Taking the time to read your customer reviews is not only good for customer service, but it can also provide guidance when your company is looking for areas of improvement or growth opportunities. The key is to read your reviews looking for the four aspects of the SWOT methodology. SWOT methodology helps a company identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths are what your company does best or at least better than most of your competitors. Strengths essentially give your company a competitive edge. Think of the companies that are known for housing great tech support, out-of-the-box innovation, and reliable service. Weaknesses are the exact opposite. These are among the top reasons your customers leave your company and begin using software from your competitors.
Opportunities are the potential for growth from factors outside of your company’s control, like a recently discovered technological innovation that would vastly improve the efficiency of your software, or a social trend leading many people to start using your software. Threats are factors outside of your control that provide obstacles for your business. These include changes to regulations that hinder your business operations or specific quality standards.
Below we’ll look at customer reviews from a brand of business software to find examples of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Studying customer reviews is something any business can do for itself to create a better overall user experience.
Customers cited that the software was easier to use and understand than that of its competitors. They also expressed that the software catered to their small business needs but was also scalable. Customers were delighted that the software generated reports in proper business standards and that it was easy to integrate with other software. Customers also said when that they could get in touch with tech support, they were very knowledgeable and helpful. From this we can define this software’s strengths to include its ease of use and that mastering it was easy for people who’ve never used software in this field before. Another strength was that their support team clearly has a strong authority on both accounting and how to properly utilize the software. This company should be using all of these strengths into its marketing to attract customers who appreciate that in their software.
Many customers had a hard time installing the software and found customer service difficult to get in touch with. Customers also complained about not being able to get into touch with tech support, being put on hold for hours, and not getting responses for days. Another top complaint was that customers often felt the upgrades didn’t really have enough changes to warrant another payment, but this seems to be an industry-wide practice. Clearly, tech support response time could use some improvement and customer onboarding could also serve as an area of growth for this company.
Customers claimed a competitor was more advanced in their software. They cited artificial intelligence capabilities, which helped them find solutions more quickly, as well as automation among this competitor’s strengths. Another potential threat would be if a rival company found a way to not abide to the industry-wide practice of frequent paid upgrades with little substance behind them. Even customers who rave about every other aspect of the software were very annoyed by it, so its possible that a rival company with similar capabilities that stray away from this culture could lure customers away.
This software company needs to adopt the new technological landscape sweeping its industry--AI. One way to do this quickly would be to acquire a business with those capabilities as its strength. The two companies would essentially join forces to create software that was even more efficient and innovative than the competitor that posed a threat, essentially claiming back any customers who wanted to stay ahead of the game.
Customer reviews can actually tell you a lot about your company and how you can improve it, whether it be internally or an outside factor that could impact it. It all comes down to whether companies can be receptive towards the messages that are being sent to them in order to learn and grow.