Where does VoC fit in the product development process?

If you ask a typical product manager or business owner where VoC is used within their development process, they will typically highlight the following two key areas:

While this is not incorrect, customer input should not stop at the completion of the ideation or predevelopment market study phases of the project, but rather the customer input needs to be incorporated at all phases of the product development plan. While quality customer input is a critical piece of the upfront work, seeking customer input at critical stages of the development via concept tests, prototypes, beta trials, and other methods will also play a large role in the success in the new product innovation process.

Early customer input is critical to creating a successful product design. Multiple studies show the link between solid, up-front customer interaction and market analysis when creating a winning product. Successful firms tend to spend about twice as much time and money on the following critical up-front activities augmented by solid VoC:

As we have discussed earlier, a common complaint is that homework slows down the development process. Of course, the evidence points to a very different conclusion as studies have shown that if the homework is omitted, there is a much higher likelihood of product failure and the need to redesign the product. The additional time spent on project definition in this phase actually speeds up the development process by reducing the slippages caused by vague product requirements and unanticipated issues.