This week we analyzed Digital Picture Frames. As of this date we monitor 192 products in this category and analyzed 18,427 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.
Portable USA PU-10W 2010 Piplzchoice Award winner 26.8% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category The winners are chosen by their customers
As consumers we all can recall the experiences that have left us feeling abused and mistreated by companies we have selected to give our money to. In some instances I promised to myself never to come back for more and kept my promise – I would rather go back to dial-up ISP than deal with Comcast.
According to the research of Bruce Temkin, former Forrester analyst and an authority on Customer Experience management,
The point of this writing is not to bash Comcast, even though it definitely deserves bashing, but to ask an important question: Does the Customer Experience (or Customer Satisfaction) really matter if in spite of its miserable scores a company like Comcast can produce healthy profits?
These financial statements show steady growth in revenues and profits over the same periods, and the numbers do not provide any evidence to support the belief that mistreatment of the customers is a good business practice.
I have posed this question to Bruce and his response
“@piplzchoice Good question. Cust exp is a long-term asset. Comcast (and others in the industry) are squandering it. It will catch up to them.”
This response is encouraging, but not entirely satisfying because it appeals to emotional belief (faith). I would prefer some empiric evidence of correlation between profitability and customer experience ratings or reputation.
I have heard about Claes Fornell of CFI Group who has done very interesting work in that field, but yet to learn more about that methodology.
To be fair, one example, particularly of a company that operates in rapidly growing market with very few competitors, does not offer any meaningful insight and I would love to find some other, more representative examples.
Woody Allen once said – “I would gladly accept existence of God if he would give me some evidence of his existence, like transferring $5M to my Swiss bank account”. Please let me know if you are aware of any definitive studies and/or methodologies that quantify and/or predict financial performance based on the Customer Experience – I am still faithful, but yearn for evidence.
This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for Bluetooth Headsets. As of this date we monitor 30 products in this category and analyzed 2,977 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.
Motorola H680 2010 Piplzchoice Award winner 44.5% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category The winners are chosen by their customers
As any business seeks to better understand customer needs and behaviors, it’s no secret that Social Media has opened more doors to CRM opportunities than ever before. Last week while reading a recent marketing blog, I was amazed to observe that the writer failed to suggest the current trend of social networking as a frontline method for creating a relationship with customers.
Like never before, Social Media is providing a colossal platform allowing us to hear what our customers are saying. It is quickly becoming one of the best ways to engage a customer and gain valuable insight into their experience with our products as well as those of our competition. Are you listening?
This explosive technology could permit any business to identify competitive threats or opportunities through information that might not otherwise be detected without listening to thousands of customers. Historically, formal focus groups were utilized as the most common means of collecting this data in-person from the end user. Perhaps one could imply that today social media is quickly becoming the new “focus group”.
Consider for a moment that while traditional focus groups draw in customers to discuss their experiences, so are Social Networks providing the same information. Is there really a significant difference? The value of a focus group depends largely on quality of questions posed to the participants with all the biases that are incorporated into a question. The main disparity is that social media presents a very public review of a product or company’s benefits and even shortcomings. However, we must not ignore the exponential numbers of consumers who are vocalizing this valuable data. It is often more candid than any focus group could provide.
Getting connected with them is just part of the solution. Connecting & engaging within these social mediums is relatively easy part. Nevertheless, just like any other ‘marketing” effort, its success is not realized without measurement. Therefore, the opportunity exists in figuring out what to do with the unstructured data.
Fortunately there is technology available to “interpret” this valuable data. Utilizing a multi-dimensional analysis, we convert various forms of feedback into an actionable plan then we take it one step further. We are examining customer ratings across the market of nearly 20,000 products. Many of the companies who have attempted their own translations had to invest very significant amounts of money into text mining implementation projects that allow handling feedback about only their own products. With more than 2 million reviews, our database can deliver satisfaction scores from real world consumers about your products as well as that of your competition.
Self help author and motivational speaker, Robert Kiyosaki, was quoted last year as saying ‘I am a bit old to focus on social media now but I spend an average of two hundred thousand dollars monthly through hired employees or consultants on social media, online reputation etc’. While the use of social media as a marketing tool is still in its early stages, let’s not ignore this novel opportunity to act on customer feedback.
This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for Photo Printers. As of this date we monitor 180 products in this category and analyzed 14,627 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.
Canon Pixma IP90v Photo Inkjet Printer 2010 Piplzchoice Award winner 32.9% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category The winners are chosen by their customers
For full list of products in this category and Customer Reviews used for this research, select “Camera & Photo > Printers & Scanners > Photo Printers” Category in Product Reputation Market Intelligence Report on this site.
Below is the list of runner up printers that illustrates remarkable domination of this category by Cannon products – Epson PictureMate is the only photo printer, besides Canon, that managed to brake into the top ten list.
This week we have introduced a new functionality to our site. Registered users can now compile, save and monitor their personalized lists products regardless of their categories association.
The following are examples of use:
1. A Product Manager, who is responsible for a ipod docking station and a computer speakers, can now assemble both products into one list for monitoring and reporting. In the past she would need to produce two reports from respective categories;
2. A Brand Marketing Manager, who researches competitive landscape of Tablet computing devices, can select and save a specific sub-set of this category that is pertinent for his analysis. In the past he would have to filter out the products outside of his desired data set every time he would want to export the report.
The management of personalized product list can be done from the PRMIR
or by clicking on Create New Product List link on MyAccount/MyList form as seen on the top screen shot. That action will open dialog offering a user to save the new list name and a form we you can search, and add products to the list.
Thank you for providing your ideas for improvements and keep them coming.
Clay Shirky once said in on of his presentations – “There is no information overload – it is filters failure”
Some people complain that the Internet has created overwhelming volumes of information. Is there really too much information about objects of interest or is the perception of overwhelming volume actually misstated? Perhaps the issue is not quantity but level of quality. It is a matter of perception and focus; the ability to discriminate signal from background noise. Both producers and consumers care about what is said about a product or service equates to dollars or pounds or yen because positive statements will usually translate into higher demand. It is ironic how growing numbers of sophisticated product producers and consumers are tapping into the same information stream that has only recently come out of emerging social networks; a kind of digital crowdwisdom.
Whether consumers are overwhelmed by the amount of product information or just lazy, many consumers apparently prefer the conversation threads shared by digital “friends” in their social network over search engine result pages generated by a product’s keywords and metadata tags. There is a very human tendency to seek out the opinion or advice of a “social herd” of like-minded people with similar values, interests, and needs. It is more than just a contemporary cynicism of Madison Avenue hype and infomercial verbiage. Following the “virtual herd” may at first sound like a derogatory statement but it is in fact fair and descriptive. Herding is an adaptive trait that fosters very important social behaviors. Though it can, if carried to an extreme like lemmings jumping off a cliff appear pointless, following a “digital” herd saves time and minimizes personal risk. Whether inexperienced or as mentioned above, overwhelmed by too much information, “attending” to what the other member’s of one’s social circle say, do, or prefer is like a filtering device. Some people feel that the wider their circle and the greater the consensus toward a selection, the less risky their final choice. This filtering is especially cost-efficient. A consumer, after finding a common and comfortable social niche, has to neither spend additional time nor effort to select objects of value or need; they just follow the Word-of-Mouth recommendations of their trusted circle and their satisfaction is guaranteed.
Sophisticated product producers recognize that tapping into these social niches, if they can find them, provide free and truthful evaluations of what is right and wrong with their product line. Crowdwisdom would appear to reflect unsolicited, and therefore one hopes, unbiased evaluations of many different facets of a product. If postings in some niche social network discuss a product, its reputation, and its brand over some reasonable time frame, a producer could conclude the data is accurate rather than misrepresented, for example, by a competitor’s planted remarks or their own staff trying to “market” company goods. They could conclude it is balanced rather than atypical and biased when, for example, a single irate customer monopolizes bandwidth with redundant rants. Producers who cast their virtual nets over social networks to catch real-time comments must follow the best practices in statistical sampling and testing of experienced psychologists and trained sociologist. Crowdwisdom is not necessarily wise but it is, when collected carefully, extremely relevant. Especially in this digital age where many people struggle to find the signal in all the noise, it is cost-effective and an adaptive trait that minimizes personal risk. It doesn’t matter whether or not you trust or even like everyone in your social circle, if the group hangs out at a particular water hole, it must be safe to go there to drink.
This week we analyzed Customer Reviews for External Hard Drives. As of this date we monitor 183 products in this category and analyzed 22,386 reviews written by their customers. However some of these products have not accumulated enough reviews to produce statistically representative and accurate metrics, so we filtered them out of the competition. The second round disqualified any product that failed to meet Customer Expectations with its Functionality, Reliability or Support.
Transcend StoreJet 25 Mobile Anti-Shock 500 GB 2010 Piplzchoice Award winner 55% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category The winners are chosen by their customers
For full list of products in this category and Customer Reviews used for this research, select “Computers & Accessories > Computer Add-Ons > Drives & Storage > Hard Drives” Category in Product Reputation Market Intelligence Report on this site.
Interesting finding of this study that we could find only three runner ups in this product category. Most external portable disk drives do not meet customer expectations for reliability and support.
Your online reputation is always at risk! Whether you are protecting your personal “brand” or securing the reputation of a product or service you sell, the most significant “bang for your buck” can come from an unsolicited source; a link that surfaces in a trade-related blog post, a YouTube video that goes viral, or the complementary back link on a customer’s personal blog. Social network “market intelligence” has a significant and growing voice in advertising dialog; it is what people say about you rather than what you say about yourself!
Imagine a product review that shows 5% of your customers were reporting specific design issues with, for example, the battery compartment latch on an MP3 player you sell. Image a tool that would, in minutes, help you factor out this specific design issue, recalculate a customer satisfaction index, and project that your product would outscore the competition by 4.2%. Would an online tool like this help you manage your product and your career?
Several analytic tools and techniques on the market offer easy-to-use interfaces that offer multiple selections of key performance variables and listings of competing manufacturers. These tools can filter the number of sampled reviews and adjust ranges for different scores and indices. What should you look for in such a tool?
· Verify that data collection techniques are carefully performed. Are samples filtered for promotional content and duplication? Are they run on a regular recurring basis? We believe that, depending on the market, data over 30 days old is stale.
· Select a tool that provides multiple independent criteria for your product reputation metric. Make certain your underlying data sample reliably support variables. Look for robust reporting features that are easy-to-use and well-documented.
· Confirm features that allow you to export your data to ANY spreadsheet (using, for example, comma-separated variable, CSV, format).
Whether you are a product managers or an entrepreneur, you need actionable insights to identify how well your product meets your customers’ expectations. Yesterday’s excitement becomes today’s expectation and tomorrow’s “must-be”. The ever-growing “digital word-of mouth” coinciding with the ebb and flow of social media phenomena like Facebook and Twitter can exaggerate shifts in perception and opinion over very short periods of time.
Customer satisfaction is no longer a simple statistic. Consider this key performance indicator of success as an aggregate of perceived reputation; your product’s functionality (its feature set), its reliability and its accessibility through support from you as the manufacturer, included documentation, and the friendliness of the user interface. One unexpected effect these “socially-shared expectations” have is the speed at which they can unpredictably change. Protect your product and your brand. Your online reputation and the reputation of your products need constant monitoring. Your livelihood probably depends on it!
