By gauging consumer sentiment, you’re not guessing what consumers want and tweaking prototypes. Rather, you’re either validating or disproving your assumptions with data that’s already in the marketplace. Compared with surveys, focus groups, and other traditional methods of obtaining customer feedback, sentiment analysis generates better insights faster, allowing you to incorporate those insights into product design more quickly. By shortening the product development cycle, you can not only reduce R&D expenses, but also increase the speed at which your products get into the hands of your customers.
Sentiment analysis can also tell you what consumers don’t value. Perhaps you invested in a feature that you thought would be a differentiator. But if no reviews mention the feature as a reason people love the product, do customers really care about it? These insights can help inform decisions to eliminate costs in areas that don’t detract from the perceived value of the product—decisions that directly affect the bottom line.
Authors: Bharat Kapoor, Scott Tsangeos
Source: A.T. Kearney
Subjects: Customer Related, Market Research
