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Hello Reader,

What you do with that VOC makes or breaks the effectiveness of your copy.

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Here are 6 quick tips to help you collate VOC in a manner that surfaces the insights you need to get cracking on that compelling headline, ad copy, landing page, or email.

If you're writing long-form articles, this exercise will help you get to the very nub of the problem and, therefore, communicate the solution(s) with clarity.

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1. Copy responses verbatim into your research document.

Don't summarize or "clean up" the language. The exact words customers use, including typos, rambling sentences, imperfect grammar, often become your best headlines, hooks, and CTAs.
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​Customer writes: "Honestly, I felt like an idiot each time I opened Excel and nothing made sense lol."​
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​You write: "Tired of feeling like an idiot each time you open Excel?" (ad headline)

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2. Tag responses by customer segment​
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Not all VOC applies to all prospects.

Tag responses by company size, use case, industry, customer lifetime value, and purchase tier.

For example:
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• Company size (for B2B)
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• Use case

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• Industry

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• Customer lifetime value

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• Purchase tier

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How can you arrange all this information into one tabular representation?

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3. Record follow-up interviews with interesting respondents (if they're willing)

When someone gives a particularly detailed or emotional response, reply and ask if they'd be willing to chat for 15 minutes. These conversations uncover even richer language.

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4. Use survey responses as social proof.​
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I would argue that the best testimonials come from survey responses, and not by asking "Can you write us a testimonial?"

For example, if a survey answer is: "I was spending 6 hours a week on invoicing and honestly considering hiring someone just for that. Now it takes me 45 minutes."

Your testimonial could be: "From 6 hours to 45 minutes to invoice - and I didn't have to hire anyone!"​
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​5. Test survey timing and question order.

Run brief tests to optimize for the following:

• Does asking immediately after purchase work better than waiting for 24 hours?
• Does leading with the obstacle question get more honest answers than leading with expectations?
• Does a single question get more completion than two questions?

It helps to track answer quality and completion rates apart from response count.

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6. Close the loop.

Write back to respondents with a "thank you!" email and tell them how you used their feedback. This builds goodwill and encourages future participation.

For instance,
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​"Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts last week! Based on your feedback, we're updating our onboarding flow to make [xyz] clear. Really appreciate you helping us improve."​
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In the next edition, we'll go through examples of how to implement surveys across various types of businesses. It will be the final newsletter on the subject of surveys (in case you're sick of it!).
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Best,
Satabdi