Frequently Asked Questions

Opinion research

What is Feedback Strands? Feedback Strands - Every opinion counts (www.feedbackstrands.com) is an opinion research offering. Feedback Strands is a web based portal that tracks opinions available on the web (blogs, reviews, discussion forums, social networking sites, ecommerce sites, etc.), analyzes the opinions and presents it in an insightful manner.

Why is opinion research important? Millions of opinions across diverse topics are expressed on the net every day. Deciphering the 'chatter' can make a huge difference to businesses. Using a technology led platform with appropriate human intervention is the ideal mechanism to provide insights which could potentially result in product or service improvements. The opinions are also available within a day of publishing, much faster than a traditional survey.

When is opinion research useful? Opinion research is useful under various scenarios - Launch of new products and services, Monitoring existing products and services, Tracking Company reputation and image, Competitive intelligence, tracking 'chatter'at times of crisis, etc.

What metrics does Feedback Strands provide? Feedback Strands provides a range of quantitative metrics - Net brand score, Media analysis, Regional analysis, Brand comparison, Time series analysis, Sentiment analysis, etc. Users can slice and dice the results using various filters. Users can also view all the opinions voiced and undertake an independent qualitative analysis.

Services

What are the services offered by Feedback Strands? Feedback Strands is a web based portal that tracks opinions available on the web. Opinions are tracked for various products and services on a daily basis. The products / services currently tracked include:
Products : Digital camera, Laptop, Mobile phone, LCD TV, Plasma TV, Camcorder, Car, Gaming console, Games tiltle, Printer, Antivirus, MP3 / MP4 player, etc.
Services : Cable TV, Insurance, Telecom and Broadband, Mobile telephony, Hospitality, Banking.
Our home page sets out the complete list ofproducts and services tracked. . If you are interested in tracking a specific product / service which we are not presently tracking, please contact us.

Can Feedback Strands customize the portal based on client's need? Yes, Feedback Strands can customize portals based on client needs and specifications. The Feedback team will work closely with the client team, understand their requirements and leverage our experience and domain knowledge to help determine the scope and structure of the program. Please contact us for more information on our customized services.

I only need power point or word reports on a regular frequency. Do I have to subscribe to Feedback Strands portal? No. If you require word/ power point reports, we will extract information (both qualitiative and quantitative) from the Feedback Strands portal, analyse it as per your requirements and send it on a regular basis.  We could even provide a mix of web access and customized reports based on your convenience.

Content

What are the various contents accessed by Feedback Strands? Feedback Strands tracks the entire World Wide Web for different types of consumer generated media - Blogs, Discussion forums, Sales sites, etc. All information collated by Feedback has links to the original site url. It is ensured that high traffic sites are covered . These websites are identified through an in-depth research process. We also involve clients in this process and take suggestions on popular websites for products or services of interest. Newer sites can be added for tracking in a very short time.

Is there scope to integrate the service with client's internal data, generated on a regular basis? Yes, there is scope to integrate the service with internal client data such as opinions available with the client through their sales & service reports, customer complaints, suggestions, call centres, etc. This data can be analyzed independently or integrated with the current platform.

How often is the content updated? The content is updated on a daily basis. Since there is a manual curation and review process, the contents could trail the postings on the web site by a few days. Where the near real time content tracking is of paramount importance to the client, Feedback can customize its schedule to meet such requirements.

Technology

What technology does Feedback Strands use? Feedback Strands uses a proprietary technology for the entire process of data retrieval, mapping associations and sentiment classification (NLP - Natural Language Processing). Our technology partners are Strand LS.

Why should I consider Feedback Strand technology? Most measurement providers rely mainly on "key word search" technology. This technology works well during general searches but produces large volumes of irrelevant results. Feedback Strands proprietary technology uses NLP technology which has been successfully employed in the life sciences sector and which retains only relevant sentences. Further, the technology facilitates sentiment analysis at a sentence level.

Is best of NLP technology 100% accurate? No. We realize that the best NLP technology (particularly for web semantics) provides below 80% accuracy in sentiment classification. That is why, we have a manual curation and review process to address this issue.

How does Feedback Strands ensure high levels of data accuracy? Technology meshed with manual intervention is the key USP of Feedback Strands. We have set up an intensive manual curation and review process for all sentences that makes for more accurate classification at a sentence level.

Still have questions?

Please contact us for more information.