Online retailers are being urged to scour social media sites using text analytics software to find out what existing customers are saying about them and then improve the customer experience they provide.
US site Best Buy claims that by using software from Clarabridge it could monitor unstructured data, such as customer comments from sources including its call centre, as well as monitoring social media to find out what Best Buy subjects customers were discussing – and what they feel about them.
Anderson said: “We identified some key areas in our customer experience, in our retail stores as well as our phone centres and online that we needed to pay attention to and improve upon. These were often things that we hadn’t been asking about in our surveys because we didn’t think they were relevant or important to our customers.”
He added: “The voice of customer and however that voice is represented is critically important to Best Buy. As we evolve the way we develop our customer experience in the store, interaction between customers and the products we carry, we always bring the customer’s voice to the centre of that conversation.
“When we look at preorders for a particular video game, and suddenly we notice many more people tweeting, chatting online, we know we need to beef up our training around that because there’s this massive amount of conversation.”
Anderson was speaking at the launch of Clarabridge’s Europe, Middle East and Africa headquarters in West London.
Clarabridge chief executive Darren Jaffrey said: “The rise of social media means that consumers are using a host of new technologies from mobile commerce to tablets to channel their feedback. At the same time they are increasing their use of more traditional media such as surveys, chat rooms and call centres. The global nature of today’s consumer is forcing companies to think more broadly about a universal view of their customer, looking across cultures, time zones and media.”
