Today’s world is greatly dominated by technology. And, technology facilitates the best way in which consumer sentiment can be analysed through conversational data. It is basically the use of digital data systems to decode and determine the rational and/or emotional tone of any text. This sentiment analysis facilitates the decision-making behaviour of businesses and also helps them in the formulation of future plans of action. Conversational data can be extracted from various sources like social media, customer care platforms, emails, or review pages as well. In this chapter, our exploration will range from meaning to the real-world application of sentiment analysis in conversational data. Let us take a look:
1.1 What Do We Understand by ‘Consumer Behaviour’?
The marketplace always has numerous product and service offerings. Some are similar in nature and characteristics while some differ in price and quality. People are constantly choosing between what to buy and avail and what not to. It is a very dynamic process and is affected by many external and internal factors which we will explore in detail in the coming sections.
So, the phenomenon by which various intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect the decisions and choices of consumers in their buying exercise is called ‘Consumer Behaviour’. This is how I would define consumer behaviour. To explain the definition, let us look at the factors which influence this phenomenon.
“Consumer behaviour is the study of how people buy, what they buy when they buy, and why they buy” (Kotler, 1994). “Consumer is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires” (Solomon et al. 1995). “The behaviour that consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs” (Schiffman, 2007). “The assumption is that people have a series of needs that lead to drive state” (Faison and Edmund, 1977). “Those acts of individuals directly involved in obtaining, using, and disposing of economic goods and services, including the decision processes that precede and determine these acts” (Engel, et al. 1986).