The Usage of Sentiment Analysis for Hearing the Voice of the Customer and Improving Businesses

Abstract

Thanks to social media, organizations now have the opportunity to continuously monitor customer feedback, laws regulations and policies. The voice of the customer has become more influential than ever before, because people make sure that whatever they say is heard by their friends and followers in microblogs. However, information gathered from social media has little value unless it is examined against other facts and used to forecast trends and risks. Considering the great importance of customer opinions, business stakeholders mostly care about the processing time and accuracy of big data, which is now easily found. That is why, for opinion processing we are suggesting Sentiment Analysis, which is a set of methods, that perceive, measure, report and utilize attitudes, opinions, and emotions automatically. Our aim is to show that the engagement of Sentiment Analysis in business can be used as an alert for the key stakeholders, to be informed for specific positive or negative discussions and issues which may affect the brand. From the case studies that we have analyzed about big and medium companies, we have found out that by measuring the customer’s perception of different goods, services and commercials, Sentiment Analysis has helped on improving their products, operations and department communications. It has even reached a great impact on intangible assets of the companies. The main contribution of this paper comprises of the usage of Sentiment Analysis in companies, in a manner that they can improve their business and reach more potential customers and business values, as well as to become a good reference point for further researches in this field.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n4p401