SENTIMENT ANALYSIS - THE WHAT AND THE WHY

SENTIMENT ANALYSIS – THE WHAT AND THE WHY

Bt W H Inmon

Not so long ago corporations recognized that it was a really good idea to listen to what their customers were saying. By doing so they could make continuous positive improvement in their company’s offerings. In doing so the corporation could be more profitable and expand their customer base.

This first generation of hearing the voice of the customer ?- sentiment analysis - consisted of looking at customer sales activities. What products were selling? What were not selling, and so forth. Customer sales activities came directly from the sales records of the corporation, so they were easy to acquire. This practice – sentiment analysis - was affectionately called the viewing of the 360 view of the customer. But organizations quickly found out that judging the customer’s attitude by the analysis of sales was a crude and ineffective practice. By the time the sale was made, it was too late to influence the sale. In order to be effective, the corporation needed to get inside the head of the customer before the buy or no buy decision was made. The first generation of sentiment analysis was really not a 360 degree view of the customer at all.

But the idea of doing sentiment analysis was still a good – very good – idea.

In the day and age of the Internet, it was possible to start to gauge customer opinion before the sales decision had been made. In doing so, the corporation was in a much better position to influence the buy or no buy proposition. The Internet is full of web sites where people express their opinion about a corporation and its products and its services. Simply by paying attention to the Internet, the corporation was able to understand what was on their customers mind.

Another place the customers voice is heard is in the call center. The customer has a direct line to the corporation using the call center. If the corporation will pay attention to the call center the corporation can start to hear what customers are saying.

The second generation of sentiment analysis appeared and soon the corporation could hear what the customer was saying. In the second generation of sentiment analysis customer feedback was gathered from a wide variety of sources – the Internet, call centers, email, etc. And the second generation of sentiment analysis was a great improvement over what was being said. ?But it still did not provide the true 360 degree analysis of customer sentiment. The second generation of sentiment analysis told what the customer was thinking and saying but not why the customer was thinking whatever he/she was thinking.

The third generation of sentiment analysis depends on technology known as textual disambiguation (or textual ETL). In the third generation of sentiment analysis the what the customer is saying and the why the customer is saying it is disclosed. The third generation of sentiment analysis encompasses both the what the customer is saying it and why the customer is saying it.

As a simple example of the need for the what and the why of customer sentiment, consider a restaurant chain that has a lot of customers. The restaurant chain discovers the people are complaining about a certain dish – noodles. The restaurant chain knows there is dissatisfaction with noodles. That is the what that people are saying. But why are people dissatisfied? Are the noodles too hot? Too sweet? Too cooked? Too raw? What is it that people are dissatisfied with when it comes to the noodles serving? The reason why the people are dissatisfied with the noodles dish is that the serving size is too small.

The restaurant manager would be guessing at the reason for the dissatisfaction with the dish if he/she did not know why people were dissatisfied. But when the restaurant manager knows the why, the restaurant can take immediate and direct actions to remedy the problem.

So when you start to look for technology to help you with managing customer satisfaction, make sure you look for the ability to answer both the what and the why of the customer’s attitude.

You need both of them in order to be effective.

The third generation of sentiment analysis finally fulfills the promise of finding the 360 degree view of the customer.

The notion of the 360 degree view of the customer was a good idea a long time ago. Today we actually can start to achieve that view.

Bill Inmon lives in Denver Colorado with his wife and his two Scotty dogs – Jeb and Lena. Jeb is a classical manipulator. He knows how to get what he wants. And he is relentless. He would do well selling balloons and candy on the beach boardwalk. With his personality and his tenacity he could make a zillion bucks.