How to Stop Speaking Jargon and Start Quoting Your Customers: A Complete Guide to Extracting Language That Sells

I’m sitting in a meeting room with a SaaS company’s marketing team. On the screen is their new landing page. The headline reads:

„Revolutionize Your Workflow with Our Next-Generation AI-Powered Platform for Seamless Cross-Functional Collaboration.”

I ask them: „Have you ever heard a customer say any of these words?”

Silence.

„Has anyone ever walked up to you and said 'I really need to revolutionize my workflow’?”

More silence.

„Has a single person in the history of your company said 'I’m looking for seamless cross-functional collaboration’?”

The marketing director clears her throat: „Well, no… but that’s what we do.”

And there it is. The fundamental problem I see in 9 out of 10 marketing teams I work with. They write what they THINK describes their product. Not what customers ACTUALLY say when they have the problem the product solves.

The result? Landing pages that sound impressive in the boardroom but convert at 0.8%. Ads that get skipped. Emails that get deleted. Millions in marketing spend that goes straight into the void.

Over 13 years of managing campaigns with budgets totaling over 86 million, I’ve learned one thing that changed everything: the companies that win aren’t the ones with the cleverest copy. They’re the ones who sound exactly like their customers.

Today I’m going to show you exactly how to extract that language. Where to find it. How to organize it. And how to turn it into copy that converts.

Why We Default to Jargon (And Why It’s Killing Your Conversions)

Before I give you the solution, let’s understand the problem. Because if you don’t understand why you’re doing it wrong, you’ll slip back into old habits within a week.

There are three reasons marketers default to jargon.

First, we’re too close to our own product. When you spend 8 hours a day working on something, you start speaking in internal language. „AI-powered platform” makes perfect sense to you because that’s what your engineering team calls it. „Cross-functional collaboration” is literally what the product does, so why wouldn’t you say it?

But your customer doesn’t think in these terms. Your customer thinks: „God, I waste so much time going back and forth between Slack and email and project management tools. Everything’s in a different place. I can never find anything.”

That’s the problem. That’s what they’d type into Google. That’s what they’d tell a friend. Not „I need seamless cross-functional collaboration.”

Second, we think professional means formal. There’s this unspoken belief that B2B marketing needs to sound „serious.” That using simple, conversational language somehow undermines credibility.

It’s the opposite. When someone reads copy that sounds exactly like the conversation in their head, they think: „This company gets me.” When they read corporate jargon, they think: „This is just another vendor trying to sound impressive.”

Third, we’re afraid of being specific. Saying „AI-powered platform for seamless collaboration” feels safe because it could apply to anyone. Saying „Stop wasting 4 hours every Friday manually copying data between your project management tool and your reporting spreadsheet” feels risky because it’s so specific.

But specificity is exactly what converts. Because when someone reads that and they DO waste 4 hours every Friday on exactly that task, they stop scrolling. They think: „Wait, how do they know about my Fridays?”

The Cost of Speaking Corporate

Let me make this concrete with numbers.

I had a client in the HR tech space. Their original headline: „Streamline Your Talent Acquisition Process with Intelligent Automation.”

We tested it against: „Stop spending your whole Monday sorting through 200 unqualified resumes.”

Same product. Same audience. Same ad spend.

The jargon version: 1.2% click-through rate, 0.9% landing page conversion.

The customer language version: 3.8% click-through rate, 2.7% landing page conversion.

That’s not a small improvement. That’s 3x the clicks and 3x the conversions. Same budget, triple the results.

Why? Because „sorting through 200 unqualified resumes” is what they actually do. They felt seen. They felt understood. They clicked.

„Streamline your talent acquisition process” is what a consultant would say at a conference. No one wakes up thinking „I really need to streamline my talent acquisition process.”

Where Customer Language Actually Lives

Okay, so you’re convinced. You need to use customer language. But where do you find it?

Here’s the thing most marketers get wrong: they think they need to conduct expensive research. Focus groups. Surveys. Interviews.

Those are valuable. But there’s a goldmine of customer language sitting right in front of you that costs nothing and takes 30 minutes to access.

Reddit is your best friend.

I’m not exaggerating. Reddit is the single most valuable source of customer language I’ve ever found. And almost no one uses it for this purpose.

Why Reddit? Because people speak honestly there. They’re anonymous. They’re not performing for anyone. They’re asking real questions and sharing real frustrations.

Here’s exactly how to use it:

Go to Reddit and search for subreddits related to your industry. If you sell project management software, look at r/projectmanagement, r/agile, r/productivity. If you sell HR software, look at r/humanresources, r/recruiting, r/careerguidance.

Now search within those subreddits for terms related to your product category. „Project management tools,” „tracking tasks,” „team coordination.”

Read the posts. But more importantly, read the comments.

Look for posts where people are asking for recommendations or complaining about problems. These are gold. Because they’re describing the problem in their own words, unfiltered.

I was researching for a time-tracking software client. Found this comment on Reddit: „I literally spend more time logging my hours than doing the actual work. And then my boss complains the reports don’t add up because I forget to track half my meetings.”

That became a headline: „Tired of spending more time tracking work than doing it?”

The client’s original headline was: „Effortless Time Management for Modern Teams.”

Guess which one converted better?

Amazon reviews are underrated.

If there are physical products or books related to your space, Amazon reviews are incredible.

But here’s the key: don’t read 5-star reviews. They’re all „Great product! Love it!”

Read 3-star and 4-star reviews. These start with „Good product, BUT…”

That „but” is where the magic happens.

„Good project management tool, BUT I spend way too much time setting it up every time we start a new project.”

„Helpful software, BUT the mobile app is basically useless so I can’t check things when I’m traveling.”

„Nice interface, BUT my team never actually uses it because it’s too complicated to learn.”

Each of those „buts” is a potential headline. A potential selling point for your product if you solve that problem.

Your own support tickets are a goldmine you’re ignoring.

This one kills me. Companies spend thousands on market research when they have thousands of customer conversations sitting in their support system.

Go to your support team. Ask them: „What are the three things customers complain about most?” „What questions do people ask before they buy?” „How do customers describe their problems when they first reach out?”

These descriptions are pure gold. They’re the exact words real customers use to describe real problems.

One of my clients discovered their best-performing headline buried in a support ticket. A prospect had written: „We’re drowning in spreadsheets and nothing talks to each other. Please tell me your software can fix this.”

„Drowning in spreadsheets that don’t talk to each other?”

That became their highest-converting Facebook ad ever.

The Voice of Customer Document: Your Secret Weapon

Finding customer language is step one. But if you just collect random quotes and forget about them, you’ve wasted your time.

You need a system. I call it the Voice of Customer (VoC) Document.

This is a single document where you organize all customer language by category. It becomes your reference for every piece of copy you write.

Here’s how to structure it:

Section 1: Problem Descriptions

These are quotes where customers describe the problem your product solves. In their words.

Don’t paraphrase. Don’t clean them up. Copy them exactly as they said it.

„I’m spending half my day in meetings about meetings and still nobody knows what anyone else is working on.”

„Every Monday I dread opening my inbox because I know there’s going to be 15 emails asking for the same status update.”

„We have three different project tools and somehow nothing is ever in the right place.”

Section 2: Emotional Language

These are words and phrases that express how the problem makes them feel.

„Frustrated.” „Overwhelmed.” „Drowning.” „Pulling my hair out.” „At my wit’s end.” „Exhausted.” „Dreading.”

Track which emotional words come up most often. These are powerful for headlines and hooks.

Section 3: Desired Outcomes

How do they describe what they want? Not what your product does—what they actually want their life to look like.

„I just want to know what’s happening without having to ask five different people.”

„I want my weekends back instead of spending Sunday night catching up on everything I couldn’t finish.”

„I want to walk into a meeting and actually know what we’re meeting about.”

Section 4: Failed Alternatives

What have they tried before that didn’t work? This is powerful for differentiation.

„We tried Asana but it was too complicated and nobody used it after the first month.”

„Spreadsheets worked when we were five people but now we’re twenty and it’s chaos.”

„Our old system was fine until we started working remotely, now everything falls through the cracks.”

Section 5: Buying Questions

What do they ask before making a purchase decision? These become FAQ content and objection-handling in your copy.

„How long does it take to set up? We don’t have time for a three-month implementation.”

„Can we start with just one team or do we have to roll it out to everyone?”

„What happens to our data if we decide to cancel?”

How to Turn Customer Language into Copy That Converts

You have your VoC document. Now what?

Here’s the process I use with every client.

Step 1: Match the headline to the problem statement.

Your headline should sound like the problem, not the solution. People don’t search for solutions—they search for problems.

Bad: „The Ultimate Project Management Platform” Good: „Stop chasing your team for status updates”

Bad: „AI-Powered Analytics for Marketing Teams” Good: „Finally understand which campaigns are actually making money”

Take a problem description from your VoC document and turn it into a question or a command. That’s your headline.

Step 2: Use their emotional words, not yours.

If customers say they’re „drowning” in emails, you say drowning. Not „overwhelmed with correspondence.” Drowning.

If they say they’re „wasting time,” you say wasting. Not „experiencing inefficiencies.” Wasting.

If they say things „fall through the cracks,” you use that phrase. Not „items are occasionally overlooked.” Fall through the cracks.

The words they use carry emotional weight because those are the words they think in. When they see those words in your copy, something clicks. They feel understood.

Step 3: Address failed alternatives early.

If you know from your VoC research that people have tried and failed with certain solutions, call it out.

„If you’ve tried project management tools before and your team stopped using them after a month, this is different.”

This does two things. First, it shows you understand their history. Second, it preempts the objection of „we’ve already tried something like this.”

Step 4: Paint the „after” picture in their words.

How do they describe what they want? Use those words to describe life after they buy your product.

„Walk into Monday knowing exactly what everyone’s working on—without asking.”

„Check your reports in 5 minutes instead of spending all Friday building them.”

„Actually disconnect on vacation because you know nothing will fall through the cracks.”

These aren’t benefits you invented. These are desires they expressed. You’re just reflecting them back.

The Interview Technique That Extracts Gold

Reddit and reviews and support tickets are great for passive research. But sometimes you need to go deeper. You need to talk to actual customers.

Most marketers conduct interviews wrong. They ask: „Why did you buy our product?”

And they get: „Because it seemed like a good solution for our needs.”

That tells you nothing. People don’t actually remember why they bought things. They rationalize after the fact.

Here’s a better question: „What was happening in your work that made you start looking for a solution?”

This takes them back to the triggering moment. Not the purchase decision—the problem that started the journey.

Then follow up with: „Tell me about a specific day when that problem was really bad. What happened?”

Specifics are everything. You’re not looking for general descriptions. You’re looking for stories. Because stories contain the real language.

I interviewed a customer for a client selling accounting software. Asked about a specific bad day.

„It was April 14th. Tax deadline the next day. I’d been in the office until midnight three nights in a row because I couldn’t find a transaction from February and my books wouldn’t balance. My kid had a school play I missed. And when I finally found it, it was a $47 subscription I’d categorized wrong. I almost cried. $47.”

That story became an entire marketing campaign. „Never miss another school play because of a $47 discrepancy.”

You cannot invent that. You can only extract it.

The „But” Technique for Finding Pain Points

Here’s a simple technique I learned that works in any research context.

Whenever you’re reading reviews, comments, support tickets, or conducting interviews, look for the word „but.”

„Good software, BUT…” „I like it, BUT…” „It works, BUT…” „We’ve tried X, BUT…”

Everything before the „but” is polite throat-clearing. Everything after is the real issue.

Create a section in your VoC document just for „but” statements. These are objections, unmet needs, and pain points served up on a silver platter.

Common Mistakes When Using Customer Language

Let me warn you about some traps I see marketers fall into.

Mistake 1: Cleaning up the language.

Customer says: „It’s like herding cats trying to get everyone on the same page.”

Marketer writes: „Achieve team alignment efficiently.”

No. Keep „herding cats.” That’s the phrase. That’s what resonates. The moment you sanitize it, you lose the magic.

Mistake 2: Using customer language for features, not headlines.

Your headline gets 80% of the attention. If you’re going to use customer language anywhere, use it there. Not buried in a feature description on page three.

Mistake 3: Picking language that you like, not language that repeats.

One customer says your product is „game-changing.” Fifteen customers say it „saves them from Friday spreadsheet hell.”

You use „Friday spreadsheet hell.” Even if you personally like „game-changing” better.

Frequency matters. The phrases that come up repeatedly are the ones that resonate with your broader audience.

Mistake 4: Not testing.

Even customer language needs testing. Sometimes a phrase that appears often doesn’t perform well in ads. Sometimes an unexpected phrase becomes your best performer.

Run A/B tests. Let the data confirm what your research suggested.

Building a System That Keeps Language Fresh

Customer language changes. New problems emerge. New competitors appear. The phrases people used three years ago might not be the phrases they use today.

You need a system that keeps your VoC document updated.

Schedule a quarterly „language audit.” Spend 2-3 hours going back to Reddit, Amazon, support tickets. Look for new phrases, new problems, new emotional language.

After major product updates, interview customers again. How do they talk about the new features? What problems do those features solve in their words?

When new competitors enter the market, watch how customers talk about them. What do they praise? What do they criticize? These conversations reveal unmet needs you can address.

Make VoC maintenance part of your marketing workflow. Not a one-time project that gets forgotten.

Practical Exercise: Transform Your Homepage in 2 Hours

Here’s a quick exercise you can do right now.

Take your current homepage. List every headline and subheadline.

For each one, ask: „Would a customer say this?”

Not „would a customer understand this.” Would they actually SAY it? In conversation with a friend? In a frustrated Slack message to a colleague?

If the answer is no, it needs to change.

Spend 30 minutes on Reddit finding alternatives. Spend 30 minutes in your support tickets. Spend 30 minutes reading reviews of competitors.

You’ll have a list of customer-language alternatives for every piece of jargon on your homepage.

Test them. I guarantee at least one of them will outperform your current version significantly.

Summary: They Tell You How to Sell to Them

Let me wrap this up with the most important insight.

Your customers are telling you exactly how to sell to them. Every day. In support tickets, in Reddit posts, in reviews, in interviews. They’re describing their problems in the exact words you should use. They’re explaining what they want in the exact phrases that would make them click „buy.”

Your job isn’t to be clever. Your job isn’t to sound impressive. Your job is to listen, capture, and reflect.

Create your Voice of Customer document. Keep it updated. Reference it before you write any headline, any ad, any email.

Stop saying „revolutionize your workflow.” Start saying „stop wasting half your Monday on status updates.”

Because when your copy sounds like the conversation already happening in your customer’s head, they don’t feel sold to. They feel understood.

And people buy from companies that understand them.

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Tom Piskorski, Senior Marketing Campaign Specialist, 13+ years of experience managing Google Ads, Meta Ads, and LinkedIn Ads campaigns for B2B companies across Europe. Founder of LabRoi – an educational platform helping marketing directors make decisions based on data instead of guesswork.