Do online consumer reviews help to evaluate the performance of automobile manufacturers?

Purpose: This research proposes a text analytics–based framework that examines the utility of online customer reviews in evaluating automobile manufacturers and discovering their consumer-perceived weaknesses. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed framework integrates aspect-level sentiment analysis with the house of quality (HoQ), TOPSIS, Pareto chart and fishbone diagram. While sentiment analysis mines and quantifies review-embedded consumer opinions on various automobile attributes, the integrated HoQ-TOPSIS analyzes the quantified opinions and evaluates the manufacturers. The Pareto charts assist in discovering consumer-perceived weaknesses of the underperforming manufacturers. Finally, the fishbone diagram visually represents the results in the form with which the manufacturing community is acquainted. Findings: The proposed framework is tested on a review data set collected from CarWale, a well-known car portal in India. Selecting five manufacturers from the mid-size car segment, the authors identified the worst-performing one and discovered its weak attributes. Practical implications: The proposed framework can help the manufacturers in evaluating competitor; identifying consumers' contemporary interests; discovering own and their competitors' weak attributes; assessing the suppliers and sending early warnings; detecting the hazardous defects. It can assist the component suppliers in devising process improvement strategies; improving their customer network; comparing them with competitors. It can support the customers in identifying the best available alternative. Originality/value: The proposed framework is first of its kind to integrate the sentiment analysis with (1) HoQ-TOPSIS to assess the manufacturers; (2) Pareto chart to discover their weaknesses; (3) fishbone diagram to visually represent the results.