Build Customer Voice

You're building the canonical evidence file the owner's marketing strategy gets grounded in. Everything else (brand voice, positioning, value props, nurture sequences) gets authored FROM this file. If it's wrong, every downstream artefact inherits the error. So it must be made of real words real customers used, never copy you invented for them.

The source of truth for the method is knowledge/marketing-strategy-method.md — read its "Layer 2 — Customer voice synthesis" section before starting if you haven't. (Note: that method's transcript-pull and live-queue layers are the connected-tier deepener, not a requirement for this skill to run.)

Pick the mode — start with what you have

There are two ways to run this, and the right one depends on what evidence exists right now:

Default to the keyless mode whenever you don't already have a connected workspace pulling transcripts for you. It needs no accounts and no setup — only the words the owner can hand you. Do NOT stop and demand recorded calls; that's the cold-start failure this skill exists to avoid. The connected transcript mine is the upgrade you offer once it's available, never the price of entry.

Mode A — Keyless (the day-one default)

This runs entirely from material the owner already has: the reviews on their Google or Facebook page, the testimonials on their site, a folder of support emails, notes they jotted after a sales call, a few screenshots of texts from happy customers. No connection, no special access. In a few minutes you give them back the real voice of their market, organised.

A1 — Gather the raw customer words

Pull customer voice from whatever the owner can put in front of you, in this order of richness:

1. Anything the owner pastes. Reviews, testimonials, customer emails, support-ticket text, social comments, notes typed up after a call. Treat every pasted block as primary evidence — capture the exact phrasing.

2. Local files the owner points you at. A folder of saved reviews, an exported reviews CSV, a PDF of testimonials, a Word doc of call notes, a screenshot of a text thread. Convert each one to Markdown first so you're reading clean text, not guessing at a scan:

   python ~/.claude/bos-run.py tool markitdown_convert "<path-to-file>"

(The ~/.claude/bos-run.py launcher resolves the install location for you. If it is missing, run python tools/setup.py once from the BOS directory to create it.)

This handles PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, images (OCR), HTML, CSV, JSON. If the converter reports it isn't installed, relay its one-line install hint and continue with whatever was pasted directly. If a file comes back empty (e.g. a scan with no readable text), say so plainly rather than inventing content. 3. One good prompt when the well is shallow. If there's little to work with, ask the owner for the few things that unlock the most signal — for example: "Paste me your last 10 Google reviews, or 3-4 emails from customers who were thrilled, and I'll pull the patterns out." A real doc built from a handful of genuine reviews beats a padded one built from nothing.

Read everything end-to-end. Don't skim a single review. If a pasted block or a converted file is long, read all of it.

Keep the customer's voice, drop the owner's. In call notes and email threads, the owner's / salesperson's own lines are not customer voice — you want what the OTHER person said. Internal team chatter filters out too.

A2 — Write customer-voice-synthesis.md

Offer to write it to marketing-strategy/<BrandName>/customer-voice-synthesis.md (or alongside the source files the owner pointed you at). Tell the owner exactly where you wrote it so they can find it.

The file has these 10 sections, in this order. With a smaller keyless evidence base you'll have fewer quotes per theme than a full transcript mine would — that's fine. Write what the evidence genuinely supports; never pad to hit a count.

What downstream reads from each section: §3 jobs-to-be-done captures the Arrival in the buyer's own words (business-method.md §6); §4 worries feed guarantee design — the buyer's biggest fear, inverted (§7.2); §5 competing options are rung 1 of the positioning ladder — real alternatives including "no tool at all" (§14); §6 buying moments feed urgency-as-gain-timing (§7.4, §18); §2 pain themes feed the internal problem list of the Category-of-One build (§7.1), never shipped copy (§18).

1. Who's actually leaving these words

Industries, business sizes, roles, locations — whatever the source material reveals. Quote names + businesses verbatim where they're given. Identify recurring patterns ("repeat customers who'd tried a cheaper option first", "first-timers nervous about cost", "referrals from existing clients").

2. The pain — in their own words

The single most important section. Cluster into themes. Quote VERBATIM with a footnote-style source tag [Name or "Google review", source-file or "pasted"]. Aim for 5-15 themes with the quotes you actually have for each. Examples of theme shapes:

• "Things slipping through the cracks" (leads, follow-ups, info)
• "Doing everything yourself" (overwhelm)
• "Tool fragmentation" (juggling disconnected tools)
• "Tech-light" (explicit non-technical self-description)
• "Cost anxiety" (worry about another monthly bill)
• "Missed calls / enquiries going cold"
• "Marketing money wasted because follow-up doesn't happen"

Use the actual words customers used. Don't invent themes that aren't in the material.

3. Jobs to be done

What END STATE are they trying to reach? Quote them describing it.

4. Worries + hesitations

What stalls the decision? Quote the language — cost, a prior bad experience, fear of complexity, "let me think about it". (Naming the worry here, in this internal evidence doc, is fine — this section is for the owner's eyes, not customer-facing copy.)

5. Competing options / what they're escaping

Every named tool, brand, or alternative, in a table:

6. The "buying moment"

What triggered a real decision? Just outgrew a cheaper option / just got let down by a competitor / just took over a business / a big job landed. Quote the moment.

7. Vocabulary list — the actual words they use

Flat list of recurring phrases. Marketing copy reaches for these first; invented language second.

• "Slipping through the cracks"
• "On the tools"
• "One-man band"
• "Clunky / overkill"
• "Peace of mind"
• etc. — only the phrases that actually appear in the material.

8. Who this is NOT for

Quote any moment where someone was clearly a poor fit — wrong job, wrong size, wrong expectation. Negative-space ICP. If the evidence doesn't show this, say so rather than inventing a misfit.

9. Top representative quotes

The single most pungent verbatim quotes that capture WHO this audience is. Aim for up to 10 — fewer if the evidence is thinner. Each quote: name (or "Google review") + source.

10. Pattern observations

One short paragraph: which customer types are over-represented? The modal customer profile? Quote the evidence behind it.

A3 — Report back

When done, tell the owner:

• Where the file was written
• Roughly how many real quotes it captured, and from how many sources
• The top 2-3 surprising findings — phrases or themes that contradict how their current website talks about the audience
• The 1 modal-customer profile that emerged most strongly

Keep this report under 200 words. The synthesis file IS the deliverable; your report is the headline.

A4 — Offer the deeper mode (don't make it the entry price)

Once the keyless doc is in their hands, offer the upgrade plainly:

This is built from the reviews and notes you handed me. When your customer conversations are being recorded in one place, I can mine every call and meeting end-to-end and turn this into a much richer version — far more quotes, far more themes. No rush; this doc stands on its own today.

Mode B — Connected deepener (the richer upgrade)

This is the deeper path, and it runs only if your workspace is connected and your customer calls and meetings are being recorded there. It mines that full transcript library — many more conversations than anyone would paste by hand — into the same 10-section customer-voice-synthesis.md, just with a much larger evidence base behind every theme.

This mode is the upgrade, never the default and never required for a new owner. When no connected transcript library is available, run Mode A — do not stop and demand one.

The connected workflow (how the recorded conversations get pulled and read in bulk) is documented in the "Layer 2" section of knowledge/marketing-strategy-method.md. Follow that when, and only when, the workspace is connected. Everything about the output is identical to Mode A: the same 10 sections, the same verbatim discipline. The only difference is the size and richness of the evidence.

Hard rules (both modes)

• Quote VERBATIM. Don't paraphrase a customer's words into your own.
• Keep the customer's voice, drop the owner's. The synthesis is what the CUSTOMER said, not the owner / salesperson.
• Read every source end-to-end. No skimming, in either mode.
• Never invent a quote, a review, or a testimonial. A fabricated quote is worse than no quote. If a theme has only one real quote, write one. If a section has no evidence, say so.
• No padding. Quality beats count. A thinner doc made of real words beats a fat one made of guesses.
• Real names stay in this internal file. This doc is the owner's own evidence. Don't carry real customer names into anything customer-facing (marketing copy, public posts) — generic placeholders at that boundary.
• This doc is internal evidence; downstream copy is the owner's brand. Naming pain and worries here is fine (§2, §4), it's for the owner. The brand strategy and copy authored FROM this doc are written in the owner's brand voice; the framing and marketing psychology are the owner's choice.
• Don't editorialise. If the evidence suggests the owner's current positioning is off, surface that as a finding — don't rewrite the strategy inside this file. That's the next skill's job (build-brand-strategy).