Voice-of-Customer Rollup

What this does

Takes a batch of raw customer feedback from one or more channels — support tickets, NPS comments, app-store reviews, survey open-text, sales-call notes — and produces a fixed digest: a list of themes, each ranked, each carrying a count and one quote copied exactly from the feedback, with no theme that the feedback did not actually raise.

Handed a pile of comments and asked "what are people saying?", the base model writes a smooth paragraph. It groups loosely, paraphrases the customer's words into its own, attaches no counts, orders themes by whatever it mentioned first, and will happily add a tidy conclusion ("overall, sentiment is positive") that no single comment supports. This skill replaces that with a digest an operator can act on: themes ordered by real weight, each backed by a count you can trust and a customer's own words, and nothing invented.

When to use / when NOT to

Use when: the input is two or more pieces of customer feedback and the ask is to consolidate them — "roll these up", "what are the top themes", "summarize this feedback", "what are customers telling us across these".

Do NOT use when: scoring one account's churn risk (that is a rubric task); writing a quarterly business review; drafting a reply to one customer; or doing sentiment on a single comment. This skill is for the many-into-a-digest move.

The rule

Every rollup obeys all six. The first three are what the base model gets wrong most.

1. Quote verbatim — never paraphrase. Each theme is anchored by one representative

quote copied word-for-word from an actual feedback item. Do not clean up grammar, soften wording, merge two comments into one quote, or write a quote in your own voice. If you must shorten, cut only from the ends and mark the cut with … — the words you keep stay exactly as the customer wrote them. A quote a reader cannot find verbatim in the input is a fabrication.

1. Invent no theme. Every theme must be one that at least one feedback item actually

raises. Do not add a theme because it is common in the industry, because you expect it, or to round out the list. If the feedback never mentions pricing, "pricing concerns" is not a theme. When in doubt, drop it.

1. Count honestly. Each theme carries a count = how many distinct feedback items

raise it. The count reflects only items in the input. One item may support two themes; one item never counts twice toward the same theme. Do not estimate, round to a "roughly", or inflate a single mention into "several".

1. Rank by frequency × severity. Order themes by their weight, where weight combines

how many items raise it (frequency) with how much each instance hurts (severity — a churn threat or blocked workflow outranks a mild annoyance). A theme raised 3 times where users say they will cancel outranks a cosmetic nit raised 5 times. State each theme's severity so the ranking is auditable; when two themes tie on weight, the higher-frequency one goes first.

1. One item, its real theme. Assign each feedback item to the theme(s) it genuinely

raises. Do not force an off-topic comment into the nearest bucket to lift a count, and do not split one coherent complaint across three themes to pad the list.

1. No editorial conclusion. Do not append an overall-sentiment verdict, a recommendation,

or a "customers love us but…" wrap-up unless the ask explicitly requests one. The digest is the themes and their evidence; a summary line the feedback does not collectively support is exactly the invention Rule 2 forbids.

Output shape

For each theme, in ranked order:

1. <Theme label> — <count> mentions · severity: <high|medium|low>
   "<verbatim quote copied exactly from one feedback item>"

Lead with the highest-weight theme. Keep the label short and descriptive of what customers said, not of how you feel about it ("Login fails after password reset", not "Frustrating auth problems").

Worked example

Feedback given (6 items):

• 1] "Reset my password and now I can't log in at all — completely locked out."
• 2] "The new dashboard is gorgeous, love the dark mode."
• 3] "After a password reset the login just spins forever. Had to email support."
• 4] "Export to CSV has been broken for a week, this is blocking our month-end close."
• 5] "Wish the date picker remembered my last range, minor thing."
• 6] "Password reset locked me out too, support took two days to fix it."

BEFORE (base default — paraphrased, uncounted, editorialized): > Customers are generally happy with the new design but some are running into login trouble > after resetting their passwords, and a few mentioned issues with exporting and small UI > preferences. Overall sentiment is mixed but leaning positive.

No counts, quotes reworded, themes ordered by nothing, and a sentiment verdict nobody said.

AFTER (this skill — ranked, counted, verbatim, nothing invented): > 1. Password reset locks users out — 3 mentions · severity: high > "Reset my password and now I can't log in at all — completely locked out." > 2. CSV export broken — 1 mention · severity: high > "Export to CSV has been broken for a week, this is blocking our month-end close." > 3. New dashboard / dark mode praised — 1 mention · severity: low > "The new dashboard is gorgeous, love the dark mode." > 4. Date picker should remember last range — 1 mention · severity: low > "Wish the date picker remembered my last range, minor thing."

The reset lockout leads on frequency (3) and severity (high); the export bug is a single mention but ranks above the cosmetic items because it blocks a workflow. Every quote is one customer's exact words. No pricing theme, no sentiment verdict — neither is in the feedback.

Edge cases

• A theme is raised once but is severe (a blocker or churn threat). Keep it and let

severity carry it up the ranking — do not drop it just because frequency is 1.

• Mixed sentiment on the same feature (some praise it, some hate it). Split into two

themes with their own counts and quotes, or name it one theme and note the split — do not average the sentiment away.

• One comment raises several distinct issues. Assign it to each relevant theme; it counts

once toward each, never twice toward one.

• A vague comment ("meh, not great") that names no issue. It supports no specific theme;

do not manufacture one from it.

• The ask requests a recommendation or headline. Then a summary line is in scope — but it

must still follow only from the themes present, with no figure or claim the feedback lacks.

Do / Don't

• Do copy the customer's exact words as the quote.
• Don't paraphrase, tidy grammar, or write the quote in your own voice.
• Do rank by frequency × severity and state each severity.
• Don't order themes by mention-order or by count alone.
• Do keep a rare-but-severe theme.
• Don't add a theme the feedback never raised, or a sentiment verdict it never supports.

Common mistakes (the base's defaults)

• Paraphrasing quotes into the model's own words instead of copying them verbatim.
• Omitting counts, or writing "several / a few" instead of a number.
• Ordering themes by whichever was mentioned first, ignoring severity.
• Padding the list with an expected-but-absent theme (pricing, onboarding) nobody raised.
• Tacking on an "overall sentiment is positive" verdict the individual comments don't support.

Quick checklist

• ] Every theme has a count = distinct items raising it.
• ] Every theme is anchored by a quote copied word-for-word from an input item.
• ] Themes ranked by frequency × severity, with each severity stated.
• ] No theme appears that no feedback item raised.
• ] No overall-sentiment verdict unless the ask requested one.