and is a contributing editor to Visions Magazine.

Prior to joining AMS, Gerry's experience included 12 years as a management consultant in marketing and market research with Management Decision Systems, Inc., 5 years in the computer software industry as senior vice president of information resources, and 2 years as vice president and general manager of Image Presentations, Inc., a specialized marketing communications firm.

He is the author of several award-winning papers, and received the William O'Dell Prize from the American Marketing Association in 1988. His articles have appeared in The Journal of Product Innovation Management, The European Management Journal, The Journal of Marketing Research, and Interfaces. He has lectured frequently at the business schools of MIT (Sloan), the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Dartmouth College (Tuck), Carnegie-Mellon University, and Harvard University. Gerry has appeared twice on the NBC Today Show and in The Wall Street Journal. His outside interests are in music and education, and he has served on a number of committees and boards of directors at the University of Rochester, the Eastman School of Music, the Longy School of Music, and the Boston Higashi School.

Gerry received his B.S. in Management Science from the University of Rochester in 1970 and his S.M. in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1972.

Date and Location

This seminar will be held on July 22 - 23, 2009 in the Philadelphia area. Venue and hotel information will be provided upon registration.

Cost and Registration

ISBM Members: $1,500 USD
Non-Members: $2,500 USD

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Contact Us

Paula Dorminy or Gary Holler
Phone: 814-863-2782
Fax: 814-863-0413
E-mail: isbm@psu.edu