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Voice of Customer Examples: 10 Real Verbatims and Their Ad Angles

By Daniel, founder of Adlicio · Updated Oct 19, 2026 · 6 min read

On this page

• 1. The failed-alternatives pain
• 2. The unexpected use case
• 3. The education objection
• 4. The disbelief quote
• 5. The precise moment
• 6. The comparison shopper
• 7. The identity label
• 8. The price reframe, done for you
• 9. The vocabulary gap
• 10. The objection you weren't handling
• How to collect examples like these for your niche

Voice of customer is easiest to understand by example. Below are ten real comments from Amazon reviews, Reddit threads, and YouTube comment sections, collected with Adlicio. Each one links to where it was posted and is paired with the ad language it becomes. The quotes are copied as written, typos included, and cut with "…" where they run long. The mechanics are exactly how voice of customer research works in practice.

The rule behind all ten: keep the customer's phrasing, change the format. You are not summarizing what customers said. You are quoting them back to people just like them.

1. The failed-alternatives pain

"I've tried a professional trainer, a prong collar, a zapper-type collar, treats, praise, yelling, everything i heard about, read about - all with very little improvement."

Source: Amazon review of an ultrasonic bark deterrent. One sentence holds the pain and the whole graveyard of failed alternatives. The ad can open on that list: "Tried the trainer, the prong collar and the zapper collar?" Failed-alternative language pre-handles the "I've tried things like this before" objection.

2. The unexpected use case

"My husband found this at a local discount store for about $10-$15 and bought it for our kids instead of a sprinkler. … Best child sprinkler ever! That was how we used it the past two years."

Source: Amazon reviews of a motion-activated animal repellent. The product is sold to keep deer and raccoons out of gardens. This family used it as a kids' sprinkler for two years. Customers routinely reveal a bigger market than the product was positioned for. When several reviews repeat the same off-label use, that's a new angle, sometimes a new audience.

3. The education objection

"I love it I'll buy another, but the Duracell batteries that came with it were dead. I almost returned it till I put different batteries in it."

Source: Amazon review of a handheld milk frother. The product worked. The first five minutes did not, and that almost became a return. The fix is one line on the box insert and the product page: if it won't start, swap the batteries. VOC doesn't only feed ads; it fixes funnels.

4. The disbelief quote

"I thought these were a gimmick and that Uncle Gordon had sold out, lol.. Glad to see that they're not! Good review!"

Source: YouTube comment on a HexClad cookware review, with 127 likes when we collected it. Skepticism voiced and then reversed is the strongest testimonial shape that exists. Run it nearly verbatim as a hook: "I thought these were a gimmick." The viewer who thinks the same thing feels seen instead of sold to, and the like count shows how many people shared the doubt.

5. The precise moment

"Getting blasted awake by loud car commercial at 3am is absolute worst."

Source: Reddit comment on a 24/7 rain sound stream with no ads. Specific moments beat general claims. "No car ads at 3am" targets harder than "uninterrupted sleep sounds" ever will, because the listener recognizes the scene, not the feature.

6. The comparison shopper

"I was going back and forth between Sony and these and decide to give these a try."

Source: Amazon review of Soundcore noise cancelling headphones. The buyer names the exact rival they weighed. That tells you a comparison ad or page is worth building, and the reviews around it tell you which differences actually decided it, usually two or three, never ten.

7. The identity label

"As a mom of two, the constant noise makes me incredibly overstimulated. These dampen all of the unnecessary annoying sounds but I can still hear them speak, even from another room."

Source: Amazon review of Loop noise-reducing earplugs. People self-label constantly in comments. Those labels are targeting written by the audience itself: "Overstimulated moms:" as the first words of an ad out-targets any interest stack.

8. The price reframe, done for you

"My peloton + bike paid for itself in the first year of gym club membership. Now I only pay $45/mo for the whole family…"

Source: Reddit comment in r/pelotoncycle. Customers justify prices to themselves in language better than most copywriters produce. Steal the math. "Paid for itself in the first year of gym membership" is an objection handled in one line.

9. The vocabulary gap

"Googled 'Too hard to do DIY blowout.' I've never been able to do a real blowout. I find coordinating the brush and dryer to give perfect waves to be pretty difficult."

Source: Amazon reviews of the Revlon One-Step Volumizer (the first line is the review's title). The listing calls it a "volumizer hair dryer and styler". The buyer searched for the problem instead. The customer's search language and the category's label often don't match. This single review tells you to run problem-language hooks and to stop leading with the category term cold traffic has never heard.

10. The objection you weren't handling

"I wish there was some kind of scale in these cat trees because people put pictures of adult cats on these little cat trees and it’s just not true so they need to specify."

Source: Amazon review of a 43-inch cat tree. This review gave five stars and still flags the question the listings in this category leave open: how big is it next to a real adult cat? Competitor reviews are free market research from the exact audience you want. Every unanswered question there is an ad your competitor isn't running, and you can be first to answer it, here with one photo of the tree next to a full-grown cat.

How to collect examples like these for your niche

Every example above is a real public comment, collected with Adlicio from Amazon reviews, Reddit threads, and YouTube comment sections. You can scrape the same surfaces for your niche in minutes: Amazon reviews, Reddit threads, YouTube videos, TikTok comment sections, app stores, and review sites. The workflow is the 4-step method in the voice of customer guide: collect, search for repeats, rank by frequency and intensity, and turn verbatims into angles. If you want the collection and ranking done for you, that is exactly what Adlicio does. If you are choosing software for this, the voice of customer tools comparison lists 15 options with prices and marks which ones read public comments.

One warning from doing this at volume: one great quote is an anecdote, not an angle. The examples worth building ads on are the ones that repeat, phrased slightly differently by many people. Frequency is the difference between voice of customer and cherry-picking.