What would it be like if your printer sent you an email to let you know it needed ink? Or if your car could tell you that you need to take it in for transmission service? Or if your refrigerator could tell the repair professional what was wrong with it before you ever said a word? 

Sound like a futuristic take on product technology? It is, and it’s called the Internet of Things (IoT). However, you might be surprised to know that the ability to have all these things is already available and some companies have been using it to excellent effect.

In this episode, we hosted Tobias Goebel (@tpgoebel) Product Marketing Principal at Twilio IoT. Goebel’s article, “It’s Time for the VoC to Get a Little Brother: The Voice of the Product,” introduced the idea of the Voice of Product (VoP) to us. We discuss how the VoP can change how experiences occur in the future and why it should be a significant part of your customer strategy today. 

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

Goebel is clear that he thinks the VoP will not replace the VoC. Instead, Goebel sees it as enhancing the interactions customers have with organizations. The VoP can help firms be proactive in anticipating customers’ needs by communicating issues before they become problems, be active in resolving customer issues by providing unbiased feedback regarding its usage and be reactive to the trends the product team sees and areas of opportunity the VoP uncovers from the data it reveals. 

Here are a few more of the key moments in the discussion: 

• 05:04  Goebel describes how he views IoT and what that means for product technology and the VoP.    
• 10:35  We discuss how the VoP could be used with different consumer products, like vacuum robots and table saws. 
• 12:19  Goebel shares the three benefits he sees for connecting a product into an organization.    
• 16:07  We hear a story about iRobot, which inspired Goebel’s article and fueled his fascination for what was possible with the VoP from a customer service perspective.  
• 20:23  Ryan and Goebel discuss how the Voice of Customer and the VoP can work together to provide lots of valuable insight and facilitate faster response times. 
• 26:47   Goebel explains how Amazon has a leg up on this insight as it is an outlet for millions of products and has access to the data about them.
• 28:52  We talk about why now is the time to tap into VoP and what you should consider when you do so.   

This episode was sponsored by Twilio 

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work.: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular LinkedIn column called, Why Customers Buy . Click here to read and subscribe. 

Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last three years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

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