This episode explores Chapter 3 : Unlock: Hearing the True Voice of the Customer from the book Support Experience.

The discussion centers on why even global giants can fail when they ignore the human narrative behind their data. We look at the "Nokia Paradox"—how a company with a massive market research team missed the smartphone revolution because they prioritized "Big Data" over the "Thick Data" gathered by ethnographer Tricia Wang on the streets of China.

In this episode, we cover:

• Big Data vs. Thick Data: Why big data is excellent for analyzing existing trends but fails to identify emerging human-driven shifts.

• Quantification Bias: We break down the dangerous tendency to value only what can be measured, which often leaves companies "blind to the unknown".

• Systems of Intelligence: How the competitive moat has shifted from merely storing data (Systems of Record) to interpreting it through AI to deliver actionable insights.

• The 6 Pillars of the "True Voice of the Customer": We define what it actually means to listen to your customers—ensuring feedback is unbiased, timely, captured across all channels, and rich with emotional context.

• Sentiment Analysis at Scale: Moving beyond simple "positive/negative" scores to identify nuanced emotions like confusion vs. frustration, allowing teams to respond with precision.

This chapter serves as a guide for leaders who want to move past surveys and "read the things not yet on the page"