Word of Mouth (WOM) Analysis

Customers’ perception of mobile phones

(February 24, 2011)

Source Data:

• Social Media – customer generated content found on Amazon, Best Buy, Cnet and other popular consumer sites.

Total of 115 mobile phones from 9 major manufacturers were analyzed for this report.  18,194 customer reviews were located, processed and analyzed to measure difference between customer expectations and their experiences. The measurements are represented by a 2 point scale from 0 (unacceptable) to 2 (delighted), where 1 indicates that customers experienced exactly what they have expected.

As customers continue to buy these products and publish their reviews online, these findings, and conclusions drawn from them, may change over time. Judging by these products’ WoM history, no severe fluctuations in perception are likely within a monthly period.

Methodology:

• Only customer’s generated content is analyzed. Consumers’ opinions, without ownership reference, are not part of this analysis. The customer generated content was located, authenticated, de-duped and aggregated for the analysis.
• The content of the customer reviews is processed by Opinion Miner© software to measure the Customer Satisfaction Index and its components (Functionality, Reliability, Support scores) of the discussed products.
• The findings are organized to facilitate discovery of the products that have negative impact on a Brand Equity, compare Customer Perception of the Brands and specific products that roll up to these Brands.
• Discovery of specific product attributes and customer insights that help to understand why customers selected to purchase this product or passed it up for a competitor are not part of this analysis, but can be performed using Customer Intelligence dashboard.
• Access to verbatim of the analyzed customer reviews can be obtained by following this link and entering the name of the phone associated with these reviews.

Findings

RIM has the highest average Brand reputation score (1.16) which means that Blackberry phones exceed average customer’ expectations by 16.1%, while Nokia and Motorola brands where most disappointing to their customers.

Apple and HTC brands are the only two other brands that on average exceeded their Customer expectations, yet further analysis shows that Samsung Galaxy S phones are among the most reputable products of this segment.

In order to understand the impact of specific products on Brand Equity we have applied additional filters:

1.     All metrics have to be above 1(instead of just CSI) and

2.     Only phones that are currently being sold are being considered.

The results are showing five phones, currently sold, that have the highest average Customer Satisfaction scores.

It is not surprising to find two Blackberry phones in the group, as the RIM is the top Brand when it comes to average customer satisfaction. However the fact that Sony and Samsung phones are among the top 5, yet the Brands have overall low standings, is telling that the “dogs” of these manufacturers are dragging down their Brand Equity.

This begs the question – which Sony and Samsung phones are these “dogs”, that destroy their Brand Equity?

To answer this question we need to apply a different filter that would expose the 5 lowest CSI scored phones from these Brands.

Functionally, only Samsung Glide was really an unsuccessful phone as indicated on the chart below.

A closer look at the Reliability reputation of these phones reveals the reason for customer disappointment.

All of this analysis was performed by using Market Intelligence Dashboard

It is very hard to sell to people we don’t understand. We turn to market research for help to understand who our best potential customers are.  This quest usually starts with assumptions about common characteristics these people have to be predisposed to our products or services. It is common to assume that certain age and gender groups, or their residence, would make them more interested and capable to spend their money on our offering. Normally we come to these assumptions based on our personal experiences and intuition that we call “common sense”.

I wonder if that “common sense” is the same one that came with very accurate definition of what happen to us when we ASSUME?

I am sure that most people would prefer to KNOW instead of assuming and estimating, but there is no good way to know what does not exist yet. However there is a way of making better assumptions and estimates.

Steve Jobs is often and rightly credited as the genius behind Apple’s great success in assuming what consumers really want, but I wonder if there is a method behind his magic. Just how much sorcery is needed to figure out the requirements for iPod if you take a really close look on what customers, who purchased MP3 players, have experienced? Imagine watching these people figuring out tiny menus trying to find and play a music track they want to hear. Surely the age and gender may influence just how much of inconvenience one can tolerate, but the very fact that these people have made a decision to spend their money for something that is so imperfect, uniquely qualify them as a special market segment that supersede the traditional market segmentation criteria based on demographics.

The special applications tablets and digital e-readers were around for a few years and relatively large number of people and companies spent considerable time and money using these devices. Wouldn’t it make sense to learn from them what could make their investment even more compelling, and as the result attractive to even larger audience?

Consistency of the Apple success in introducing the products customers want suggests scalable methodology and transferable skill. I think the vision of current, successful products of your potential competitors as an early prototype of your future blockbuster is at the foundation of this methodology.  The skill of creative analysis of customer experience with these products provides a detail road map to the future success.