Creating Customer Magic: How to Infuse a VOC Mindset to Fuel Insights for Innovation

Creating Customer Magic: How to Infuse a VOC Mindset to Fuel Insights for Innovation

John Mitchell | 2025 PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit • September 16, 2025

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Knowing your customers better than anyone else creates an incredible opportunity for competitive advantage. Voice of the Customer (VOC) has been a best practice front end of innovation activity for decades. Increasingly teams are employing VOC needs assessment throughout their product development funnel as well as in day-to-day interactions with customers. What was once an activity dedicated to the fuzzy front end of innovation now has a place in concept testing, prototype development, and even sales. Organizations are finding increased value in adopting a VOC mindset to fuel a continuous understanding of customer insights. They are also leveraging generative AI techniques to uncover customer needs in the increasing amount of readily available user-generated content.

Join Dr. Andrea Ruttenberg of Applied Marketing Science, Inc. (AMS) to explore how a VOC Mindset and advancements in Generative AI are propelling brands ability to innovate, retain, and delight customers.

  • Understand how a needs-based approach contributes to better product outcomes
  • See how a VOC mindset can be applied across the product development process and in day-to-day customer interactions
  • Discover how generative AI can aid teams in their quest to unearth customer needs

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