Competitive insights: When should you start paying more attention to what are your competitiors doing?
Your users and customers are the best source of information. So naturally when doing a competitive intelligence, you would want to know what your competitors’ users are saying about them.
The good or the bad…
What is user sentiment analysis you ask? It’s a practice that goes beyond skimming through customer feedback and feeling good about yourself when you see a negative review on your competitor’s aggregate review website like G2 or Capterra.
It’s about diving deep into the seas of social media chatter, review platforms, and surveys to find those priceless nuggets of what people really think.
We’ll show you how to turn customer feedback into enablement materials for your product or sales teams.
Let’s dive in.
What is a user sentiment review analysis?
User sentiment analysis is a practice of dissecting customer feedback from a variety of channels (think social media, online review platforms, and customer service data) and getting meaningful insights out of them. It helps you understand the overall customer experience and identify areas for improvement.
Because even though Jim dropped a stellar five-star review saying “It’s so easy to use” we can’t pop the campaign just yet. What if Jim is the only one who says this?
It’s important to thoroughly review the latest feedback, categorize it, and analyze how often people highlight specific pros and cons. When it comes to ease of use, you can check: Is it truly the UI that shines, could it be an exceptional onboarding process? Or could it be the beautiful customization features that customers find irresistible?
This approach not only identifies strengths and weaknesses but also helps your team to understand your customers truly.
And look no further for why this matters.
Why does user sentiment review analysis matter?
Customer review analysis directly aligns your customers' hearts and minds. It's a crucial piece of the puzzle when leveraging competitive intelligence to stay ahead. When your sales team understands what customers love, they can approach them more confidently, resulting in improved conversion rates as a welcome side effect.
For more on this, you will have to look a bit further, but not that far. Check out "What is Competitive Intelligence and Why All B2B Tech Companies Need to Have It."
What are the key benefits of review analysis?
If you do the review analysis the right way, you can use the insights for all these delicious use cases:
- Refine and enhance your offerings to create better products
- Boost loyalty and delight your customers by addressing their needs
- Strengthen your brand and stay ahead of the competition
- Use the information to attack and defend your product in competitive deals
- Repurpose positive reviews for marketing materials to build social credibility
When should you start doing a review analysis?
The best thing you can do is to integrate review analysis into your regular work routine—weekly, monthly, or quarterly—depending on your industry and customer interaction frequency.
This is not a one-and-done task; it's an ongoing commitment. Regularly diving into customer feedback ensures you’re always in tune with what your customers want. It’s the secret sauce to staying relevant and competitive in a constantly shifting market.
Another homework you can give (yourself). If you’re in a saturated market with lots of competitors, make the effort to drive positive reviews to credible aggregate review websites (think G2, Capterra on the B2B side, TrustPilot, or smaller SaaS businesses and CourseReport for educational online bootcamps.)
How to do a proper user review analysis?
Step 1: Pull all data in one place
To master review analysis, you will have to start by collecting all your data in one place. You can gather online review data from diverse sources such as:
- G2
- Capterra
- TrustPilot
- Social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok)
These platforms host valuable customer feedback that can provide insights crucial for your business. Next, you have two options:
- Collect reviews manually, or
- Automatically via third-party tools
You can do this step:
- In-house, or
- Outsource it
Collecting data in-house gives you control but demands resources, whereas outsourcing saves time but requires trust in external expertise. Both methods have their pros and cons, so choose based on your business's needs and goals.
Alternatively, you can also leverage AI for this process. The pro here is that AI can scrape and summarize sentiments fairly quickly, giving you a broad overview fast. However, these tools aren't always spot-on. AI isn't yet sophisticated enough to pick up on nuances like irony or sarcasm. Therefore, it's crucial to have someone with product expertise review the findings, cherry-picking the most impactful quotes and making sure that the analysis truly reflects customer sentiments.
Step 2: Analyze and organize customer reviews into themes
Categorize feedback into clear themes like what users love, what they dislike, and any specific benefits they're experiencing. This way you can see powerful patterns and sentiments that would otherwise remain hidden in the noise.
Another good idea is to highlight standout reviews, especially those that pinpoint major pain points or highlight exceptional aspects. This way, you're equipping your team with precise, data-backed insights, and not giving them random “Jim” quotes.
Step 3: Share findings with your stakeholders
When presenting your customer review analysis findings, consider two formats:
- Real-time updates: Create a channel on Slack (or Microsoft Teams, or an alternative) dedicated to quick competitive intelligence insights.
- Comprehensive recaps: Deeper analyses are shared through voice-of-the-customer collateral, newsletters, or webinars with key stakeholders.
Here are some extra tips to nail your presentation:
- Summarize key insights: Highlight trends, recurring themes, and noteworthy feedback.
- Use visual aids: Utilize charts, graphs, and visual summaries to present data in a clear and digestible format.
- Highlight impactful quotes: Include direct quotes or excerpts from customer reviews that illustrate significant sentiments or pain points.
- Recommendations for action: Clearly outline steps that your company can take to capitalize on strengths, address weaknesses, or enhance customer satisfaction based on the analysis
Step 4: Integrate insights into sales enablement materials
We’re almost at the end. All that’s left to do now is to put these pearls of wisdom to work across your sales enablement materials. Here’s how you can make the most of your hard efforts:
- Update website copy: Refine your website messaging to spotlight strengths. Embed customer testimonials on your homepage and product pages to add credibility and directly tackle common pain points.
- Create comparison pages: Develop dedicated landing pages that compare your offerings against competitors. Highlight distinct advantages and address specific pain points your product or service uniquely resolves.
- Craft battlecards: Include insights on competitor weaknesses and key differentiators to empower sales reps in positioning your product persuasively.
- Targeted ads: Design ad campaigns tailored to directly confront competitor weaknesses identified in your analysis. Customize ad copy and visuals to emphasize how your solution addresses these pain points more effectively.
Did this blog spark your interest in competitive intelligence? Luckily, it goes beyond review analysis. Explore further by signing up for our 7-day email course, to learn how to collect extensive competitive data, turn it into insights, and start winning deals with battlecards.
Boost your Enablement Program and increase win rates with review analysis
Review analysis isn't just about understanding what customers think. Getting that data is one piece - using it is another. Once you review and ponder what a customer is saying you’d want to use those insights in competitive enablement and supporting sales with competitive deals.
When your team truly understands their customers’ needs and pain points, they can have more meaningful conversations that resonate. This means stronger connections, which will drive higher conversion rates, turning prospects into loyal customers.
Quite cool to get all this just from the juice don’t you think?
Contact us today to start leveraging the power of review analysis and transform customer feedback into actionable strategies that drive conversions and propel your business forward.