Social Intelligence: A Time to Listen, A Time to Engage Practitioner's Guide Executive Summary

CUSTOMER CENTRICIT Y:
A TIME T O LIST EN, A T IME
T O ENGAGE

PRACTITIONER'S
GUIDE TO SOCIAL
INTELLIGENCE

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Intelligence to Enhance Customer Centricity: A Practitioner's Guide for
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others please take notice.
Note: The naming convention for this primary research study also includes “Social
Analytics & Intelligence: Best Practices for Customer Service &
Support” and “Social Analytics & Intelligence: A Practitioner’s Guide to
Converting Contextual to Action Insights”. ©2012-2013 Hypatia Research Group
LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this research study may be repurposed,
distributed, translated or published in any format without licensing or the
express written consent of Hypatia Research Group, LLC and its
management. CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT RESEARCH, LESLIE AMENT

©2013 Hypatia Research Group, LLC | “Using Social Intelligence to Enhance Customer Centricity“: A Practitioner's Guide for
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1

A Time to Listen, a Time to Engage1
Now that conversations about social media have taken over large amounts of digital ink in cyberspace—with consumers
becoming more vocal about issues as less than perfect customer service, product quality issues and pricing—organizations
of all sizes are struggling to:


Correlate social activities to tangible results



Convert social analytics into actionable intelligence, and



Create new business processes and rules to manage social interactions, to develop social engagement or to create
customer advocacy.

Quite simply, we define social business as leveraging
the ability to listen, analyze, interact and engage with
customers via conversations in support of corporate
goals that are strategic, operational and tactical, as
well as short and long-term in nature.
Why do organizations find this daunting? There is no
dearth of software and service vendors offering
sentiment analysis, twitter analytics, content analytics,
and speech analytics tools. Each offers dashboards,
drill-downs, graphs or other types of visualization that
illustrate metrics for online sentiment analysis
(positive, neutral, mixed or negative), such as
influencer or Net Promoter Scores, share of voice,
volume, product quality issues, crisis management,
share price cause and effect or media and brand
reach.

"Turn! Turn! Turn!
“To everything there is a season, and a time to
every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant,
a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep,
and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sow; a time to keep
silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war,
and a time of peace.”
-- Adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes, attributed to
King Solomon

Our assessment is that customer-propelled social interactions are blurring the lines and driving convergence among sales,
marketing and customer care business processes.2 Social business offers the opportunity to improve customer interactions
by fostering real engagement through innovative technologies combined with redesigned business processes.
Moreover, our research reveals that this tsunami of interactional as well as transactional customer information often
overwhelms organizations; unless key stakeholders proactively develop a strategy and plan for operationalizing this highly
valuable intelligence. Ideally, this would be accomplished in concert with traditional sources of customer information such
as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Digital Marketing, Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM), Contact
Center (CSS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other enterprise applications.

1

To Everything There Is a Season", often abbreviated to "Turn! Turn! Turn!" is a song written by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s based on text from the

Book of Ecclesiastes.
2

“Exploiting Social Intelligence for Customer Service & Support Excellence”, ©2013 Hypatia Research Group.



2

Which brings us back to the seminal question of who owns the customer? Nearly all C-level, vice president, and directorlevel executives we interact with say “everyone should be customer-centric and focus on the customer.” However, at the
end of the day, (or balance sheet), C-level executives are accountable to their boards or their shareholders. Certainly, food
for thought and a compelling reason to evaluate both software vendors and current business processes with an eye towards
enabling enterprise-wide customer centricity.

Organizations Invest for Multiple Reasons
One of the many reasons companies continue to pour money into social media software and services is the wide range of
business use cases it can be applied to. Companies are more comfortable than ever before in using business intelligence
reporting tools to inform their decision-making. Now that it is possible for line of business functions to see the “why
behind the BI” by leveraging contextual information (unstructured content such as social media or user-generated content
versus data which is structured) along with data, companies are eager to refine their customer engagement and advocacy
initiatives.
Figure 1: Why Companies Invest in Social Intelligence

©2013 Hypatia Research Group, LLC. All rights reserved



3

According to our research findings, companies invest in social intelligence software and services primarily for these business
initiatives:


Brand Loyalty, Reputation and Risk Management



Customer Service & Support



Product Innovation and Enhancement



Sales and Marketing

Given the sheer volume, variety and velocity of social content, the right social technologies combined with well-defined
business processes, performance metrics and team member accountability will support organizations in converting
contextual information into actionable insight.3
Figure 2: Social Metrics Tracked Most Often

©2013 Hypatia Research Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
Multi-response answers—will not equal 100%

3

“Social Analytics & Intelligence: Converting Contextual to Actionable Insight”. ©2012 Hypatia Research Group



4

Our research demonstrates that while many software solutions and tools offer dashboards, drill-downs, or other types of
visualization to illustrate metrics such as:


Online sentiment analysis (positive, neutral, mixed or negative)



Influencer or net-promoter scores



Share of voice, volume and frequency of brand mentions



Product quality issues or innovation recommendations



Brand reach and frequency



Competitive intelligence tracking

Organizations most often measure social interactions best categorized as either A) Listening and analyzing social
conversations for sentiment trends, share of voice, and demographics or, B) Engaging in social conversations to encourage
customer activations, build relationships or propensity to recommend or purchase products and services.

Return on Social Investment is Tangible
Our point of view is that when it comes to social return on investment metrics, one size does not fit all types of
organizations or functions. While the metrics illustrated in Figure 2 above are a good place to start, there are more ways to
measure the success, effectiveness and return on social investment. Although enterprise-level social business is still in an
early adopter stage, organizational benefits realized to date are significant.
Figure 3: Return on Social Intelligence Investment: All Business Initiatives




5

To Everything There is a Season and a Purpose
Few social software solutions actually provide line of business managers—rather than IT—the ability to create rules-based
routing of customer conversations that are prioritized and categorized by predefined issues. In short, what makes social
media conversations truly actionable?


Will guidance provided by trending data or simple sentiment analysis provide enough intelligence for business
process innovation?



Is discovery correlation, text analytics or predictive analytics required to take action based on certain customer
profiles or clusters?



If an organization wishes to give preferential treatment to customers with high influencer scores or annual
customer profitability levels, what is required? For example, routing higher value customers to the top of the
action queue while known „complainers‟ are given lower priority.

Figure 4: What Makes Social Intelligence Actionable?




6

Operationalizing the value derived from social media channels does require the ability to map a best practice customer
journey by specific priority, topic or issue. Realizing concrete benefits from social investment also requires the ability to
configure these business process workflows according to customer-centric policies as defined by internal stakeholders such
as the Chief Customer or Chief Marketing Officers.
Bottom line: Our assessment is that organizations should take a balanced approach to enterprise social business. “Know
when to listen, know when to analyze, know how to influence, and when to act and engage.”4

About Hypatia Research Group
Hypatia takes an end-user approach to business and technology research. Similar to Consumer Reports5, our industry
experts are objective in providing end-user organizations with independent primary research assessments as decisionsupport in evaluating various enabling technologies, service providers and consulting firms. To maintain its independence
and impartiality, Hypatia Research does not engage in syndicated research sponsorships 6, accepts no outside advertising,
provides no free samples, and utilizes proprietary research techniques to evaluate vendors.
Why this focus on actionable insight? Knowledge for the sake of knowledge without a purpose is outside our mission.
Since 2001, Hypatia‟s tagline has been calculating results. Our research methodology, a hybrid approach that combines
qualitative and quantitative input from end-users, benchmarks the business return on investment realized by organizations
of all sizes. Research may be viewed at: https://store.HypatiaResearch.com

4

Influenced by Kenny Rogers, The Gambler lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC “You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.”
6

Vendors may license distribution rights to Hypatia Research Group studies after completion, but may not commission syndicated studies.



7

Table of Contents
A Time to Listen, a Time to Engage ...........................................................................................2
Organizations Invest for Multiple Reasons .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Return on Social Investment is Tangible ...................................................................................................................................................... 5
To Everything There is a Season and a Purpose ........................................................................................................................................ 6
About Hypatia Research Group ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7

About the Author ..........................................................................................................................9
Appendix A: Research Methodology & Respondent Profiles .................................................10
Survey Respondent Profiles ........................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Table of Charts
Figure 1: Why Companies Invest in Social Intelligence ................................................................................................................................. 3
Figure 2: Social Metrics Tracked Most Often .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Figure 3: Return on Social Intelligence Investment: All Business Initiatives ............................................................................................. 5
Figure 4: What Makes Social Intelligence Actionable? ................................................................................................................................... 6
Figure A: Respondents by Role .......................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Figure B: Respondents by Function .................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Figure C: Respondents by Geography ............................................................................................................................................................. 12
Figure D: Respondents by Company Size ....................................................................................................................................................... 12



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About the Author
Leslie Ament, Senior Vice President of Research and Client Advisory Services at Hypatia Research Group is a Customer
Intelligence Management thought-leader and industry analyst who focuses on how organizations capture, manage,
analyze and apply actionable customer insight to improve customer management techniques, reduce operating
expenses and to accelerate corporate growth. Her research coverage include: Business Intelligence, Social Media
Intelligence/Search/Text Analytics, CRM, Web Analytics, Marketing Automation, Customer Data Management/Data Quality
and Governance, Risk & Compliance. A CRM practitioner, Ament has driven process requirements gathering &
implementation for both on-premise & SaaS CRM systems.
Previously, Ament served on management teams and lead global marketing and market research groups at Demantra, Inc.
(acquired by Oracle), Arthur D. Little Management Consulting, Harte-Hanks, Banta Corporation, International Thomson
Publishing (Chapman & Hall, UK) and Carnegie Hall, Inc. She is a member of the American Marketing Association, Society
for Competitive Intelligence Professionals, Customer Relationship Management Association, DataShaping Certified Analytic
Professional, Arthur D. Little Alumni Association, Software Industry Information Association and a Board Member of the
Product Management Association.
Ament has authored highly pragmatic yet forward thinking primary research studies, exemplified by highly pragmatic yet
forward-thinking primary research studies, exemplified by “Dancing the Big Data Analytics Waltz”, ' “Delivering Big
Data Analytics Insights: Why Choose Between Accuracy, Agility OR Speed?”, “Exploiting Social Intelligence for
Customer Service & Support Excellence”, “Social Analytics & Intelligence: Converting Contextual to Actionable
Insight”, “Operationalizing Voice of the Customer: Benchmarks & Maturity Models”. Other primary research
encompasses:









Enterprise Convergence of GRC: Why Management Consultancies Should Provide a Holistic Approach
Decision Science & Customer Analysis: Competitive Advantage or Necessary to Compete
The Precision Marketing Imperative
Customer Data Management: Attaining Tangible ROI
CRM is Not Pantyhose: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Sales Productivity Tools: Closing the CRM Gap
Collaborative Planning, Forecasting & Replenishment as a Service: Evaluation Guide
Business Intelligence: Connectivity & Licensing Options for Software-as-a-Service

She often presents at industry conferences such as: CRM Evolution, Customer Service Experience, American Marketing
Association, Product Management Association, National CRM Association, Henry Stewart Marketing Analytics, Aspect
ACE, IBM Information on Demand, Nice Interactions, SAP SAPPHIRE, and numerous online webinars educating end user
organizations on how to effectively utilize and deploy customer intelligence management technologies.
Ament completed her doctorate Phi Kappa Phi at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign and her Master's and
Bachelor's degrees at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her passions are international travel, spicy food, classical music, jazz,
and Chicago-style rhythm & blues.
Contact her at LAR@HypatiaResearch.com or Twitter: @Hypatia_LeslieA



9

Appendix A: Research Methodology & Respondent Profiles
Hypatia Research Group interviewed executives and employees from more than global 500 companies that utilize Social
Analytics and Intelligence platforms, tools, and services across numerous industries. Questions were designed to determine
the following in regards to current use of social business practices:


Which market pressures and internal challenges serve as catalysts for investment?



What are the barriers to adoption?



What opportunities exist for vendors that seek to
enter this market space?



How do companies structure and organize for social
processes and what external resources are they using
for social initiatives?



What types of service providers and software
vendors have comprehensive offerings comprised of
social tools and/or services?



Which company roles or functions are most
accountable for the capture, management, analysis
and application of user generated content and social
technology?



Which performance metrics are indicative of tangible
return on investment versus which are most often
measured?

Survey Respondent Profiles
Company size segmentation encompassed upper mid-market
($750M-$2B) and large enterprise with revenues at >$2B.
Respondents came from a range of industries, with the largest
sectors being manufacturing (14.9%), professional services
(13.7%), financial services (12%), retail (11.5%), healthcare
providers (10.2%), and consumer goods (7.9%).

MARKET Research Approach
Hypatia Research applies a hybrid methodology
[quantitative & qualitative] that evaluates the
Market-drivers, Actions, Responses, Knowledge,
Enablers, and Technology enablers (MARKET) that
influence corporate behavior in specific business
environments. These terms are defined as follows:
 Market Pressures — external forces that
impact an organization‟s market position,
competitiveness, or business operations
 Actions — the strategic approaches that an
organization plan in response to industry
pressures
 Responses — how organizations invest and
overcome business challenges.
 Knowledge & Expertise — competencies,
skills and processes required to execute on
corporate strategy.
 Enabling Technology — the key functionality
of technology solutions required to support the
organization‟s enabling business practices

Responding executives held customer-focused job functions
within corporate strategy, consumer insight, customer
analytics, product marketing, customer service, merchandising, and Web analytics with roles at the manager, director, VP
and C-level.



10

Figure A: Respondents by Role

Figure B: Respondents by Function

Geographically, 51.7 percent came from the Americas, 24.1% from Europe and 24.1% from Asia--primarily China, Japan,
Korea and Australia.


11

Figure C: Respondents by Geography

Figure D: Respondents by Company Size



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