At the foundation of our products is Opinion Miner software © that uses self-training algorithms to discern, amplify and measure raw data to produce structured information and metrics – signals out of noise. We began by using customer reviews about consumer electronics products because we had so much “ore” to work with. No other category of products (I don’t view books and movies as products) seem to be blessed with such an active customer following.  We also wanted to concentrate on generating actionable signals, that I imagine excludes mining opinions about brands – as a brand reputation is aggregation of what customers experience with products that are associated with the brand.  Here is one example of results we managed to produce so far

WOM (Word of Mouth) Analysis of HP Photo Smart Printer

I believe such information can really help marketing dollars work much smarter by

• focusing promotional resources on the products that win customer advocacy because it grows your business;
• learn why consumers chose your competitor’s product over yours and make changes;
• sync marketing message with what your customers value the most – not what your product managers think is cool.

So now, after sharpening Opinion Miner’s © “teeth” on plentiful customer reviews of CE and Computer products we would like to start experimenting on different type of WOM, like restaurant reviews or reputation of specific services.  Any ideas or suggestions from you, private or public would be greatly appreciated.

This time we analyzed electric blowers in Power Tools and Home Improvements category. As of this date we are tracking 304 products and analyzed 18,906 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.

Weed Eater WEB160 7.5 amp 160 mph Electric Blower

2010 Piplzchoice Award winner
24.1% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category

The winners are chosen by their customers

Please see below a list of runner ups

I was reading a post by Bruce Temkin about power of the VOC (Voice of Customer)

It turns out that more than half of the large companies had a formal VoC program in place. And when we asked about the results, the data was amazing — 83% of companies reported that they had positive results from those efforts.

I am surprised and encouraged that large companies are so interested and invested in this large and not very clearly defined area of a Customer Experience Management. Mostly I am surprised to learn that these companies claim they are actually act on their findings. I am not challenging Bruce’s findings, I just would like to see it as a consumer more often.

Meanwhile I would like to muse on one of my favorite subject – how to make your customers to market your products – i.e. Word of Mouth Marketing.  The WOM became an important part of VOC enterprise strategy as social media enabled consumers to become much more influential than we used to be. However WOM is the original form of advertising and it played an important role in every day life on issues of much more importance than selection of a product purchase or store preference for millennium. People have, and still do, share information about our experiences with each other across dinner tables, camp fires or customer reviews websites because WOM is much more relevant to an individual needs, concerns or desires than a broad advertising messaging addressed to the market place. Marketers try to improve relevancy of the advertising through segmentation, but their assumptions and biases limit effectiveness of their messages, while WOM is ultimately more effective as its recipients control the message they decide to accept or trust, and then reinforce it by sharing their own experience.

I would like to quote a LinkedIn discussion tread here:

People decide intellectually but buy emotionally. Selling based on features and benefits won’t close the sale for the customer, but emotional messages from WOM (“This product is great because it met this need for me”) will do it. All people make decisions intellectually but will buy emotionally – particularly if the purchase resolves a ” pain “for them as recommended WOM

37 years of being in the brand building business has made me realise that the CONSUMER IS THE MEDIUM. Sumit Roy

Here are few more quotes from the same conversation

1- CONSUMER is MEDIUM – implies there are great opportunities to tap into for better and faster business results. The medium, which is in the process of being discovered and integrated into strategies and business models.

2- WOM is AMPLIFIER, i.e. ADs x WOM – implies that WOM can be that multiplier improving the result beyond your “traditional” mediums diminishing returns curve. In fact, WOM is the enabler to make that curve steeper (you get more with every additional dollar invested) and higher (you can enjoy that for longer than usual).

However this is my favorite – “Trust is what helps social intercourse breed healthy brands”. My deepest thanks to everyone who contributed to that discussion.

This time we analyzed Computer Monitors. As of this date we are tracking 159 products in Monitors and LCD categories and analyzed 9,471 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.

Acer Computers seem to “own” this category as the three most popular products carry the company’s name.

Acer ET.BV3RP.001 17-inch LCD Monitor
2010 Piplzchoice Award winner
26.4% above average Customer Satisfaction in its Category
The winners are chosen by their customers

This Monitor’ Reliability score is 4.1% higher than the category average.

For full list of products in this category and Customer Reviews used for this research, select “Computers & Accessories > Monitors” and “Computers & Accessories > Monitors > LCD” in Product Reputation Market Intelligence Reporter on this site.

Below is a complete list of qualified Computer Monitors

The product reputation metrics are measured by 2 point scale    .

I would like to start with a disclaimer. I have long admired Apple designed products even though I have never owned an Apple product. Every time I would get an interest in buying one and come to a store to try them, I would find them disappointing, as very enthusiastic Apple supporters seem to create expectations, that are very difficult to meet. I am also an admirer of Steven Jobs, perhaps because I have never met him in person . However this writing is not about my personal opinions, but a comparative analysis of market intelligence produced by our algorithms, based on customer generated content or Word of Mouth, and some additional external information sources that will be specified as I sight them.

Two latest Apple products are generating a lot of press and some of it is decidedly negative – iPad and iPhone 4. This writing will focus on the analysis of the iPad devices. When you try do “comparative” analysis one starts with a list of products to compare and iPad makes it very difficult as it seem to be positioned to compete with e-readers as well as tablets. The tablets category definition presents us with yet another challenge, so for the purpose of this analysis I decided to compare iPad with popular e- or digital book devices as well as some tablet devices that do not have a physical keyboards. Some popular retail website offer a very useful hint to see what percent of people who looked at a product actually purchased it, and if not what was the product they did, however in the case of iPad or Kindle such information was thoughtfully removed from every site I have checked. I also am very disappointed not to find any customer reviews on the Apple store website. It is very hard to believe that none of over 3 millions of  iPad customers did not write about their product experience on the manufacturer store site. The only possible explanation of that can be found in accusations that Apple actually censors the iPad customer discussions the same way as they accused of doing for iPhone4 here and here. It is very disturbing if it is true.

So here is the list of products I have decided to compare in terms of them meeting their customers expectations. You can make it larger if you click on the report.

Here is the scale legend for better understanding of the report.

iPad did not meet expectations of their customers, who wrote the reviews with 53% reported negative experiences (0.91) related to Reliability, and 65% of comments about Support were negative (0.94). To be fair, the customers are overwhelmingly impressed with screen readability (100% rated 1.81)  and usability of the device (96% rated 1.53).

I know the Apple just reported 78% increase in profits, but with 63% of their flagship product customers reporting that its value did not meet their expectations (0.98), I can’t help but wonder how long it would take for Apple to start loosing it’s “freshness”.

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.