New paper from Allegiance, Inc. shows how technology can be used to uncover insights from freeform customer comments

September 16, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Text Analytics Changes Everything for Voice of the Customer

- New paper from Allegiance, Inc. shows how technology can be used to uncover insights from freeform customer comments -

SALT LAKE CITY – September 16, 2010 – Consumers generate an incredible amount of online content about brands by posting comments that are publicly available to everyone. Most compelling, these comments are not being said to the companies themselves, but to the world at large. A new white paper from Allegiance titled “How Text Analytics Changes Everything” provides details on how technology can be used to gather and analyze the explosion of unstructured, freeform text from online customer comments to gain valuable insights.

Unsolicited customer feedback comes in many forms, including social media, online forums and communities, blogs, or emails to the company. According to the paper, businesses are turning to text analytics systems to automatically process and analyze text in all its forms so that it can be used to identify trends, uncover early warning signs and product issues, gather suggestions for improvement and respond to cries for help from customers.

“Due to the freeform nature and sheer volume of consumer comments, it has been an expensive and cumbersome process to gather and understand this unstructured data. However, text analytics technology changes this by automating the process,” said Eric Weight, director of Text Analytics Products for Allegiance. “Businesses can benefit greatly by being able to use this information to do competitive research, understand general market trends and pinpoint emerging problems early on in the product development lifecycle.”

In applying text analytics to gathering customer feedback from social media, the number one challenge is identifying the fraction of comments that are relevant to a business. To manage this, the Allegiance Voice of the Customer (VOC) program applies smart filtering techniques to select only the relevant information from the mountain of available data. The power of text analytics allows companies to quickly and accurately identify actionable issues and then adapt in real time by taking immediate steps that will boost customer retention, differentiate their business and quickly grow revenue.

“Many companies use legacy technology that can only discern mentions of ‘shallow sentiment,’ but this analysis is only marginally better than traditional customer satisfaction research,” continued Weight. “Text analytics needs to provide actionable results by helping to discern real insights.”

To download a complimentary copy of the paper “How Text Analytics Changes Everything” visit http://www.allegiance.com/textanalytics.

Allegiance Supporting Resources

Allegiance press room <http://www.allegiance.com/news/press.php>
Voice of the Customer Blog <http://blog.allegiance.com>
Become a Fan of Allegiance on Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/South-
Jordan-UT/Allegiance-Inc/87289901462>
Follow Allegiance on Twitter <http://twitter.com/allegiancetweet>
Allegiance customer success stories and white papers <http://www.allegiance.com/
resources/document-library.php>

About Allegiance, Inc.

Allegiance, Inc. offers next generation Voice of the Customer (VOC) and feedback management software to help organizations grow customer and employee loyalty and engagement. The Allegiance Engage Software platform facilitates survey creation and gathers responses and unsolicited comments in real-time into a centralized online system, saving time, effort and money. Allegiance solutions measure customer and employee engagement, revealing precise actions to grow engagement and increase revenue. Allegiance Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM), predictive analytics, and professional services combine to help businesses capitalize on engagement. In 2009, Allegiance was ranked 58th on the list of the 500 fastest growing, privately held companies in the U.S. by Inc. Magazine. For more information about Allegiance, visit http://www.allegiance.com.