Key Takeaways
- • Customer feedback can expose gaps between leadership assumptions and what customers actually value; in one engagement, customers prioritized service and delivery, the company's weakest area, over relationships, where it performed well.
- • A stable likelihood-to-recommend score of 7 out of 10 masked a deteriorating relationship at one of the company's largest customers, whose comments shifted from "not seeing the same proactive service" to feeling "taken for granted."
- • Customer insights should become prioritized decisions with clear ownership, resourcing, measurable success criteria, and scheduled reviews; in this case, improving site leadership had been the team's top Winning Move two years earlier but was never fully funded.
- • Sales materials focused on the company rather than customer problems: Paul Pirkle reviewed a deck in which 39 of 40 pages were about the company itself, and customers did not understand the full range of services offered.
- • Customer listening must be continuous and methodologically consistent, including customers with differing experiences (new, at-risk, and lost), since the study interviewed no lost customers and changed research firms and participants between years.
Summary
An article by Rhythm Systems leadership describes how leadership teams can use Voice of Customer (VoC) research to inform strategic planning for the year ahead. The author argues that collecting feedback is only the starting point; the critical step is deciding what the organization will do differently as a result. The piece uses a two-day planning session with a leadership team working on its 2027 growth strategy, facilitated with Rhythm Consultant Paul Pirkle, as its central example. Leaders were asked to predict customer sentiment before findings were revealed, and their hypotheses were compared with the research. The team correctly identified which of two major customer relationships was stronger but underestimated trust in both.
The session surfaced a key misalignment. According to the article, the CFO observed, "The stuff that's most important to them is not the stuff that we're doing." Customers felt cared for, but what they valued most was service and delivery, which was the company's weakest area. The CEO reported that a customer had said unprompted, "You're only as good as your site manager." Customers who were thrilled pointed to strong on-site leadership, while those close to leaving described inconsistent site leadership. The team had identified improving site leadership as its number one Winning Move two years earlier, but it had repeatedly lost out to more urgent priorities. The article characterizes the feedback as reinforcing an existing decision rather than creating a new strategy.
The author cautions against relying on stable scores. One of the company's largest customers gave a likelihood-to-recommend score of 7 out of 10 in both years of an independent study, yet comments moved from "not seeing the same proactive service" to feeling "taken for granted," with hints of spreading business elsewhere. The article recommends Red-Yellow-Green dashboards and early warning systems, along with reading comments and tracking experience over time. Feedback also revealed strengths the team had not recognized: customers praised the company's site launches, which the team had experienced as stressful and disorganized.
The article also addresses sales messaging and methodology. Paul Pirkle reportedly found that 39 of a 40-page sales deck focused on the company, and customers did not understand the breadth of services available, including one service area where the company performed millions of dollars of work. The author recommends framing proposals and materials around customer problems and outcomes. On automation, the article notes customers placed greater importance on face-to-face meetings than the prior year, though participant changes between studies limit firm conclusions. The author endorses AI for organizing transcripts while advising companies to ask customers where human access matters most.
Finally, the article recommends embedding customer listening into annual planning and quarterly reviews. It flags methodological gaps: nearly all interviewees had been customers for five years or more, no lost customers were interviewed, and only two of seven interviewees in the latest study had also participated the prior year after the company changed research firms. The author suggests including new, at-risk, and lost customers and maintaining a consistent core panel so that changes in scores can be interpreted accurately.
The session surfaced a key misalignment. According to the article, the CFO observed, "The stuff that's most important to them is not the stuff that we're doing." Customers felt cared for, but what they valued most was service and delivery, which was the company's weakest area. The CEO reported that a customer had said unprompted, "You're only as good as your site manager." Customers who were thrilled pointed to strong on-site leadership, while those close to leaving described inconsistent site leadership. The team had identified improving site leadership as its number one Winning Move two years earlier, but it had repeatedly lost out to more urgent priorities. The article characterizes the feedback as reinforcing an existing decision rather than creating a new strategy.
The author cautions against relying on stable scores. One of the company's largest customers gave a likelihood-to-recommend score of 7 out of 10 in both years of an independent study, yet comments moved from "not seeing the same proactive service" to feeling "taken for granted," with hints of spreading business elsewhere. The article recommends Red-Yellow-Green dashboards and early warning systems, along with reading comments and tracking experience over time. Feedback also revealed strengths the team had not recognized: customers praised the company's site launches, which the team had experienced as stressful and disorganized.
The article also addresses sales messaging and methodology. Paul Pirkle reportedly found that 39 of a 40-page sales deck focused on the company, and customers did not understand the breadth of services available, including one service area where the company performed millions of dollars of work. The author recommends framing proposals and materials around customer problems and outcomes. On automation, the article notes customers placed greater importance on face-to-face meetings than the prior year, though participant changes between studies limit firm conclusions. The author endorses AI for organizing transcripts while advising companies to ask customers where human access matters most.
Finally, the article recommends embedding customer listening into annual planning and quarterly reviews. It flags methodological gaps: nearly all interviewees had been customers for five years or more, no lost customers were interviewed, and only two of seven interviewees in the latest study had also participated the prior year after the company changed research firms. The author suggests including new, at-risk, and lost customers and maintaining a consistent core panel so that changes in scores can be interpreted accurately.
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