Amazon famously has an empty chair in each meeting, a quiet symbol that represents the customer. That’s not enough anymore.

An empty chair won’t share a perspective or have a point of view. It won’t be able to tell you something you didn’t even know you didn’t know. That’s where people who work in advocacy, ambassadorship, and relations come in. They speak not only on behalf of the customer; they’re immersed in them—effectively, they’re one of them.

They share an epistemological perspective that’s close to customers or other stakeholders, that would be difficult otherwise to appreciate or understand. 

The most important value is not the cold reasoning or understanding—which could be bolstered or driven by research—it’s the hot emotion, the feeling, “Oh, they’re not going to like that,” or even, “That’s not the right way to position this product/campaign/project.”

Companies that know what they’re doing will invest heavily on this. It will recruit internal advocates, manage an external ambassador company, and hire people to maintain and manage relations. That’s truly representing the customer, at more and more important roles.