Companies from all industries are increasingly focused on their customers: who they are; what they want; how they behave.  Yet many still face low customer response rates to marketing activities, coupled with increasing customer churn.  

Current approaches to customer analysis are limited by the assumption that people make purchasing and loyalty decisions independent of each other. Research and even common sense reveals this is not the case: customers rely strongly on each other's judgment and experience when making a purchasing decision, especially in the case of services (Gabbot and Hogg, 1994).

With customers increasingly indifferent to marketing and advertising messages, (increased customer sophistication and cynicism are cited as the main reasons behind this indifference, O'Dell and Pajunen, 2000), it is important to explore new ways of analysing customer data.

Applications that leverage customer data - through profiling, segmentation and predictive modelling - are now widespread; yet exploring the data we have about the interactions that take place between customers is a largely untapped area.

Forward-thinking companies are turning to Social Network Analysis (SNA) to deliver optimum value from their customer data.

SNA analyses customer behaviour in terms of relational processes and links between people, to show how they interact and who is influencing who. The value of analysing social networks is that the insight can lead to powerful word of mouth and viral marketing initiatives.

SNA was developed in response to the marketing challenges experienced by the mobile telecommunications industry. OAL is now evolving the concept of SNA to meet the same marketing challenges faced by a range of industries.

SNA reverses typical market research questions. For example, rather than asking “Why does customer A churn?” We ask “When we lose customer A to a rival company, how does this affect surrounding customers?” Asking the question in this manner highlights the social mechanics which underpin customer attitudes, beliefs and behaviours.  The result is a more sophisticated understanding of your customer base.

• SNA solutions provide the ability to influence and direct viral marketing initiatives for dramatically improved campaign response.
• SNA solutions can tell you how ideas and new products diffuse (spread) through local networks, as well as across entire networks.
• SNA solutions can identify key influencers in the network along with their friends and friends of friends.
• SNA solutions addresses over-targeting of key customers, and reaches your un-contactable customers through word-of-mouth.