Jennifer Zaino
SemanticWeb.com Contributor

If only U.S. automakers had listened to customer sentiment in online forums and blogs -- using the power of semantic technology -- they might not be in the fix they're in today.

Semantic software vendor Expert System, which provides technology to discover, classify, and interpret unstructured text information, recently announced study results about whether semantic analysis of consumer opinions online could have predicted, or helped prevent, the plunging sales of the U.S. autos. The answer is: Yes.

"The most striking thing is that people were trying to tell them something," says CEO J. Brooke Aker. While the blame for overall decline and events such as Chrysler's and GM's bankruptcies lies in many areas, including the global economic crisis, Expert contends that qualitative consumer sentiment analysis could have helped the Big Three auto companies identify challenges and consumer preferences before losing customer loyalty.

"Technology is begging to be used so that their voices can be heard," Aker says. "This was a very drastic case, but having a constant stream of material [from customers] gives you information you could use to decide what could be done."

According to Expert's semantic analysis using its Cogito Monitor, comments from customers online between Sept. 2006 and April 2009 showed that Ford and Chrysler maintained a flat, neutral impression until late 2008. Then, Expert says, public opinion about Chrysler began to drop around July 2008, with Chrysler beginning to receive more "poor" or "very poor" ratings for its Voyager, Town & Country and Sebring models. Customers complained particularly about engines and brakes -- and if Chrysler had been paying attention it might have been able to address those issues before its brand suffered.

It's time for companies to realize there's gold in all the content out there on the Web, Aker says. "The value is inherent and discoverable."

That extends to dealing with companies' own vast stores of information to improve customer service. He cites the example of a device maker who is utilizing its Cogito Answers solution, for a semantically enabled Q&A system that integrates linguistic analysis for content access and automatic comprehension of language so that customers can write requests in natural language, to reduce the costs of support to the resellers of its product.

"If they can lower service provider total cost of ownership, they can sell more devices," he says.

The auto industry and device manufacturer example present the two sides of the coin that utilizing semantics technology for enterprise purposes can address - lower risk and increase opportunity. For example, there's a wealth of unexplored information within corporate supply chains that isn't revealed through rigid systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools. Semantics can reveal that data for companies to exploit to address problems before they affect the bottom line, and at the same time gain insight into new channels.

Without using semantic technology to discover and interpret information out there on the web, "there's not the flexibility to understand when existing suppliers are running into problems, which presents a risk to you," says Aker. "You need to know that as far in advance as possible." At the same time, you may not learn about a cool new supplier with advanced technology that you could use to extend the value of your own product. "You won't know unless you monitor that," he says.