Summary

While many believe that customer VoC in a new product development process is a specific event that occurs as part of the business case or marketing analysis, the promise and impact of VoC in a new product's development can be so much more. Many organizations use a stage-gate or similar process for their new developments as a way to provide structure to the new development process. Regardless of which stage of predevelopment you are in—Ideation, Concept, or the Detailed assessment—Customer VoC plays a pivotal role in shaping your product deliverables. If you are in the Development stage of your project, Customer VoC provides the input to make the intelligent choices and tradeoffs that inevitably occur during a development. If you are in the test or the Sales stage, VoC helps you ensure that your assumptions were correct and provides the foundation to articulate the market value to the customer segments. If you are in the post-mortem stage, VoC is critical to evaluate how well you...