Henri Heikkinen

We asked, and 2,305 of you answered. Thanks.

Short version: 96.6% of our customers are happy with Valco. The average score in the satisfaction survey was over 9, so we’re not completely lost in the woods. Unfortunately, satisfaction had still dropped from the previous North Korea-level 9.35 figures, so things have moved in the wrong direction. Then again, the audience has grown too: we now have over 100,000 customers.

We could still write this whole text about how well everything is rolling along. That would be boring and dishonest.

Instead, this text focuses on two things: the 3.4% who weren’t satisfied, and what you want from us next. Both tell us more than the compliments do.

Who you are

Of the survey respondents, and naturally of Valco’s customer base too, the majority are still from Finland. Germany is clearly the most important export market with nearly a fifth of respondents. Sweden is worryingly represented by only a couple of percent, even though we’re expanding in Sweden and we do have customers there. Probably they couldn’t answer in English. The rest add up to a few percent, spread fairly evenly around the world.

What’s more interesting, though, is what kind of people our customers are. The end result seems to be that our customers look a lot like us entrepreneurs. Meaning original, unique, and absolutely brilliant individuals.

Or rather, middle-aged men. While everyone else seems to be chasing selfie-snapping youth gangs on Instagram, our customers are of a more mature variety. That’s not intentional, but honestly, our humor probably doesn’t appeal to young people whose jokes are things like “SIX SEVEN HÖHÖHÖHÖ” or some other completely content-free crap.

That’s what happens when kids get to sit around with a phone and an iPad. Their brains have melted.

So the customer base is heavily weighted toward middle age. People aged 50–70 (38.4%) and 40–50 (34.0%) together make up 72.4% of respondents. Those aged 30–40 account for 20.6%, and under-30s only 6.1%. You’re not turning this into a trendy youth brand even with some very creative use of imagination.

Which is good, because young people don’t have any money anyway. Our own kids are also constantly short on cash.

The share of men in the survey was still overrepresented (79.3%). This isn’t supposed to be some dude brand. We’ll gladly take everyone’s money regardless of gender, and thankfully the actual customer stats show that we appeal to middle-aged women too, not just our own wife.

The geographical distribution of customers matches pretty damn well where Finns actually live. The Germans may have distorted the stats a bit, sure, but 23.9% of customers come from the Helsinki metropolitan area, 29.2% from regional centers, 29.8% from small towns, and 17.0% from sparsely populated areas. The biggest statistical deviation is in sparsely populated areas (Finland’s average is 13-14%). That’s probably where Puolanka stands out, where every other person seems to have Valco headphones. 

So Valco is pretty much headphones for the whole nation, not some niche bubble thing. The webshop stats support this too.

Linguistically, English dominated the responses with a 67.5% share, even though Finnish respondents made up 77.7%. So some Finns preferred answering in English. The share of German-language responses (7.2%) was smaller than the share of German respondents (15.8%), which means some Germans also preferred answering in English. Everyone wants to be international except us, or the users were just too stupid to switch the default language from that big flag-shaped button.

What pisses people off the most

Quality issues are really our only problem, at least if you look at the survey. In absolute numbers it’s not many customers, but even one dissatisfied customer is too many. That’s why we’ve already taken steps to improve quality, and we keep doing it all the time.

The biggest challenges have been with ear pad wear. Because of this, we bluntly replaced the subcontractor making the ear cushions, and we’re also bringing customers alternatives made from different materials. Right now we have a new material model in durability and wear testing.

We’ve also hired two outside quality consultants, one from Germany and one from Finland. Both are on site in China. The German one is a plastic Nazi, thanks to whom things like the headband already hold up much better than they did a year ago. The Finnish one, meanwhile, has been doing on-site quality control for 20 years and knows how to talk shit in Chinese, which we do not.

On top of that, we’ve made our own update app, which will be available soon. Through it, you’ll be able to download updates to the headphones that fix bugs and add new features.

The final solution to quality problems is production in Finland, but that requires us to sell enough of the current lineup first so we have the money to invest. In other words: buy now, so the next headphones get assembled under a more familiar postal code.

We’re also improving repairability all the time. Soon, for example, you’ll be able to replace the battery yourself at home. Every future model will always include improvements so that most wear parts are easy to replace yourself. That’s our goal: headphones that aren’t disposable junk.

What products you want from us next

The survey revealed a longer wish list than we expected. At least we don’t need to come up with any ideas of our own when there’s enough in customer wishes to keep us busy for at least the next election term. One request was for a dildo made to Raimo’s measurements, but unfortunately we couldn’t find a mold small enough.

Based on the poll data, the biggest interest is in noise cancelling headphones, ANC earbuds, and home hi-fi. Among individual requests, the top picks were:

  • Sports headphones. Clearly the biggest gap in the product range. Earbuds that stay in your ears while running, cycling, and working out. One respondent wished for “aerodynamic, wind-tunnel-tested earbuds that mute wind noise on a bike so well that you can actually hear the other person’s arguments on a phone call.” That’s a more specific brief than what we get from most product managers.
  • Desktop speakers and hi-fi components. Proper desktop speakers and parts for a stereo system. In the speaker category, the survey configurator showed the highest satisfaction scores in the entire survey.
  • ANC headphones designed for professional use. Headphones built for work and tough enough to survive nuclear war, with ANC made for harder use than a Teams meeting. Some respondents directly asked for a Peltor replacement.
  • Smaller earbuds. NL25 doesn’t fit everyone, and especially people with smaller ears have been left disappointed.
  • Wired gaming headphones. Wired headphones for gaming and studio use, preferably with a proper microphone. We thought this was a bit of a weird request, because if you attach a wired microphone thingy to any of our headphones, they become wired gaming headphones with noise cancelling. You really couldn’t ask for much better for that use.
  • Bone conduction headphones. Open-ear or bone conduction headphones that let you hear your surroundings. A clearly useful thing for exercise and getting around in the city.

We’ve stolen all the best ideas. To our delight, most of the most requested products were already things we have in the works. We’ll tell you more about them closer to launch.

How we know this works

We don’t know yet. But we measure it. The next customer survey will be done next year, and it needs to have more satisfied respondents than 96.6% or we’ll be fairly disappointed.

Thanks again to every one of the 2,305 respondents. Especially to everyone who bothered to write out their answers and explain their opinions. Without you, we wouldn’t know what to do next.