There is great potential in analyzing blogs and forums to identify customer wishes.

The head of quality control was visibly upset when he read: “When you buy such an expensive piece of equipment, you have a right to expect it to work. But it looks like I’m not the only one with this problem — just google the Web and you’ll see what I mean.” He had starting hearing comments like this customer’s more and more often, and decided to look into the matter. At the next board meeting, he told the heads of sales and marketing about the growing dissatisfaction among the company’s customers, adding that he now wanted to supplement the internal surveys by consulting the Internet. He then proceeded to do just that — but what he found was very unsettling. Apparently, a lot had been reported and written for weeks in the relevant forums and newsgroups about his company, the declining quality of its service, and this particular problem with the product* — and he hadn’t known about it. Customers were sharing their experiences with one another and stirring up bad will.

It was clear that Internet blogs and forums were being used as a platform for the company’s customers and other interested parties to find out about its products and make purchase decisions — but also to exchange information and opinions and complain about problems. The company’s image and pricing policy were also targeted. A dangerous development, because when opinions get rolling and bad feelings escalate at the same time, a company needs to take fast action. It was therefore essential to find out what was being said where on the Internet about the company and its products, so that if necessary it could move quickly to stem or reverse the tide. “Act instead of reacting” was now the name of the game.

In the summer of 2006, the company issued an invitation to bid for developing a software application for automatically monitoring and analyzing such user-generated content of the kind that appears daily in blogs, forums and newsgroups. The goal was to analyze how customers perceived its brands and products. What the software needed to do was detect and analyze trends and moods as early as possible, reveal potential problem areas, and above all identify the opinion drivers so that the company’s communication strategy could directly address them. In addition, the results of analysis needed to be visualized.

Cogisum Intermedia AG won the contract in early 2007, mainly because the client was so impressed by its technological competence, the convincing concept it proposed, and its concrete answers to the client’s specific requirements. Since then, an application has emerged that trawls and indexes relevant blogs, forums and newsgroups day after day to literally paint a picture of the frank opinions expressed there. It applies special analytical methods to generate this picture from the most moving topics, most frequently expressed criticisms, or also wishes and preferences. A gratifying and definitely intended side-effect: the application also detects “weak signals” that can be used to spot trends and budding problem areas. Now the client can tune into customer wishes for innovations that are only just beginning to be expressed and draw early conclusions regarding its future product or image policy. The company not only learns a great deal about the market and its competitors, but also gains insights into customers’ expectations and preferences. Trend and tonality analyses play a particularly important role here — in other words, evaluation of “weak signals”. Very important is the fact that the results are obtained in realtime, closely tracking developments, instead of with a delay of weeks like with most market research surveys.

The result after using the application for over half a year: in this specific case, subsequent analysis of the relevant newsgroups, blogs and forums revealed very precisely when and where the problem had first appeared. The company was then able to use this information to systematically turn the situation around and get rid of the problem. A lastingly effective solution had been found for which, according to the head of quality control, “all credit goes to the intelligent search technology of Cogisum, which leaves no wishes unmet with its 360-degree approach.”

*The company and its product have been kept anonymous at the client’s request.
Cogisum Intermedia AG, September 2007