Short answer
Customer advocacy creates appropriate opportunities for satisfied customers to share credible experiences and feedback. Assess consent, fit, preparation, and follow-through, not the number of public endorsements a person secures.
About Customer advocacy
Identifies suitable advocacy opportunities, confirms voluntary customer participation, coordinates preparation, and preserves credible customer voice without scripting unsupported claims.
Use this competency for
- Roles that coordinate references, stories, communities, events, or structured customer feedback.
- Functions accountable for matching customer context to appropriate advocacy opportunities.
Do not use this competency for
- Roles that collect routine product feedback without coordinating external or peer-facing participation.
Important distinctions
Customer marketing
Customer advocacy manages fit, consent, and the participant experience. Customer marketing may own campaign strategy, production, and distribution.
Value realization
Value realization establishes evidence of agreed outcomes. Advocacy offers a voluntary setting where a customer may describe its own experience.
Expectations by level
IC1
IC1
Coordinates assigned advocacy steps from an established process, records consent and preferences, and follows through on participant logistics.
Observable behaviors
- Confirms the customer has opted into the specific opportunity.
- Records topic, format, timing, and any stated boundaries.
- Completes preparation and follow-up actions with the named owners.
Examples
- Confirms that consent for a peer call does not imply consent for a published story.
- Shares the session format and records a topic the participant does not want to discuss.
IC2
IC2
Matches standard advocacy opportunities to relevant customer context, sets accurate expectations, and coordinates participation without pressuring or rewriting the customer's experience.
Observable behaviors
- Explains why an opportunity fits the customer's stated experience and preferences.
- Provides preparation that preserves the participant's own wording and choices.
- Closes the loop with the customer and internal requester after participation.
Examples
- Declines a reference request when the requested topic does not match the customer's experience.
- Offers factual prompts for a story interview without supplying outcome claims.
IC3
IC3
Designs repeatable advocacy practices across opportunity types, resolves competing requests, and improves consent, representation, and participant safeguards.
Observable behaviors
- Defines selection and consent standards for different advocacy formats.
- Balances internal demand with participant relevance and reasonable frequency.
- Reviews representation gaps or participation friction and changes the program.
Examples
- Creates a request process that prevents several teams from contacting the same participant separately.
- Adds a consent renewal point before reusing a story in a new channel.