Source: LaunchSquad

NetShops Builds Online "Backyard" Experience and Gains Customer Intelligence With Networked Insights

NetShops to Improve Customer Experience and Drive Social Commerce Based on Insights Gained From Networked Insights

MADISON, WI and OMAHA, NE--(Marketwire - August 5, 2008) - Networked Insights, a provider of customer intelligence across social media, today announced that NetShops Inc. has selected Networked Insights' customer intelligence technology platform to build an outdoor-focused community, "The Backyard," and gain valuable customer insights from user interactions within its network of sites. NetShops, a leading Web retailer, is comprised of more than 200 niche home and lifestyle product e-commerce sites, and is one of Internet Retailer's Hot 100 Best Retail Websites.

NetShops has partnered with Networked Insights to enhance the consumer experience and promote engagement across its network of sites, as customers look for answers during the buying process. Networked Insights will allow members of The Backyard to interact with others who have similar interests and share unbiased information about past experiences, hobbies, and ultimately NetShops' products.

Using Networked Insights' Customer Insight Platform, NetShops will use these interactions to shape insights related to customer needs, brand buzz, products and competitors, which will enable NetShops to enhance the overall customer experience. The technology will also help the company better understand their customers and make more informed business decisions based the customer intelligence.

"For us, it all starts and ends with a great customer experience. Increasingly, consumers are looking to the Internet for answers during their shopping experience, primarily from each other," said Ash ElDifrawi, Chief Marketing Officer of NetShops. "Networked Insights' platform has given us a great way to engage our customers in The Backyard. This will not only improve our customer experience, but will allow us to listen to our customers in real time to help us discover new ways to consistently meet our customers' needs."

For e-commerce sites, such as NetShops, Networked Insights is providing a new stream of revenue from Social Commerce, sales driven directly from the community and customer interactions. Networked Insights presents customers in communities with products and promotions relevant to the interactions they are having within the network. Likewise, for customers on the retail site, Networked Insights will present interesting and relevant content from other people in the community to enhance product information on the site. Overall this has proven to increase customer satisfaction and drive significant revenue that may have otherwise been left on the table. Based on customer interactions, retailers can also identify what products and sites are relevant to each other to help improve cross-selling and promotional efforts.

"Enabling customers to interact across the NetShops network and being able to gain customer intelligence from it is valuable in so many ways," said Dan Neely, founder and CEO of Networked Insights. "A community and rich customer intelligence is not just a nice-to-have, but when leveraged correctly, can be a real revenue driver. That's Social Commerce."

Networked Insights provides customer intelligence based on customer interactions within a company's own social network and across third-party social media applications. The technology allows brands to assess the influence, engagement and sentiments of customers in real time, using the content and social behavior profiles from these interactions to help them better understand their customers and drive more informed business decisions.

About Networked Insights

Networked Insights is transforming tactical market research into strategic Customer Intelligence by combining proprietary Web 2.0 mining technology, deep social media expertise and rich interactive analytics to drive better business decisions. Networked Insights gives companies the ability to discover and act upon real-time Customer Intelligence from a variety of social media sources, providing truly customer-driven insight based on both content and social behavior generated from customer-to-customer interactions. Previously, companies gained customer information by asking predetermined questions or proving company-generated hypotheses. Networked Insights puts the customer at the center of the intelligence process so that companies can let the customer decide what's important. Networked Insights is privately held and based in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, go to www.networkedinsights.com.

Contact Information: Contact: LaunchSquad Jeremy Frank or Gavin Skillman insights@launchsquad.com 212-564-3665