“I’ve tried every dry shampoo out there and my scalp still itches by 2pm.”
Reddit, haircare thread
Pain angle: the 2pm itch. The hook names the exact moment the problem shows up, in the customer’s own words.
Voice of customer researchVoice of customer,
Get started free
Voice of customer,
without the surveys.
Your customers already wrote the research. It's sitting in Reddit threads, Amazon reviews, and TikTok comments. Voice of customer research is collecting those words and turning them into angles, hooks, and objection-handling copy.
1,000+ comments per scrape, ranked into angles in about 60 seconds.
What voice of customer means
Voice of customer (VOC) is the sum of what customers say about a problem, a product, and the alternatives they tried: their pains, desires, and objections, in their own phrasing. VOC research is the work of collecting that language and ranking it, so the loudest, most repeated themes drive what you build and how you sell it.
The traditional toolkit is surveys, interviews, and focus groups. They work, but they are slow, expensive, and biased by the questions you ask. The faster source is unprompted language: comments and reviews customers wrote on their own, with nobody framing the question. That is where ad-ready phrasing lives.
Voice of customer examples
One real-shaped verbatim per row, and the ad angle it becomes. This is the whole method in miniature: keep the customer's words, change the format.
“Bought it for the gym but honestly I just wear it to work every day now.”
Amazon review, apparel
Unexpected-use angle: customers reveal the real use case. The ad sells the daily habit, not the gym bag.
“Was about to return it until I watched the setup video. Why isn’t that the first thing you see?”
YouTube comment, product demo
Objection angle: a returns problem is an education problem. The creative leads with the 30-second setup.
How to run voice of customer research in 4 steps
1. Collect the raw language
Pull comments and reviews from the places your customers already talk: Reddit threads, Amazon reviews, TikTok and YouTube comments. No surveys, no interviews, no recruiting panels.
2. Search for pains, desires, and objections
Look for repeated phrases, not one-off opinions. If twelve people describe the same problem the same way, that phrasing is your ad copy.
3. Rank by frequency and intensity
A pain mentioned in 40 comments beats a clever line mentioned once. Rank themes by how often they appear and how strongly people phrase them.
4. Turn verbatims into angles and hooks
Keep the customer’s wording. “My scalp stopped itching in a week” outperforms “fast-acting relief” because your audience recognizes their own words.
Step 1 is the grind, so we automated it. Adlicio's Reddit comment scraper, Amazon review scraper, TikTok comment scraper, and YouTube comment scraper collect the raw language, and the research pipeline ranks it into angles for you.
Voice of customer tools, by type
There is no single best VOC tool; there are four different jobs. Pick by where your customers actually talk.
Survey platforms
Qualtrics, Medallia, SurveyMonkey
Ask customers structured questions at scale. Strong for CX programs and NPS tracking, but answers arrive in the company’s framing, not the customer’s natural words. Enterprise pricing.
Comment & review mining
Adlicio
Scrape what customers already wrote in public: Reddit, Amazon, TikTok, YouTube, app stores, review sites. Unprompted language, collected in minutes and ranked into ad-ready angles. Built for ad operators and DTC teams.
Audience intelligence
SparkToro, Brandwatch
Map where an audience hangs out and what it engages with. Useful for channel planning; lighter on the verbatim customer language you need for copy.
Call & ticket analysis
Gong, Chorus, support-inbox tagging
Mine sales calls and support tickets you already own. Excellent first-party signal if you have call volume; ecommerce brands with thin call volume get more from public comments.
Comparing audience-intelligence tools? See how Adlicio stacks up as a SparkToro alternative or browse all comparisons.
Voice of customer FAQ
What is voice of customer research?
Voice of customer (VOC) research is the practice of collecting what customers actually say about a problem or product, in their own words, and turning it into decisions: which pains to lead with, which objections to answer, which phrasing to use in ads and landing pages.
What is an example of voice of customer?
A Reddit comment like “I’ve tried every dry shampoo out there and my scalp still itches by 2pm” is voice of customer. It names the pain, the failed alternatives, and the exact moment the problem appears. A strong ad reuses that phrasing almost verbatim.
How do I collect voice of customer data without surveys?
Mine the places customers already talk: subreddit threads in your niche, Amazon and app-store reviews, TikTok and YouTube comments, Trustpilot and other review sites. Scraping tools collect thousands of these comments in minutes, which is faster and less biased than asking questions.
What is the difference between voice of customer and social listening?
Social listening tracks brand mentions and sentiment trends over time. Voice of customer research goes deeper on the language itself: the exact phrases customers use for pains, desires, and objections, so you can reuse them in creative and copy.
Which voice of customer tool should an ecommerce team use?
It depends on where your customers talk. If you run CX surveys at enterprise scale, a platform like Qualtrics fits. If you write ads and need unprompted customer language fast, a comment and review miner like Adlicio gets you verbatims and ranked angles the same day, starting free.
FOR AD OPERATORS & DTC TEAMS
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