Technology has provided us an incredible opportunity to understand what people are thinking. Each day billions of words are flung back & forth across the internet offering us glimpses into passions, problems and purpose. This post will share two recent examples of word search technology being used in completely opposite ways.
1. Came across a post last night from Social Media Examiner that described how Microsoft has a Customer Service team – dubbed the Tweet Fleet – monitoring Twitter to find language that indicates an emerging service issue that needs to be fixed. This delivers happier customers and an image untarnished by Bad Service Gone Viral! One of the things they look for is profanity. Why? Because it indicates real passion.
2. On the other hand, I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal, detailing how Goldman Sachs has issued a new rule banning profanity in any correspondence including emails and text messages. Apparently they are just one of a number of companies who use swear-word detecting software including media company Bloomberg.
While I suppose this has a use I wonder whether companies would be better off using word-search technology for good, not evil: to understand how their customers are feeling about them instead of dampening their employees passion.
Or, even better, how to identify new customers by identifying when a prospect has a need.
At work we’ve been using this recently to better identify & understand prospects for our customers.
Here’s some examples:
- You’re a travel marketing firm: Look for “I need a vacation”
- You’re a recreation centre: Look for ge0-coded folks saying “I’m bored”
- You’re a spa: Look for ‘I’m stressed’.
Try it out. You won’t believe the good s__t you’ll find.
