[PRACTICE NOTE] Old School Voice of the Customer for New School Advantage at Adidas

PRACTICE NOTE: VoC is like the plumbing of customer experience—essential yet easy to overlook, and awkward to speak about. Like plumbing, it operates behind the scenes, quietly gathering feedback and data, but is frequently undervalued, marginalized or taken for granted. In practice, as a tangible manifestation of how customers are viewed, valued and treated, far too many companies dismiss it in favor of gut feelings, creative license, executive fiat or the influence of the loudest voice in the room. However, as the instincts of many progressive CMOs, commercial strategists, modern marketers, and sales leaders suggest, neglecting VoC is a critical misstep in fueling the revenue performance and value creation engines as it serves as the foundation for differentiating in crowded and noisy markets, understanding customers in nuanced ways, and meeting them where they are. To learn more order “The Customer Excellence Enterprise: A Playbook for Creating Customers for Life” at all major booksellers.

What’s the situation?

Modern marketers love their data and sales reps love their rituals. From audience demographics and purchasing behaviors to campaign performance metrics, marketers rely on data to identify trends, segment audiences, and optimize campaigns. Similarly, sales reps are deeply attached to their time-tested habits and routines that define their craft. Whether it’s the morning review of their pipeline, meticulously call planning, or perfecting the art of the pitch, these rituals are more than just tasks; they are a source of confidence and consistency.

However, the marketer’s reliance on data provides a lens on WHAT  is happening and the sales rep’s reliance on rituals can define HOW to close a deal, but neither has really cracked the code on the WHY. Omnichannel Voice of the customer (VoC) as an idea and actual data fills that gap, offering contextually rich qualitative and quantitative insights that uncover (often explicitly articulated) customer preferences, motivations and needs.

When marketing and sales teams fail to incorporate these nuggets into their decision cycles and workflows, they risk missing opportunities to calibrate messaging and propositions to customer purchasing triggers or failing to detect subtle shifts in customer preferences or demand signals. Without a disciplined approach to embedding VoC into the commercial model, marketers may find themselves forced to go to market with tired or untested assumptions and an incomplete picture of the customer, inevitably leading to a lack of message-market fir and suboptimal commercial execution.

Key Question: If customer voice itself is so inherently valuable, why is it so often marginalized in favor of less precise data sources, such as third party market research, that try to serve as a proxy for VoC?

What Customer Excellence Enterprises (CXEs) DO #1.

Customer Excellence Enterprises (CXEs) take a fundamentally different approach. Aligned with the guidance outlined in Operations (OPS) Bold Move #5: Embrace the Customer’s Voice as Truth, CXEs value the customer’s voice as truth, opening up a world of opportunity for marketing, sales and other commercial processes. In this commercial (rather than operational) context, omnichannel VoC allows companies to move beyond a transactional perspective and associated metrics —clicks, opens, and conversion rates alone—to also focus on the "why" behind customer behaviors.

This insight is critical for identifying gaps in the market, refining value propositions and messaging, and delivering experiences that drive long-term relationships vs. short-term transactional episodes. When VoC is treated as a strategic asset and operationalized across marketing and sales, it creates a virtuous cycle of listening, adapting, and delivering value—ensuring that the customer remains at the heart of brand narratives, commercial engines and corporate success formulas. CXEs accomplish this with three major actions:

Embed VoC into Marketing.  When effectively integrated into marketing, VoC data can transform campaigns from being generic and mechanical to being deeply personalized and impactful. Through the nuanced understanding of customer sentiment, intent, and behaviors, marketers can craft messaging and activations that address real customer needs and speak directly to their priorities. To support the evaluation of message-market fit for example, VoC can reveal preferences for certain product features, concerns about pricing, or desires for specific benefits—allowing marketing and product teams to adapt their tactics and strategies accordingly. The result is not only better campaign performance but also elevated brand equity as customers feel seen, heard and understood.

Embed VoC into Sales. In sales, VoC is the ultimate sales enablement capability, providing a virtual roadmap for more meaningful engagements and sales conversations. The demand signals and anecdotes embedded in the customer’s voice equips sales teams to better anticipate objections, identify opportunities, and tailor pitches to address individual barriers at the point of sale. For example, knowing that a specific segment values speed of delivery over cost allows sales reps to highlight that differentiator in their conversations. This customer-centric approach increases the likelihood of closing deals and enhances the overall customer experience, building relationships that go beyond the immediate transaction.

VoC Data Mash-Up. Marketing, sales, and commercial operations in CXEs generate truly novel insights into customer intent and behavior by integrating CRM operational data (O-data) with behavioral (B-data) “breadcrumbs” and omnichannel VoC (X-data) inputs. CRM systems provide a structured view of customer interactions, purchase histories, and preferences, offering a foundational understanding of customer relationships. Layering in behavioral breadcrumbs—website navigation patterns, engagement tendencies and app usage data—on top of this foundation, reveals nuanced behavioral signals that are actionable clues about customer intent and readiness to purchase.

Incorporating omnichannel VoC data further enriches this perspective with real-time insights into what customers are thinking, feeling and hearing, creating a holistic view of customer sentiment, expectations, and pain points. The synthesis of these data streams provides a true 360-degree perspective, enabling CXEs to move beyond traditional demographic segmentation to a more impactful and relevant sentiment-based segmentation that empowers marketers to anticipate customer needs at scale, identify churn risks, and proactively address gaps in the customer experience.

Unlocking deep differentiation.  With the unfiltered lens into customer preferences, pain points, and decision-making triggers provided by VoC, marketers can craft unique selling propositions (USPs) that resonate with customers at the scale needed to grow markets and categories and on the hyper-personalized level that individual customers increasingly expect. 

Adidas actively operationalizes the voice of the customer by gathering feedback through various channels like online reviews, focus groups, and social media interactions, using this information to directly influence product development, marketing strategies, and overall brand direction, considering the customer as the starting point for all their creations, essentially valuing them as "creator consumers"  who can co-create with the brand; this allows them to stay connected with evolving consumer needs and preferences. More than a nice-to-have source of interesting anecdotes and sound bites, taking VoC to the next level fosters stronger customer relationships, enhances loyalty, and positions companies to deliver value consistently. 

For Customer Excellence Enterprises, omnichannel VoC is not just plumbing—it’s the lifeblood of their commercial success. To transform VoC into actionable truths CXEs validate insights across multiple data sources and channels. They integrate CRM, structured feedback, social listening, customer service feedback, and behavioral analytics into a cohesive narrative that reveals the complete customer experience. Ultimately, leveraging a diverse and continuous stream of VoC data ensures that decisions are grounded in a richer, more actionable understanding of the customer, driving greater relevance and unique selling propositions that are truly unique.  

Key Takeaways.

• As a true manifestation of empathy, CXEs recognize that the voice of the customer is virtual gold dust —an unfiltered, invaluable source of truth that is uniquely capable of catalyzing change and meaningful action. 
• Listening too narrowly to the customer’s voice stifles innovation, blinds decision-makers to shifting market dynamics, and results in commercial strategies misaligned with customers.
• Over time, these disconnects erode trust (internally and externally), diminishes competitive edge, and reduces the ability to detect and respond effectively to shifts in customer behaviors and preferences.
• Data from diverse touchpoints, allow marketers to triangulate to filter out noise and uncover patterns that point to deeper truths.
• This evidence-based approach ensures that decisions are not swayed by bias or tendencies but are grounded in the realities of customer needs and desires.

Questions to Consider

• Are we capturing real-time feedback and adapting to changing customer preferences?  
  
• Are customer insights driving measurable changes in marketing campaigns, sales strategies, and product/service enhancements?  
  
• Are we tracking key performance indicators (e.g., customer retention, conversion rates, and revenue growth) linked to VoC data?  

To learn more order  “The Customer Excellence Enterprise: A Playbook for Creating Customers for Life”   at all major booksellers.