Reputation CMO Liz Carter explains why brand perception now lives in reviews and social media, how AI transforms voice-of-the-customer strategies, and what it takes to turn feedback into ROI-driving action.
In a world where every customer interaction can be rated, reviewed, and reshared in real time, brand perception is no longer controlled solely by marketers—consumers co-author it. Few understand this evolving dynamic better than Liz Carter, Chief Marketing Officer at Reputation, a company at the intersection of brand management, customer experience, and feedback analytics. With a career steeped in driving growth and transformation, Carter champions a new era of marketing where listening is as critical as storytelling, and data is the connective tissue across every customer touchpoint.
In this candid conversation, Carter discusses the modern brand’s biggest challenge: maintaining control over its narrative in an age of radical transparency. From AI’s role in capturing voice-of-the-customer insights to the importance of cross-functional alignment around a unified customer experience, Carter unpacks what it means to be both a brand steward and a change agent. She also shares how Reputation is evolving its tech stack to empower businesses with real-time insights and why reputation management is fast becoming a top-line growth driver, not just a defensive play. This interview will not be missed if you want a blueprint for turning customer feedback into a competitive advantage.
Full interview;
How do you see the role of brand evolving in a world where experiences are publicly rated in real-time?
It’s changed dramatically. A brand is no longer just what a company says it is—it’s shaped by consumers’ perceptions, experiences, and shared opinions in real time. This means that what customers say about you online is your brand. And in today’s noisy environment, where buyers have endless sources of information and influence, managing that reputation is more complex than ever.
Take ratings and reviews, for example. They create a continuous feedback loop, forcing brands to be more transparent, responsive, and experience-driven. A single negative interaction—just one misstep in 56 different touchpoints before a purchase—can spiral into a viral backlash on social media or review sites. The impact is exponential.
That’s why modern brand management now hinges on a strong data strategy: collecting the right data, interpreting it, and making informed decisions. Years ago, customer contact data was the gold standard. Now, it’s about synthesizing all kinds of feedback—public and private, solicited and unsolicited—across multiple platforms to stay ahead of the narrative.
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As CMO, you drive marketing and influence customer-centric transformation. How do you balance being a brand steward with being a change agent within the organization?
It’s a careful balance, but at their core, both roles are about putting the customer at the center of every decision. As a brand steward, I focus on consistency: ensuring every touchpoint reflects our values, promise, and identity. However, as a change agent, I must challenge the status quo when customer needs or market dynamics shift. The key is using data to bridge the two.
If teams aren’t aligned around the same customer feedback data, they’ll end up solving different problems in silos, which creates a disjointed experience. Think about the 56+ touchpoints a customer might go through before making a purchase—and then consider whether they’ll return, advocate for your brand, or even detract. When different functions of your business operate in silos, each looking at separate pieces of the customer journey without seeing the full picture, it creates disconnect. Teams solve different problems without understanding how their actions impact the complete customer experience or your real-time public reputation.
That’s why breaking down these silos is key. You must uncover brand blind spots—those hidden friction points, like a glitch in the research phase or a poor first interaction with staff. You never know where the squeaky wheel might be, but bringing all the data together helps you find and fix it.
With the rise of AI, how do you envision tools like generative AI impacting how marketers capture and act on the voice of the customer?
AI is already transforming how consumers move through their buying journeys, particularly through search. Today’s buyers aren’t just looking for lists of options anymore. Instead, they’re getting real-time answers directly from AI-powered platforms. In many cases, consumers may complete entire purchase journeys without visiting a brand’s website, getting what they need from chatbots or other AI interfaces.
This shift means marketers must rethink how we understand and engage with customers. The real power of AI for customer insights comes when we can analyze properly structured data across the entire customer journey. You need comprehensive, clean data thoughtfully tagged across multiple dimensions, like the journey stage, product category, geographic region, and more, all centralized in one place. Only then can you apply sophisticated AI algorithms to uncover meaningful patterns, benchmark against competitors, and surface actionable insights.
The critical first step is working with partners who can help aggregate and structure this data effectively because AI’s potential completely depends on the quality of the underlying data. When implemented correctly, these tools move us from reactive listening to predictive understanding, allowing marketers to anticipate needs and personalize experiences at scale. But none of this is possible without that foundation of clean, well-organized customer data that captures the full complexity of today’s multi-touchpoint journeys.
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What does the next evolution of reputation management look like to you, especially as consumer trust becomes more fragile and valuable?
Given the uncertainty of our current economic climate, many brands are in a holding pattern. It’s times like these when reputation management matters most. Customers increasingly rely on peer reviews and third-party validation rather than corporate messaging when making decisions. The companies that are already managing their reputation in real time are going to have a leg up.
We’re even seeing companies switch budgets from traditional demand gen to reputation management because they understand their reputation is their most valuable currency. And the key to a good reputation hinges on transparency and consistency.
Consumers today read reviews more than ever and trust other consumers more than ever. They trust peer experiences over corporate messaging. As I mentioned, a single negative review can instantly damage your reputation. Imagine this scenario: I’m researching a place to stay for my upcoming vacation, and I come across a brand new post from a user named Barbara who’s complaining about her terrible experience. That one post could easily sway my decision.
What matters is having systems to catch feedback in real-time and respond appropriately. As a consumer, I don’t expect flawless experiences, but I want to see businesses actively engaging with customer concerns. When companies demonstrate they’re listening and taking feedback seriously, it builds trust that often outweighs the initial negative experience.
How do you build a unified customer experience strategy across fragmented channels–reviews, social media, surveys, and support–especially with varying departmental ownership?
A unified CX strategy requires a centralized platform that aggregates feedback across all channels and locations. Collaboration is paramount because CX, marketing, operations, and front-line teams need shared visibility and KPIs to turn insights into coordinated action.
Creating a cohesive customer experience is one of the trickiest issues businesses face. No single department can own the entire customer journey. Instead, you need to break down organizational silos and synchronize teams around shared goals. Start by honestly assessing your current state: map which departments touch which client interactions, identify where feedback data lives, and pinpoint the disconnects between channels.
The first step in creating a clear data strategy is asking: What insights do we need most urgently right now? If you’re struggling with initial customer acquisition, focusing on reviews and listings at the front end of your funnel might be the logical starting point. If you suspect gaps in your customer journey, combine review analysis with targeted surveys to help uncover those blind spots and get at true consumer sentiment. The key point here is securing cross-functional buy-in from all key stakeholders. Without alignment across departments, even the best CX strategy will fall short.
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Measuring ROI in reputation-driven marketing can be nuanced. What frameworks or metrics do you rely on to prove the impact of brand perception on pipeline acceleration?
We look at Reputation Score as a leading indicator because it effectively correlates review sentiment and volume with visibility, traffic, and conversions. We’ve found that increases in Reputation Score often precede boosts in SEO rankings, lead generation, foot traffic, and ultimately revenue, thus making it a powerful brand health KPI.
We developed the Reputation Score to give businesses a real-time metric that accurately reflects people’s thoughts about their brand. Our customers across industries, from retailers to hospitals to property management firms, have come to view their Reputation Score as one of the most reliable indicators of business health because it measures what truly matters: how real customers perceive and experience their brand.
Can you share how Reputation’s marketing tech stack is evolving to better integrate customer feedback, sentiment analysis, and actionable insights across teams?
We’ve spent the last two years developing a specialized architecture that allows us to centralize feedback data across hundreds of sources. This system runs deep sentiment analysis and incorporates industry-specific taxonomies, ultimately giving our customers real-time, differentiated insights that they can then use to drive their businesses.
How we’ve rebuilt this architecture from the ground up sets us apart. While competitors bolt AI solutions onto multiple disconnected data stacks, we’ve created a unified system that delivers faster, richer, and more multi-dimensional insights. We also make it easier to share those insights across the entire organization, so everybody is on the same page.
As a result, our customers can respond to situations in real time. For instance, a healthcare provider can actively monitor reviews and immediately flag negative feedback, triggering instant action to address the concern. That’s the level of real-time usability we’ve built into our platform, where insights drive immediate responses.
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Turning feedback into action is a major challenge for brands. What’s your approach to operationalizing customer insights so they inform marketing, product, support, and sales?
This is really about change management. It’s about understanding that feedback matters and ensuring the organization is aligned around the same metrics. Traditional feedback metrics like NPS and CSAT are lagging indicators. In contrast, your Reputation Score is a leading indicator because it reflects how customers react to what’s happening on the ground in real time.
With our platform, shifts in reviews, social sentiment, or survey responses can be consolidated in one place. This makes it easier to spot emerging trends and take immediate action. The key is always sharing these insights across your entire organization.
In our own business, we learn daily from customer feedback. We ensure those insights are visible, actionable, and woven into our operations. That’s how we can make a difference.
