Discover How a 360-Degree View of the Customer Boosts Productivity and Profits eguide
eguide Discover How a 360-Degree View of the Customer Boosts Productivity and Profits A guide on the benefits of using text analytics software solutions and how analyzing unstructured data sources, from internal records to social media channels, can provide valuable, real-time insights into your entire organization. table of contents Executive Summary...3 Creating a 360-Degree View...5 Big Benefits of Data Analytics...8 4 Tips to a Successful Implementation...14
Executive summary Companies already store huge volumes of data, and every day, they are bombarded with even more information, from new customer records, call center notes and customer e-mails to an explosion of social media conversations. But IT leaders and data analysts shouldn t feel overwhelmed. With the newest generation of text analytics software, with best-in-class natural language processing (NLP) technology, enterprises can quickly and easily make sense of all the data, spot trends and uncover powerful, new insights that will allow their organizations to provide better customer service, gain a competitive edge and make smarter business decisions. Today, in many organizations, individual departments or business units are doing their own data analysis. This e-guide will explain the importance of taking an enterprise- 3
Executive summary wide approach, providing senior leaders and managers a 360-degree view into their customers and their own business operations. The e-guide will also share examples of how multiple departments within a company can benefit from a single, integrated text analytics solution and provide best practices on how IT leaders and data analysts can implement the technology throughout their entire organization. 4
Creating a 360-Degree View Real-time analytics and data-driven decisionmaking can give companies a competitive edge. But they face two barriers when it comes to implementation. First, the data is siloed. Structured data reside in databases, the cloud, CRM and ERP systems and other applications. But in most businesses, roughly 80 to 90 percent of data is unstructured. Internally, that includes e-mail, call center transcripts, customer service chat logs, and business documents, such as reports, spreadsheets and presentations. Externally, with the growing popularity of mobile devices, consumers are producing billions of social media messages and posts every day on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, product review sites and other forums. All of it is unstructured and filled with potential rich information that businesses can capitalize on. The second barrier with data analytics is that among many early adopters, departments or business units are working individually and not collaboratively and cohesively as a team. Marketing, for example, may be using a point solution to analyze customer 5
Creating a 360-Degree View sentiment in the social media channels, while the customer service department may be using another commercial product, or even a homegrown solution, to analyze customer survey reports and create reports. To be successful in the future, a company has to break down those organizational and data silos to get a holistic view of everything that can impact their business. The 360-degree view includes understanding the customers, what they are saying and thinking; and scrutinizing the competition, and determining what their product announcements, partnerships, acquisitions and other strategic moves mean. It also includes keeping tabs on the latest technological innovations and the current economic, political and legal climate, such as new regulations, patents and litigation that can affect the business. All of it is interrelated. A text analytics software suite, with best-in-class NLP engines, can ingest all types of unstructured data, perform deep-dive analysis of large volumes of data in real-time and produce contextual, detailed, and accurate new insights and competitive 6
Creating a 360-Degree View intelligence that you didn t even know existed. By using a single, integrated solution, businesses can get a 360-degree view of the organization. For example, when one suite of analytics products analyzes all the data, the results are presented on a dashboard in a hierarchical format. Each department can customize dashboards to their specific needs and use the information to strategize together, or if a problem is discovered, they can share information and collaborate and coordinate across departments to fix the issue. As a result, the software suite becomes part of the business process, creating enormous value throughout the enterprise, while optimizing individual business unit objectives. 7
Big Benefits of Data Analytics Multiple departments in a company can benefit from a text analytics software suite. Here s a look at a few specific scenarios on the insights that individual departments can glean from the data, and how the resulting reports and outcomes can benefit the entire company as a whole. C-Level Executives Through the dashboard, senior leaders can get a real-time, graphics-rich summary view of the data and use that information to develop or re-align strategies. High-level insights can include top ten things people are saying about the company on social media, the top ten general complaints, or the fact that 60 percent of customers are complaining about a battery problem with a product. While C-Suite execs get a big-picture overview, department heads and employees can drill down deeper into the information to get a better understanding of the data or to do root-cause analysis to answer the questions: who, what, when, where and why. They can slice and dice the information anyway they wish and even drill down to the raw text. Product Management Customer feedback is critical when companies launch or beta test new products and services. With a text analytics solution, managers can quickly analyze customer opinions from surveys or monitor social media sentiment in real-time. If there are any quality issues or complaints, the 8
Big Benefits of Data Analytics product management team can revamp and make improvements accordingly. Customer Experience Management Businesses, whether they are mobile device makers, hotel chains or telecommunication service providers, want the highest customer satisfaction possible, and they routinely survey their customers to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. complaints and drill down to discover that out of 2,500 complaints in one day, 1,000 people complained that they had to talk to multiple service reps when they only wanted to talk to one. That s valuable information. It reveals to customer service managers that if they want to improve customer satisfaction, they need to make sure the agents can resolve customer issues without transferring calls to another agent. Text analytics software can analyze all the pertinent data, including customer surveys, customer e-mails and even records of online customer service chats, and produce actionable insights. For example, they can click on customer service A customer experience dashboard can also alert businesses of legal and customer churn threats. For example, if there is a tweet or blog about a potential legal threat to the company, an email can be automatically generated with the raw record sent to the legal department, so the company s 9
Big Benefits of Data Analytics lawyers can determine if it s actionable or not. And if a customer threatens to go to the competition, the appropriate employee, such as a customer service rep or a social media manager, can try to save the customer by turning around the situation. Marketing and Public Relations A text analytics tool allows marketers to better understand customer preferences and behavior for precision in micro-targeting. This enables marketing departments to build integrated campaign strategies or product launches tailored for a specific customer segment. sentiment on all the social media channels, which allows them to address customer reactions in realtime. The summary can include the percentage of positive and negative comments, number of product or company mentions in tweets per day, and mentions by top influencers. Marketing staffers can drill down to get more specific information, such as detailed compliments and complaints for each product line, a map showing the location of where the social media mentions are coming from, the ratio of men and women commenting, and even specific blog posts. Through a dashboard, marketing professionals can also view a big-picture summary of customer The technology can also alert companies of problems. At many organizations, a social media 10
Big Benefits of Data Analytics manager is often the first one to spot problems and becomes the first line of defense before issues become worse. For example, text analytics software can identify a forum where 400 customers have complained about a cell phone provider s pricing during the last two months. And if no company representative is responding in that forum, the company can task a marketing rep to engage with the customers. Similarly, at a telecommunications company, if a group of residents in an area is complaining about an outage, the company needs to know right away. Claims Department Text analytics software can also be used for fraud detection and subrogation analysis. For example, for insurance companies, about 80 percent of claims data is unstructured. They can use the software to analyze all records, including claim forms, medical records and receipts, and develop a series of textual markers that can indicate potential fraudulent claims, such as faking an accident. Claims departments can configure the text analytics software, so that the NLP technology can accurately identify these potential fraud indicators, such as pre-existing conditions, 11
Big Benefits of Data Analytics attorney-represented claimants and soft-tissue injuries. And if customers claims hit enough red flags, the software can deem them as likely fraudulent and route those claims to the appropriate party for further analysis. Some claims departments have previously built statistical-based models to seek out fraud and subrogation opportunities. They can integrate text analytics software with these existing systems and models to augment their efforts. Human Resources Department The HR department can also leverage social media and internal records to better understand talent acquisition. For example, say a company wants to hire the best and brightest graduates out of the top colleges and universities every year, but want to know why some applicants chose to work at other corporations instead. The HR department can review internal employee reviews and analyze career Web sites where employees can anonymously post comments about the company. And through text-based analytics, HR can determine what their chief complaints are about, such as salaries, benefits, work hours, company culture or management style. And through that insight, HR can make changes to not only attract the talent they want, but to keep existing employees happy. 12
Big Benefits of Data Analytics HR can also benefit from customer satisfaction surveys. For example, they can gauge the job performance of customer service agents by the number of positive and negative comments they get. Sales Department Sales people meet clients and potential customers every day and get a lot of feedback. After every meeting, they typically type in their notes into their CRM systems. In a large enterprise where sales staffers meet with several thousand customers every day, those notes house a lot of potential insight, from their thoughts about a company and the competition to feedback about a product. It s impossible to analyze all that data manually. But with text analytics tools, companies can aggregate data and get actionable insights, such as whether the price of a product is too high. By knowing customer sentiment and identifying trends and patterns, sales teams can operate smarter and come up with sales strategies based on that information. In addition, sales teams can share insights with the product management team on new features that customers may want. 13
4 Tips to a Successful Implementation While data analytics is challenging, it also presents an opportunity for a company to transform their business. By investing in an enterprise-wide data analytics software suite, employees can discover new insights and make better-informed decisions. 2. Create a project steering committee that includes key stakeholders to learn about their individual data analysis needs and to build new business processes to break the internal silos and ensure collaboration. Here are four tips to get started: 1. Meet with senior leadership and department heads to educate them on the benefits of using text-analytics software and taking an enterprise-wide, 360-degree view approach. Getting buy-in from senior leaders is key. 3. Consider and account for data privacy and security needs. Companies can deploy the technology two ways. They can subscribe to a cloud-based offering or they can install the software in-house. Many larger enterprises that house sensitive data, such as financial or medical records, choose to install the software in their own 14
4 Tips to a Successful Implementation data centers because of security concerns or to meet regulatory requirements. 4. Invest in the right data analytics technology. Attensity s latest generation of text analytics software suite features innovative, deep NLP technology that is the most powerful and accurate commercial offering in the industry. Attensity Q is a real-time social media analysis tool, while Attensity Analyze is a powerful rootcause analysis tool that integrates with all types of internal and external data. This solution suite gives companies a 360-degree view of their entire enterprise and offers out-of-the-box insights for all the use cases mentioned above. Attensity, which holds nearly a dozen patents for its NLP technology, features multiple NLP engines that only have to be configured once during installation. Analytical models can be customized and configured to meet specific business requirements. If companies don t have the expertise in-house, Attensity s professional services staff can do the data integration work, implement the text analytics software suite, and train staff on getting the most out of the solution. 15
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