If you have been using social media sites such as twitter and facebook for business related activities, you are familiar with the power of these tools, and the shift they are creating in online marketing and advertising. A company wishing to tap into the public’s perception of their brand, will often find the volume of online chatter overwhelming. Overtone, a San Francisco based company, promises to come to the rescue to this social media anxiety.
The company was founded in 1995 as Island Data, and focused on providing online self-service support. Island Data grew as e-commerce became more popular throughout the late nineties. They were the creators of live chat software, which allows access to live help and support on most e-commerce sites. In 2004 the company started analyzing online customer comments. In 2008 Craig Brennan, former CEO of Brio, joined the company, and brought with him a number of changes in the management ranks. In early 2009 the company changed its name and became Overtone.
Overtone collects, categorizes, analyzes and reports on customer comments in real time. Neil Patil, Senior VP and CMO, discussed with me the capabilities of the Overtone engine. Built in-house and continuously improved by a team of four scientists, Overtone’s technical backbone uses artificial intelligence algorithms to gain insights into consumers’ comments online. Overtone’s engine can distinguish between the comment “the new Nike jersey is sick” and “eating at the Boston Marriott last night made me sick”. It uses statistical algorithms which look for patterns in the text, as opposed to mere keywords. Once the data is analyzed, Overtone customers have the ability to log into the service online, track the trends on their brand perception and decide whether and how to act. In this example, the Boston Marriott might decide to extend a coupon for a future stay to a dissatisfied customer.
Neil Patil’s expertise in the space is deep. Having been an executive with Brio, he articulates very eloquently the differences between traditional business intelligence (BI) in the days when customer preferences were contained within a company’s four walls, and business intelligence in a web 2.0 world. According to Mr. Patil, companies are facing two main challenges today when trying to monitor what consumers are sharing with each other about their brand experiences. First, there is the technical challenge of collecting, categorizing, and analyzing unstructured content. Unlike data stored in a database, comments and conversations on twitter can be random and don’t follow predictable patterns. The second and more important challenge is the cultural change for any company trying to process this information. Who within a company is now in charge of tapping into the customer’s online voice? Is it part of a CMO’s job? Who else should be involved?
Overtone’s customers include Yahoo, who uses the service to analyze over 1 million comments per month. In an economic climate of continuous cost cutting across industries, Mr. Patil says his company is projecting growth. A major airline is in talks with Overtone as they seek help in accessing and analyzing travelers’ sentiments about cost-cutting measures and their impact on the flying experience. Overtone expects their revenues to double in the next two years and to become profitable.
In terms of the future of technology in this space, Mr. Patil expects that more and more companies will need the ability to gather and analyze not only text, but increasingly audio and video. The challenges inherent in video put the technology out another decade. Perhaps Overtone will be thriving and leading the pack.
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