Running a business in this economy means you need all the help you can get, and that includes help when analyzing customer behavior and preferences.

To do this, most business owners make the mistake of diving headfirst into an ocean of unstructured text data—customer feedback, survey responses, social media mentions, e-mail correspondences, etc. Not only is it exhausting, but it is also prone to errors due to our own biases toward human language.

Text analytics can help you sort through these heaps of unfiltered data. When used correctly, this tool will give you insights about your own business as well as your target market. More importantly, it opens doors to enhanced customer experiences, better decision-making, operational efficiencies, and competitive advantages by uncovering trends and patterns that otherwise go unnoticed.

Let’s talk about the reasons why text analytics is important for modern businesses like yours.

Extract Valuable Insights from Unstructured Text Data

To begin with, text analytics is important because it helps businesses deal with heaps of unstructured text data—customer feedback, online reviews, emails, social media comments, and more. The challenge is turning this chaotic information into clear, actionable insights, and that’s where text analytics steps in.

In a nutshell, automated text analysis is the process of using advanced tools powered by machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), large language modeling (LLM), or generally artificial intelligence (AI) to scour through data and transform them into user-relevant insights. It will find patterns and get back to you with suggestions on what people think about your business.

With 80% of enterprise data being unstructured and taxing to analyze, having a text analysis tool beside you lets you capture patterns that would otherwise fly over your head. Sure, it’s easy to catch comments that praise your products or services or those scathing reviews that seemingly come out of nowhere. But you can catch subtle clues that could better fill you in with this tool, even without those extreme comments.

Enhance Customer Experience Through Feedback Insights

Benchmark data from Zendesk reveals that 73% of customers will switch to a competitor after multiple bad experiences. Clearly, delivering a stellar customer experience is crucial to any business. How do you do it? It starts with analyzing text to truly understand what your customers think, feel, and need.

But truly, analyzing customer feelings is not easy because feedback is everywhere, and without the right tools, valuable textual data often goes untapped. Because text analytics helps you dive deep into customer feedback, you get to uncover common frustrations and desires. Once you know what they like and don’t like, you’ll be able to develop targeted strategies, thus addressing issues on point.

Just look at the case of LendingTree, which faced the challenge of analyzing over 20,000 customer comments within 90 days to identify key pain points and improve their loan marketplace experience.

Thematic's text analytics transformed this overwhelming task by automating the analysis, filtering out noise, and extracting actionable insights. By identifying critical issues, such as customer dissatisfaction with untimely communication due to time zone differences, LendingTree was able to implement targeted changes that enhanced customer satisfaction and improved their overall experience​.

Imagine your business benefiting the same when running a customer review analysis. Isn’t it just great? You get a better chance at improving not only your customer service but your net promoter score (NPS), too.

Leverage Data-Driven Decision-Making in Real Time

The world is moving fast, and real-time decision-making helps you keep up. Text analytics helps you act on feedback instantly. Whether it's identifying a spike in complaints about a product feature or detecting positive trends like a highly praised service, the best text analytics software catches them all so you can respond promptly and effectively.

Yes, text analytics tools can analyze thousands of customer comments in minutes, uncovering patterns and sentiments that guide strategic actions. You can make informed adjustments in your business, such as tweaking marketing campaigns or resolving operational bottlenecks, all while the data is still fresh.

Such is what Starbucks does on Twitter (now X). During new product launches, Starbucks uses text analytics, particularly sentiment analysis on tweets, blogs, and discussion forums to gauge customer reactions in near real-time. This immediate feedback allows Starbucks to quickly identify trends and respond to potential issues—such as adjusting prices or modifying a coffee blend—ensuring the success of their offerings while maintaining customer satisfaction.

Improve Operational Efficiency with Automated Text Analysis

Can you imagine yourself manually going through a sea of customer feedback to do qualitative data analysis? Not only will it consume so much of your time, but it’ll also be prone to human errors.

Perhaps we can all agree that a business operates more efficiently when coding qualitative data and analyzing it is automated.

Think of this: Machines don’t get tired like we humans do. Properly trained AI overcomes text analytics challenges to help businesses get the most from their text documents. Using techniques like tokenization, stemming, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis, such tools analyze text data in minutes, saving you countless hours and ensuring consistency.

Here’s a case in point: Serato, a leading audio software company, faced the challenge of processing thousands of customer feedback responses each month. Their manual approach involved categorizing feedback into broad buckets like "price" or "features," which provided limited insights and was labor-intensive.

Serato automated its process by integrating Thematic with Zendesk. They were able to gain specific and actionable insights with minimal effort. This allowed their team to identify precise product issues quickly and focus on meaningful improvements, significantly boosting operational efficiency while maintaining the trust of their customers.

When a business operates efficiently, customers get the best service and are happy.

Staying Competitive by Identifying Trends and Market Opportunities

Staying ahead of the competition requires more than just intuition—it demands actionable insights. As we mentioned earlier, text analytics can dive into tons of data, analyze them, and give you insights in real time.

Businesses now know the importance of analytics. That explains why the big data and analytics market is projected to soar to an impressive $693 billion by 2032.

Why shouldn’t they be interested? Imagine a business can detect shifts in customer preferences, such as increasing demand for eco-friendly products or dissatisfaction with specific service features. By acting on these insights, this business can innovate faster, refine their offerings, and enter untapped markets.

Just look at Vodafone New Zealand. They needed to remain competitive in a fast-evolving telecommunications market. Using Thematic's text analytics, they gained deep insights into customer feedback, uncovering key themes and market opportunities. They were able to prioritize critical issues, such as improving specific customer touchpoints, while aligning their strategies to meet evolving demands. As a result, Vodafone strengthened its market position and achieved significant improvements in customer satisfaction and Touchpoint Net Promoter Scores (tNPS).

How can you be left behind if you have such insights?

Let’s Wrap Up: Why Text Analytics is Important

Text analytics is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity for businesses to thrive in today’s data-driven world. From extracting insights to improving efficiency and staying competitive, text analytics empowers businesses to make smarter, faster decisions. With the best text analytics tools like Thematic, companies can uncover hidden opportunities, address challenges, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Why wait to see what it can do for you? Try Thematic on your own data today and experience firsthand how it can transform the way you understand your customers and drive business success.