Hijacking the Voice of the Customer

As the Front End of Innovation has achieved more prominence in Product Development, a controversy has emerged over the Voice of the Customer (VOC). At PDMA 2005 in San Diego, for instance, one speaker actually told the audience to “ignore the Voice of the Customer.” In this viewpoint article, author Gerry Katz jumps into this debate countering that inflammatory statement and providing guidance on what is “true” VOC.