Jan 20, 2009 07:00 ET
Consumer Reviews Study Reveals Netbook Customer Satisfaction Falling Short of Sales Growth
SAN MATEO, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Jan 20, 2009
A benchmark analysis of consumer reviews of “netbook” laptops
collected from leading consumer electronics review websites has just
been released by Biz360®
Inc., a leading provider of market and media intelligence solutions.
One of the consumer research study’s findings indicates that
consumer advocacy for the Netbooks category lags behind consumer
advocacy for all laptops. Biz360 analyzed over 20,000 online opinions,
culled from review consumer electronics websites such as Amazon, Best
Buy, CNET, Newegg, PC World, Circuit City and CompUSA for the period May
15, 2008 through November 15, 2008. The company’s new Opinion
Insights social media measurement solution was used to
analyze the online comments.
Fast facts
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“Net Advocacy” for Netbooks category is 40 percent lower than
Net Advocacy for all laptops.
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Performance, display & features/accessories are the
most important laptop product attributes according to consumer reviews.
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While performance is the #1 attribute driving laptop
advocacy, the performance Net Advocacy for the Netbooks product
category is predominantly negative.
“Net Advocacy” is Biz360’s proprietary metric that factors the
positive and negative sentiment of individual comments, as well as the
impact of the source of each comment, to yield an indicator of a product
or brand’s referral value in the marketplace. This process is automated
by Biz360’s Opinion
Insights product, which lets companies quickly compare advocacy
scores of different brands, models, product attributes and features. By
measuring consumer sentiment on a specific product or feature, Opinion
Insights is able to deliver marketers ongoing insight into consumer
opinion more cost effectively than traditional consumer research.
Report findings
Note to reporters: more details of this social media study are
available from Tamairah Boleyn, Biz360, tam.boleyn@biz360.com.
Findings will also be reviewed via a consumer electronics industry
webcast on January 22 at 11:00 am PT, see www.Biz360.com
for event access.
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The research study highlighted the attributes and features most
likely to be commented on by consumers. Their comments indicate which
factors most influence satisfaction and purchase decisions in the
laptops category.
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For laptop manufacturers, four key product attributes accounted
for more than 70 percent of all online opinions: performance,
display, features and accessories, and general opinions.
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While Acer is the Q408 top-seller in the netbook product family,
Acer ranks lowest in Net Advocacy among the 6 laptop brands. The
Acer’s Aspire One series had a 34% lower Net Advocacy than the average
Net Advocacy of all laptop brands.
-
Nearly one quarter of all laptop online consumer reviews are
about performance. Advocacy for Netbooks category performance
is predominantly negative.
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Acer’s Aspire One series, like almost all Netbooks, is regarded
by the majority of their new owners as not technically performing up
to their expectations.
“Based on our work in the consumer electronics sector and the 2008
sales growth of netbooks as a flourishing market category, we were
interested in how this category is faring among consumers and also in
identifying market share opportunities,” said Stephen Foster, senior
director of analyst services at Biz360. “The results of the social media
analysis indicate that there is a lot of opportunity for improvement
across the board for Netbook products. Netbook
manufacturers also face a significant challenge with consumers whose
expectations are based on years of desktop pc usage.”
“Technology has changed the buying landscape forever. Consumers
now have the tools to be more vocal and influential than ever before.
Whether satisfied or not with a product, they can reach out and
communicate their opinions to a world of other consumers. And whether we
like it or not, consumers are listening and are influenced by those
heartfelt opinions expressed by their peers,” said Brad Brodigan, CEO of
Biz360. “In order to make smart business decisions, it is essential that
marketers embrace new tools to understand and interpret the new online
consumer dialogue that is happening around them.”
About Opinion Insights
Opinion Insights captures and analyzes consumer opinion from
thousands of expert and consumer review and shopping sites. This
proprietary Web-based solution is built on advanced data aggregation and
analytics techniques, including natural language processing (NLP) to
enable expert and consumer review extraction and analysis across
multiple brands, products, attributes and features. It provides
marketers with a series of real-time metrics that can be leveraged over
time in product planning and development.
About Biz360
Biz360 delivers media and market intelligence solutions to Global
2000 business decision makers, providing them with a 360-degree view of
their marketplace. The company gathers and analyzes vast amounts of
traditional news media, social media and customer opinion information
about an organization, its brands, products and competitors to deliver
real-time insights that help its clients make better and faster business
decisions. Biz360’s clients include AAA, Aetna, AstraZeneca and Sun
Microsystems. Biz360 can be reached at 866.424.9360 or www.biz360.com.
Biz360
Tamairah Boleyn, 503-679-8699
Tam.boleyn@biz360.com