The document discusses how companies can better listen to the voice of the customer using semantic technologies. It notes that most customer information lies outside companies' firewalls on the web and social media. Semantic technologies can integrate both structured and unstructured data to give companies a more complete picture of what customers are saying. However, just listening is only the first step - companies need to analyze what they hear, make decisions based on the insights, and monitor how conversations evolve over time.

1. Listening to
the Voice
of the
Customer
Fabio Lazzarini
Marketing Manager – CRIBIS D&B

2. About Us
• Expert System is the leading provider of semantic software that
discovers, classifies and interprets text information.
 The Cogito semantic suite enables:
• Extraction, discovery and understanding of the connections in your strategic
information sets – the thousands of files, e-mails, articles, reports, web pages you
have access to every day.
• Automatically understand the meaning of any text written in the language we
use to communicate (natural language).
Cogito improves business decisions in real time for the majority of corporate
functions.
• CRIBIS D&B is a highly specialized company with advanced business
information skills.
 It was set up with the aim of providing both the Italian market and D&B's global
clients with the highest standards of quality in terms of business coverage, depth and
accuracy of information, technological capacity and flexibility to respond quickly to
market demands, as well as in the provision of decisional systems and scoring
models.

3. Our Journey
August 2011
• 450 users
• 2,700 keywords monitored
September 2010
• Project kick-off

4. 2010 Scenario
“Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager”
Source: Harvard Business Review, October 2010

5. 2010 Scenario
“Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager”
How is your marketing budget allocated?

6. 2010 Scenario
“Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager”
Which delivers the best ROI:
Online activities, Branding or Online Advertising?

7. 2010 Scenario
“Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager”
How much will your marketing expenditures vary compared to
last year?

8. 2010 Scenario
“Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager”
How important are digital and social media?

9. 2010 Scenario
“Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager”

10. B2B Marketing is Different?
Long term
A buying relationships
process based
on value
The audience is
knowledgeable
Intense use
and engaged
of
information

11. Web and Social Media Drive Business
• Direct mail’s share of the B2B marketing budget has almost halved in
two years. The channels that have benefitted from this shortfall are
social media and trade shows.
• The rise in spend on digital marketing channels and decline in spend on
traditional marketing channels has tapered off over the past six months.
Source: Ther B2B Barometer – Report 4, March 2011

12. Web and Social Media Drive Business
• 93% of B2B buyers use search to
begin the buying process.
• 80% of IT decision makers say
word of mouth is their most
important source when making
buying decisions.
Source: Social Media for Business Marketers, Marketo

13. Listening to the Voice of the Market
Web Sites
Communities
Social Media
Forums
Blogs

14. "Your brand is what people say about
you when you're not in the room”
• The information about our
companies, about what our Conversation
customers want, about what our
customers say about us, lies First, Listen!
outside our firewalls.
• What customers are saying about
you on blogs, discussion forums,
Twitter and Facebook and analyst Then, Talk
reviews is what provides a
complete picture.

15. Listening to the Voice of the Market
• The web opens up a world of
possibilities of being informed,
about a product or a service, to
our customers.
• In reality, all buyers (both in B2C
and in B2B) tend to rely only on a
few “voices” they know and trust.
• These small squares are replacing
our sales representatives,
consultants, shopkeepers, travel
agents, etc.

16. Customers Self-Select their Squares
Having a presence in
the squares where our
customers talk
Our Challenge
Trying to drive the
customers to our web
site

17. How to Play in a New Context
Pull
Listen Talk Act
Marketing

18. It’s not possible to listen the voice of the
market without semantic technology…
Semantic technology has
the ability to integrate
structured and
unstructured data and
make better use of all the
information corporations
have available to them.

19. It’s not possible to listen the voice of the
market without semantic technology…
Semantic technology has
the ability to integrate
structured and
unstructured data and
make better use of all the
information corporations
… but listening is only
have available to them.
the enabler of the
decisional process.

20. … but listening is only the enabler of the
decisional process
We want to create
actionable information,
not only searchable
information.
Listen Analyse Decide Monitor

21. Listening to the Voice of the Market
What does it mean?
• We don’t need only to search and
filter the web to find the information
we need…
• …we need to see the shape of
the information and monitor
how it moves in time.