DJI’s Phantom Pro 3 is the Next Step of the Drone Industry
Image courtesy of dji.com
Sci-fi and tech circles alike have been raving about camera drones for the past forty years, yet only now has such a complete realization of their vision come to the commercial market. Camera drones, or unassisted remotely controlled picture-taking aircraft, are such recent developments that the FAA only started handing out unmanned small-size aircraft licenses towards the end of 2015. It is at this time of rapidly growing commercial interest in camera drones that DJI came out with its Phantom line of quadcopters, quickly becoming a leader in its industry.
The DJI Phantom Pro 3, released in April 2015, is the most-reviewed camera drone in the entire Amazon catalog, so we used Signals 2.0, our consumer intelligence platform, to look into all 574 customer reviews and discover what makes this drone so popular — and where it still needs to improve. The camera drone being so new, so revolutionary in today’s time, it’s helpful to analyze — where is it heading?
The Camera Drone is Here to Stay
Sometimes people look at a new, fancy-looking product like the Phantom Pro 3 and dismiss it as a gimmick, a cute invention that won’t last. After all, that’s what happened with the blanket with sleeves, didn’t it? But the data shows that the camera drone is more than just some fad whose popularity dies down almost as soon as it skyrockets.
Using the “Temporal Trends” feature in Signals 2.0, which is an advanced analysis of the frequency of the dataset over time, we can see that the quadcopter averages 43 reviews per month. Assuming (fairly) that the frequency of customer reviews correspond to general popularity, the Phantom Pro 3 shows remarkable staying power even up till a year after launch (when the Phantom Pro 4 was released). There was an initial spike in reviews upon product launch, but even as late as early June the reviews continued to stream in at an above-average pace. That means people have continued to buy the quadcopter at a steady pace, showing the enduring popularity of the Phantom Pro 3 — good news also for the budding camera drone industry.
Users Value Smoothness, Longevity
With the emergence of this new market of camera drones come the same old consumer tastes. What do drone enthusiasts value? Surprise: it’s not some fancy new technology or sleek new gear. It’s the same old desire for long-lasting, easy-to-use products that fuel reviews for phones, computers, and even cars.
Pictured above is Signals 2.0’s Category Overview widget, which organizes all the customer reviews into categories determined by the presence of similar keywords. Each category is also rated based on Signals 2.0’s patented Natural Language Processing Algorithm — the bluer the slice, the more positive the overall ratings.
From this visualization we can easily see that Category 1 has the most positive overall reviews associated with it. Rolling over the slice, we get a breakdown of the top ten keywords present in this category. Among them are phrases like “Battery Life”, “Extra Battery”, which point to The Phantom’s long battery life, and “Learn Curve” and “Auto Land”, pointing to its ease of use. A disproportionate number of positive reviews talked about characteristics like longevity and simplicity over its fancy new tech, sleek design, and dashboard of features. It comes to show that the best way to sell a product is, well, to just get the basic stuff right.
Don’t Say Cheese Just Yet
By all accounts, consumers are very happy with the product itself. But there’s a critical element in the whole operation that damages DJI’s reputation.
Using Buzzword, a widget that breaks down the most important keywords across all customer reviews, we can see that “Customer Service” dominates the resulting word cloud. Are people mostly saying good or bad things about Phantom’s Customer Service department? We clicked on the term and pulled up the individual reviews with the term “Customer Service” in the review (55 entries).
In most of the negative responses, consumers complained about the “shoddy” customer service that failed to properly replace damages and inadequately addressed many solvable problems with the quadcopter and camera. Ironically, the biggest failure for this automated trinket has everything to do with the only thing DJI couldn’t automate. It’s a sobering reminder that despite the ever-increasing focus on tech and automation, we can’t ignore human relations.
Using Signals 2.0, we were able to understand the factors behind DJI’s Phantom Pro 3’s commercial endurance, while also determining the Achilles heel that should inform the company’s efforts for its next iteration (the Phantom Pro 4, already available). With Signals 2.0, data-driven analysis is possible even for the least data-science-y people out there. Try it today.
