Customer Research & Voice of Customer

Overview

Every marketing decision is a bet on what your customer cares about. This skill turns raw customer signal into structured insight that every downstream marketing skill consumes. At $1M-5M ARR, you have 50-500 customers — enough for patterns, few enough to talk to them.

When to Use

• Starting a new marketing function from scratch
• Existing marketing lacks customer evidence
• Entering a new market segment
• ICP needs validation or refresh
• Messaging doesn't resonate (low conversion, poor sales feedback)
• Churn patterns are unclear
• Preparing to build any downstream marketing skill

Don't use when: You have recent (<6 months) validated research and no market changes.

Quick Reference

Phase	Duration	Output
Audit existing signal	Day 1	Customer Signal Audit
Design primary research	Day 2-3	Research Plan + Interview Guide
Conduct & synthesize	Week 1-3	Customer Research Synthesis
Build artifacts	Day 1 post-synthesis	Voice Library, JTBD Map, Journey Map

Core Deliverables

• Customer Voice Library — 50+ categorized quotes by pain, aspiration, objection, value
• JTBD Map — Primary, related, emotional, and social jobs
• Buying Journey Map — Trigger → Research → Evaluation → Decision → Onboarding
• Churn & Expansion Signal Map — Why customers leave/expand, early warnings

Common Mistakes

• Surveying instead of interviewing (surveys give data, interviews give understanding)
• Only talking to happy customers (churned/lost deals have the real insight)
• Letting AI replace interviews (AI synthesizes; humans conduct conversations)
• Treating this as one-time (build continuous cadence: 2-3 interviews/month)
• Skipping language capture (exact customer words > any messaging framework)

Integration

Feeds into: defining-icp-segmentation, building-positioning-messaging, gathering-competitive-intel, running-content-engine, growing-nrr

Refresh: Full cycle every 6 months. Ongoing interviews 2-3/month. Voice library update monthly.

See workflow.md for detailed phase-by-phase execution, interview templates, AI-assisted synthesis workflows, and integration point diagrams.