SAS Conversation Centre improves customer engagement on Twitter

Organisations will be able to track and measure Twitter activity

27 October 2010 - Smart marketers are using social media channels to interact with customers. When done well interactions with customers via social media can create positive brand image and reduce expenses associated with traditional customer communications. SAS, the leader in business analytics, today announced that SAS Conversation Centre will be available in January 2011 to help companies put their best foot forward when engaging with customers via Twitter.

Companies are deluged with data from Twitter that relates to their brand. When a single tweet can influence the perception of thousands organisations need a smart solution that can identify, prioritise and route tweets rapidly to the correct responder. SAS Conversation Centre helps companies capture Tweets in real-time and identifies those that are significant to the company, brand or product based on sentiment and the influence of the Tweeter. Tweets can then be routed to customer facing personnel to respond.

"SAS Conversation Centre helps organisations separate real issues from the noise inherent in social networks," said John Bastone, global product marketing manager for customer intelligence at SAS. "Eliminating ad hoc support for Twitter translates into more effective customer communications. Responses will be more timely and targeted. Costs will decrease as the process becomes more efficient and brand image can be managed more effectively."

SAS Conversation Centre analyses the level of influence that a Tweeter has by measuring such factors as the volume of content created by the user and how often the user is included in a conversation with others. Tweets are then categorised against a company-specific taxonomy of topics to determine which area of the business the tweet is best aligned with, such as customer service, public relations or quality assurance. Sentiment analysis determines negative or positive opinion relative to topics important to that company. Topics can include products, service areas that make up its customer experience, or components linked to overall corporate reputation – as well as the detailed features and characteristics associated with products, service and reputation. Tweets are then prioritised to help the reviewer quickly understand the scale, relevance and tone of a tweet at a glance.

"Organisations are eager to measure the impact of their social media activities with the same level of rigor inherent in any other outbound marketing activities," added Bastone. "SAS Conversation Centre helps track average tweet volume, time to respond and the rate that complaints and questions are successfully addressed. With contact channels continuing to expand, SAS is always looking for ways to help marketers account for these in campaign and decision management."

SAS Conversation Centre is a new module to complement SAS Social Media Analytics which was released in April 2010. Both are tightly integrated with the award winning SAS Marketing Automation architecture, with all information, both specific to inbound and outbound messages, tracking with a common customer contact history database. This enables companies to develop a multi-channel view of the customer, which is critical to ensuring consistent customer experience. 

Today's announcement came at The Premier Business Leadership Series event in Las Vegas, a business conference presented by SAS that brings together more than 600 attendees from the public and private sectors to share ideas on critical business issues.

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