How are Companies Using Big Data

So, if we distill Big Data down to this simple concept of just getting more value out of your data, then what kinds of use cases are companies hitting first that is driving value?  Lets use this post to explore some of these use cases and start to make Big Data more tangible for everyone.

Without getting into the deep details of the genesis of the big data space, lets just say that it really all started with a few of the really big consumer focused internet companies in sillicon valley.  Yahoo, Google, Facebook etc.  Because they had so much data on users, it became increasingly more difficult to use this data without new ways of managing it and using it for their customers.  One of the first real areas that applied to big data, was using this new tech called Hadoop to more effectively help run search engines.  But from there, the technology has grown and new use cases for more traditional enterprises have become the focus.

The first broad area of focus in deploying new big data technology has been to make it easier and faster to do data discovery and advanced analytics.  For years people have been reliant on the traditional Business Intelligence tools to help understand what is happening with the data they are gathering.  These tools have been great at what they do for years, but as the amount of data explodes and the time frames for using that data shortens, the new big data ecosystem and technology has become more of the standard way to explore data and look for formerly hidden patterns that are business impacting.  As an example, many manufacturing companies are starting to put all of their production data into a big data system so they can do more advanced analytics on defect detection rates or factory yields.  Or Telcos, who are the original big data companies, are using big data technologies to help determine which areas of their networks are overloaded and how they should plan to spend capital to upgrade them, to keep customers happy.

The second area of focus for use cases has revolved around the infamous Customer 360 that we have been chasing for years.  It seems like every 5 years or so, a new technology or platform hits the market and promises to finally deliver a single view of your customers to the business.  Well, big data is that next technology.  The idea behind something like Hadoop, is that it is a distributed file storage system that lets a company store any kind of data, from any where, in any format, in the same place and bring that data together quickly to gain a single, full view of a customer.  It really becomes the single storage locker for all data being collected about or for a customer and then can be used in multiple ways to add value.  One use case is just being able to deliver a single view of the customer to contact center agents for customer interactions.  Another use case is using this centralized data to more effectively make real time decisions about next best action or offer for customers who are on a website.  Yet another might be using this single consolidated view of a customer to help automate and predict when customers will likely churn.  Picking up on those events that most likely are good predictors of a customer leaving and using them to alert the business before they go.

The third area of use cases can fall into a bucket that is more highly focused on making predictions about what is going to happen in the future.  Again, taking all of the disparate data a company may have, centralizing it into something like Hadoop and then using that centralized data to predict better future outcomes for the company or for customers.  You might have retail organizations that use the mountains of data they have to more effectively plan inventory availability in their stores to ensure customers are happy.  There are also many organizations that are jumping on board with big data to gather data from sensors to help predict outages of machines.  GE is one of the big boys in this space these days, talking about jet engines and wind turbines.  But there are many others that are closer to consumers also using this sensor data to help predict when something is about to go wrong.  Thinking about car manufacturing companies, HVAC service providers and the oil and gas market as a few of the other industries that are using machine data in a variety of ways to help ensure that the minimize down time or outages in their facilities or products.

The fourth and final area I will throw out today in this post is really focused on the plumbing layer of a company and how it can be optimized or overhauled to better serve the business or customers.  I won't go into much detail here, as it can get quite technical fast, but the idea is that there are many data management and storage systems in the market today that are getting long in the tooth.  And with that age, comes incredible expense and risk that many organizations are looking to mitigate.  One example of this would be what is called a "Data Warehouse Offload".  For years, there have been a few companies that have dominated the traditional data warehousing space and as such it has gotten ever more expensive to hold the huge amounts of data that companies are producing.  Many of these companies have begun to off load this data from these expensive, older and less flexible systems onto newer, more agile, more innovation friendly, cheaper systems like Hadoop etc...

So, we will leave it at that today.  These are some of the ways that companies are starting to use big data to bring added value to their companies and customers.  Of course, there are a number of other use cases not listed here, that are adding great value to large enterprises across all industries.  The key is finding the use cases that are going to drive the most value for you and making a plan to see it through.

Next time, we will talk about the value of some of these use cases and who in a company typically should be thinking about these things...

What Really Does Big Data Mean to People?

It seems that I go through these times in life (which I assume most people do) when life hits you up side the head and you feel like you are just a small little boat being tossed around in the middle of a hurricane.  That has what life has been for me in the last 9 months or so, but I am back writing, which is something I truly love to do.

So, lets pick right back up where we left off back in March with some discussion around big data and the value it brings to an organization.  I know some of this may be a bit elementary now, 9 months later, but it still is worth discussion.

Big data to most people is a really nebulous term that really means very little to them.  Almost everyone in the business world has heard or talked about the concepts and what it means for the last many months now, but I am unsure if business folks really understand it.  I would go as far as to say that most still do not.

The way that I look at big data is quite simplistic.  I believe the world of big data is really all about working to get more value out of data, in order to better acquire and serve customers.  Yes, you will have people writing articles talking about how it is game changing, how it is revolutionary, how it is not about big data but small data and the like.  All of this is noise in my mind.  The real focus of any business with data is, how can I get more value out it.

For most, I still think big data is a bit intimidating as it can be incredibly complex.  Within the big data "ecosystem" you have a whole bunch of new or growing concepts that fuse together to help companies derive value for their organization or customers.  There is distributed computing, dataflow, sensors, algorithms, models, machine learning, artificial intelligence etc.... And then there are the names like Hadoop, Hbase, NoSQL or Spark that get thrown around to make things even more confusing.

But lets just keep it simple.  When people talk about Big Data, it is really just a bunch of really interesting concepts and technology that are coming together to help drive value in new ways for companies.  

Again, I know that this is not a game changing post or super insightful for many, but I think keeping the world of big data simple helps many non technical folks begin to wrap their heads around where technology is enabling us to go with our customers.

In the next post, we will take this very simple way of looking at Big Data and apply it to use cases that are beginning to add value for companies.

Big Data and It's Implications For Customer Experience

Now that I have a bit of a new focus for this blog around big data and how that impacts the customer experience, I thought I would write a series of posts that, at the core, will lay out what people are doing with big data today and how it is been useful for driving customer experience in organizations.  I know there are a ton of blogs or sites that may discuss this, but I am going to try to keep it simple, short and understandable for anyone to consume.

Over the course of the next few blog posts, I am going to try to lay out:

• What big data really means to most people
• Why it is important
• What kinds of use cases are being deployed currently
• The associated business value of those use cases
• The technology behind the big data ecosystem
• The journey data takes to get from being produced to being used

By doing this, I hope to help pull back the veil of complexity that seems to trip most non developer/non technical folks up when they are learning about big data.  It surprises me how poor of a job most big data companies are doing in communicating the capabilities of big data technology and how those capabilities relate to true business value.  And this is not just a problem for executives or what most people refer to as the "business" people.  I am still seeing many people that are considered technical in their job roles who don't fully understand the technology ecosystem in big data and how it can enable business value.

So these first few posts will try to break this complexity and confusion down to small, digestable nuggets that anyone can consume and begin to use in their role.

First up, we will focus on what big data really means to most people and why it is important.

New Beginnings

This is a new beginning for me, not only with my blog but also with work changes over the last few years.

Over the last 4-5 years, I have been writing fairly regularly about technology in a space that was near and dear to my heart for many years, customer service.  This blog was all about creating authentic customer experiences, which I believed and continue to believe, are at the heart of any company that is going to survive in the ever changing business climate we live in. 

About 18 months ago now, I got a phone call from a good friend of mine from college that had some questions for me about technology.  He knew I worked at Salesforce and wanted to ask me about a company that was in the Salesforce ecosystem.  I helped answer his questions about this technology and then we wrapped up the call.  He then called me a few more times and thus started me on a unforgettable journey with him and a few other guys to start a company called Onyara.

Onyara was really the true dream startup experience that literally none of us expected.  It had the meager beginnings of starting in a basement to talk about how we were going to do this thing.  It had all of the anxiety of leaving steady jobs with steady paychecks which were providing for guys with young families.  It had the ups and downs of interpersonal relationships, raising money, finding the first customers etc…. And we were blessed to have a successful exit of the business, being sold off to a larger company.

I consider myself incredibly blessed to have been a part of this journey with Onyara and specifically with the guys that I got a chance to work with for 18 or so months.  It was a great adventure and one that I will never forget.

So now I am on to the next chapter of work life.  Again working for a much bigger company that acquired our team back in late August of 2015.  Integrating into a new company is an interesting challenge all it’s own.  But it is one that I am happy to take on and help our new parent be ridiculously successful.

Which means that I will begin to morph this blog to cover other, newer, fresh topics that are top of mind for people in the Enterprise Business space and specifically, I will focus on how technology is impacting these areas.

For now, some of the new topics will focus on data, as I believe that data really is the great equalizer.  Producing it, Moving it, Processing it, Mining it, Enriching it, Transforming it, Analyzing it, Storing it and most importantly, creating some specific and meaningful action to take because of it. This last bit about taking action being the most interesting part for me in the future.

I will then just let it flow and see where I take things.

I hope you enjoy the journey along with me as I give you my perspective and what I am seeing in the market.

Rob Sader

Not Just Designing Experiences, But Shareable Experiences

I had the pleasure of attending an event last fall that was sponsored by my current employer that was facsinating.  The speaker for the evening was a guy names Brian Solis.  Not many people in the customer service or customer experience space yet know of Brian, but those that do, are fanatic about him and his message.  Brian is an engaging and intelligent business person who is spreading the message and the concept of Designing Shareable Experiences.

The premise of what Brian is getting at in his talks and with his message is that more and more people are sharing the experiences that they have.  This in of itself is nothing revolutionary.  As we all know, there are a multitude of outlets to share your experience, either positive or negative, with the rest of the world.  But what Brian is pushing for with his clients and the Customer Experience community is that every company should be thinking about Designing these experiences so that your customers don't design or define them for you.

I had not really ever thought about Experiences from this perspective, but he is absolutely right on and I am seeing more and more of this thinking starting to make it's way into the way that service organizations design processes.

See, in the past, service organizations have thought about the customer experience in terms of designing only a process that makes is easy for customers to engage with them.  Or they have thought about how they can make the process of communicating seamless.  Or they have thought about design in terms of simplicity of interaction.  But, very few that I have worked with or heard talk about designing experiences ever really talk about designing Shareable experiences.  Again, looking at your processes not just with simplicity or ease of use in mind, but designing so that each and every touchpoint is a mechanism for someone to share their experience with your brand.

What I love about this concept for service is that, as we all know, service is the most important moment of truth in a customer journey with your brand.  This is the moment when your customer is most vulnerable.  When they need you more than ever.  The moment when you can design for an experience that they will want to share with everyone they know.  And here is where the nuance comes in.  It is not just about designing an experience that people will really like or will love.  It is about designing an experience that people will share.  Just because people had a great experience, doesn't mean they will be willing to share it.  But, if someone has an experience that they loved or even liked, but it was also creative, different, unique or jarring in a good way, then they will want to share it.  And this is what you need to design for.

So the take away for all the service execs out there is this, are you designing experiences for your customers that are something they will want to share with their network?  If not, you should be.....

Visual IVRs and the Smartphone

One of the newer trends in the last year+ that I have been keeping my eye on quite a bit for customer service technology has been the movement towards so called "Visual IVRs".  The concept is pretty simple, take the idea of an IVR, or a phone tree as some would call it, and craft it into a visual mechanism either on a mobile device or on a website.  The idea is that companies would still get the caller to where they really need to go the first time and customer would not have to endure the endless prompts and frustrations of speech recognition on their way to an agent.  Theoretically, everyone wins.

There have been a few companies in this space that have been pioneers or leaders in bringing this concept to market and have done a nice job in doing so.  First, Fonolo has been one of the companies that is on the leading edge of this trend.  They first started out as a company that focused primarily on Virtual Holding type of technology where I can grab a place in line in the queue but hang up and wait for a call back when an agent frees up.  But soon thereafter, they started rethinking that model a bit and added some visual prompts to their solution so that customers could actually do all the work that is traditionally done in a voice IVR, from a visual interface on their mobile phone or on a website.

Another player in this space today is Jacada.  About a year or so ago, they took one of their existing products called the Jacada Interaction Manager and began to rethink how it could be applied to customer facing activities on mobile devices.  They have done a nice job in taking things a step further by working to make the experience on the mobile phone or website more self service help based before then moving to the Visual IVR experience.  Think troubleshooting on a mobile device that then takes you immediately to the right place in a phone queue if you are unable to solve your problem with the help of the troubleshooting tool.  Pretty slick concept and they are having good success in the market place.

I am a big fan of this trend towards more visual experiences.  They are just flat out faster for customers, more useful for customers and when done right, they are actually more likely to deflect the transfer to the voice queue than traditional self service approaches, especially on mobile devices.

With the limited success so far of these smaller brands and companies in this space, there has been the obvious rush to the market by all of the other players in the call center market/customer service technology market.  So, soon, this technology too will be another feature that exists in everyone's bag of tricks.  Which is somewhat sad to me, as that is when innovation tends to stop and the big companies move on to the next big thing.

Take a look at the smaller guys in this space though, as they are doing some really innovative things that, in my mind, will dramatically improve your customer's experience with your brand.  Especially on mobile devices, as this is still a place that brands have not thought enough about.

Machine to Machine Service: Lets Dig in a bit

Something that I have been digging into for a while that I think is really fascinating is the whole world of machine to machine interactions.  It seems like every company is looking at their business, their products or their services and striving to find a way to connect them to the rest of the world.
You have Cisco who is pushing the Internet of Everything, Salesforce that is talking about the Internet of Customers and hundreds of other companies from Tesla to Samsung to Nest that are connecting products to each other.

So, there are number of great reasons why this makes sense to do over the coming years.  Some companies talk about the data they can collect in real time.  Some talk about over the air software updates etc... But I believe the single most important application for this machine to machine technology is in predictively finding opportunities for driving to a better customer experience.  Products and services are becoming more commoditized even faster than ever and as most of the rest of the world is finally waking up to, customer experience is becoming king.  Whether that be marketing the right service or product to me at the right time, or selling me the right thing or servicing me before I even know I need it, all of these are great simplistic examples of using machines to connect us more effectively to our customers.

Tesla is probably the best example of this right now in the market.  I am unsure if they are going to be able to really scale the model, but their current service model is game changing.  If you don't already know, Tesla is a new car manufactruer that products all electric cars that are sleek, fast and obviously environmentally friendly.  But what most people don't know, is that they are hyper connected cars.  Every little detail is being captured in the central "brain" of the car and being transmitted back to Tesla HQ for analysis.  Even to the point of knowing when the front hood of the car was opened.

But what is seperating them from the pack right now more than the big things just mentioned, is their service model.  They can tell, based on the data they are collecting, that you are about to have an issue with your car.  They then throw a red flag to a piece of software that captures the issue, sends the issue automatically to a CRM system, creates a service order, they then call the customer to let them know the issue and schedule a time when they will come to the customers house to fix the problem.  Yes, come to YOUR house, not the other way around.

Obviously, there are some really great parts of this model, but the best part for me as a car owner is the idea that they are watching and paying attention to what may happen, so that I don't have a bigger issue down the line.  Sure, they could abuse this model and try to fix every little thing and nickel and dime you to death with little charges for fixing things.  But this is not their model.  And I would love to have a company doing this for me today in a number of areas in my life.  What if your mobile phone provider actually called you when they noticed that the battery life was getting low on your phone.  And maybe even offered you a new battery for a discount.

This is the creativity and innovative type of thinking that can happen when machines start talking to machines.  But lets be clear, it is not the machines talking to machines that are the key.  It is the monitoring of the data and the automated processes in the background that kick off actions that are the key to what the customer experiences.

What is an example of a machine to machine story that changed your experience with a company?