Listening to the “voice of the customers” in order to understand their needs, 6-17-2009
Modena-Milan, 17 June 2009 – Expert System, leader in the development of semantic software for the comprehension and analysis of information, and Quattroruote, the most popular magazine in Italy for male readers (Source: Audipress ’08.1) as well as the most visited web site for car information (single visitors*), today announced a strategic partnership to provide automotive companies with innovative services to monitor the web and detect the sentiment.
Listening to the “voice of the customers” in order to understand their needs, identify frequent problems, anticipate market trends and verify the level of satisfaction related to products and competitors, has become a “key element”, especially in periods of crisis or limited resources. With the explosion of blogs, forums and social networks, such information is now available in real time and can be extremely useful in planning new lines of products and services, in addition to acquiring a competitive advantage over the competitors. The collaboration between Expert System and Quattroruote will provide companies of the sector with the required technology and the specific competence to leverage the vast quantity of information produced spontaneously on the Web by actual and potential customers, at a reduced cost compared to standard market searches.
Quattroruote will offer automotive companies on-line access to the Cogito Monitor software of Expert System that, thanks to its ability to understand natural language, can find and extract with great precision users’ comments. In addition, Quattroruote will make its experience in the field available to customers by suggesting the most relevant sources to be monitored. Once the service is activated, the marketing and management areas of the company will be able to create straightforward reports that are easy to understand and useful to support business decisions.
“Reputation, in particular how and when it is modified, is a critical factor in the creation and communication of business values. Estimating how a value is perceived, and how it can be supported, is a complicated task” says Gabriele Viganò, General Advertising and New Media Director of Editoriale Domus, publisher of Quattroruote. “Business companies use diversified channels of communication, but reaction times to the weak signals of the market must become quicker, and to do so they have to feed on direct information. Internet as a non-place can be the elective channel for this ongoing monitoring, but first, the opinions expressed by the users must be understood by the companies.”
Adds Stefano Spaggiari, Managing Director of Expert System “Our software allows companies to scan the Web in order to search for information about brand perception. A useful activity in particular for the automotive sector which, being in a difficult situation these months, will become able to obtain strategic advantages from the timely observation of the opinions expressed by customers.”
Quattroruote
Quattroruote.it is the portal dedicated to the motor industry, the place where users live the events of the ‘car world’: they watch video, listen to interviews, participate in forums and blogs, producing their own content. A wide range of complete content makes it The Automotive Portal of the Italian market. Moreover, 50% of the users of quattroruote.it are in the process of buying a car (Source: Nielsen Online Intercept Survey Nov.-Dec. ’09. Base: total interviewed 4.513). Quattroruote.it is the #1 site in Italy dedicated to the ‘car world’ for:
Single visitors, 1.390.107*, Pages viewed, 32.012.083*, N° Registered Users, 775.485**, Present online from 1995.
*Source: Nielsen NetRatings – Site Census. May ‘09
** Source: ED Server. May ‘09
