At Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), customer-centricity is a core strength – but Brandy Bolden, the company’s Chief Customer Officer (CCO), saw the opportunity to go further. Her vision was clear: Evolve the Voice of the Customer (VoC) program from a feedback function into a true decision-making engine – one that shapes strategy, guides investment, and drives measurable outcomes.

Challenge

Under Brandy’s leadership, it became evident that while SMUD had a strong VoC foundation, the impact wasn’t fully realized. Definitions of “customer insight” varied across the organization, feedback systems were fragmented, and insights weren’t consistently translating into action.

“While we had built a strong Voice of the Customer foundation, we weren’t fully realizing its impact. ‘Customer insight’ meant different things across the organization, our feedback systems were fragmented, and too often, insights weren’t translating into action. I knew that to lead in a rapidly changing environment, we needed more than data—we needed alignment, clarity, and a clear roadmap to operationalize the customer voice at the executive level.”

Approach

To bring this vision to life, Brandy engaged U2030 Advisory Services as a strategic partner to help accelerate progress. Together, the work centered on enabling her ambition: transforming VoC into a cohesive, enterprise capability.

U2030 supported SMUD by:

  • Assessing the maturity of the existing VoC ecosystem through executive interviews, data analysis, and process reviews. 
  • Benchmarking against best-in-class VoC programs to define what “great” looks like for SMUD. 
  • Identifying the gap between current capabilities and Brandy’s future-state vision. 
  • Implementing a clear close-the-loop step into the process.
  • Co-developing a pragmatic, executive-level roadmap to guide decision-making and investment. 
  • Facilitating alignment sessions across Customer, IT, and cross-functional teams to ensure shared ownership. 

“Brandy had a clear and compelling vision to elevate the role of the customer voice in how the organization makes decisions. Our role was to translate that vision into a structured, actionable plan that the entire organization could align around and execute with confidence.”

Throughout the engagement, the focus remained on creating clarity, alignment, and momentum across the organization.

Outcomes

Because of this engagement, SMUD began shifting from collecting feedback to activating it. Today:

  • Customer insights are consistently translated into action
  • Executive leaders have a clear, aligned path forward
  • Feedback loops are strong and clear, increasing visibility and accountability
  • Empathy and customer context are embedded in decision-making

“We’ve moved from listening to our customers to truly leading with them—ensuring their voice shapes how we prioritize, decide, and act across the organization,” say Brandy.

What changed most was not just the program – but its role. VoC evolved into a strategic lever for transformation, bringing Brandy’s original vision to life: a customer voice that doesn’t just inform decisions, but actively drives them.