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How Unified Customer Data Can Help Advance Your Contact Center – Futurum Tech Webcast Interview Series

In this LinkedIn Live episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast — Interview Series, I’m joined by James Riseman, Director of Product Marketing for Treasure Data for an extremely timely conversation about the value Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) can bring to teams outside of sales and marketing.

CDPs have quickly become an integral part of MarTech stacks, connecting customer data from multiple touchpoints like social media, websites, in-store, and others. Yet the data that is collected and managed within these CDPs has been siloed from the rest of the organization creating a disjointed customer experience — especially in customer service centers.

Customers today expect organizations to provide excellent customer experiences whether it’s online, in-store, or with a customer service agent. This requires data and complete customer profiles. So, what do organizations need to improve their contact center and overall customer experience? That’s exactly what explored in this conversation. James and I will dove into the world of customer experience, contact centers and CDPs outside of sales and marketing. In a time when customer experience means so much, this conversation should be a ‘must listen’ for every organization.

Some Background on Treasure Data

Treasure Data is a proven CDP expert that helps organizations meet the needs of every customer with accessible, flexible, agile, and scalable technology. Their latest release, CDP for Service is dedicated to powering improved customer experiences across the contact center by proving contact center agents with real-time data and complete customer profiles. It’s easy to see why it is such an attractive offering.

Unified Customer Data is Critical for Contact Centers

Customer experiences are crucial in today’s marketplace. Even the most loyal customer will reportedly leave an organization for a competitor after two or three negative experiences. Our conversation covered how the shift in customer experience demands are driving changes across organizations. James shared why connecting data from all touchpoints is a valuable tool for other departments outside of marketing and sales.

Our discussion also covered the following:

  • The customer experience changes we were seeing pre-pandemic that have been accelerated in the last 18 months.
  • Why CDPs are attractive offerings for organizations.
  • The impact CDPs will have in transforming contact centers from cost hubs to revenue generating experience centers.
  • Why CDP for Service will be a difference maker.
  • The organizations that can benefit the most from this new CDP.

If you’d like to learn more about the importance of transforming your contact center, be sure to check out our latest white paper Customer Data Platform: The Key for Contact Center Transformations. And if you’re already fully convinced that you can benefit from Treasure Data’s CDP for Service, visit their website to learn more about adoption. Finally, check out our full conversation, I promise it’s one you don’t want to miss.

You can grab the video of the interview here (and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you’ve not yet done so)

You can also listen below or stream the audio on your favorite podcast platform — and if you’ve not yet subscribed, let’s fix that!

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Disclaimer: The Futurum Tech Webcast is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors and we do not ask that you treat us as such.

More insights from Futurum Research:

Treasure Data’s CDP for Service Platform Dedicated to Contact Centers is the Right Solution at the Right Time

Why You Need a Customer Data Platform for First-Party Data

The Customer Data Platform: The New Table Stakes for CPG Companies

Transcript:

Shelly Kramer: Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast. I’m your host, Shelly Kramer, and this conversation is part of our Interview Series. I’m super excited today to be talking about customer data platforms, and we’re going to talk about how unified customer data can help advance your contact center. So, I’m joined today by James Riseman, who is the Director of Product Marketing for Treasure Data. I think this conversation is an incredibly timely one. It’s about the value of customer data platforms, otherwise known as CDPs, and what the value that they can bring to teams outside of simply just your sales and marketing teams.

So I believe, and we’ve written a lot about this, in some of our predictions for the coming year. I believe that today is the day, the time for the CDP, and we’re seeing more and more businesses adopt CDPs and really evaluate whether the current CDP that they’re using is meeting their needs. So, what we do know is that CDPs have become an integral part of marketing tech stacks and connecting customer data from multiple touchpoint, social media websites, in store, other channels. But the problem is that that data is often collected and it’s managed within CDPs. In many cases, it’s siloed from the rest of the organization, and that can create a disjointed customer experience, especially as it relates to customer service centers, which are the lifeblood of your organization, right? Keeping customers happy.

So, customers today expect more. We want what we want when we want it. And they expect organizations to provide excellent customer experiences, whether they’re in store, online, wherever they are. I think it requires organizations to really step back and look at the data they’re collecting, how they’re managing that data, how accessible, whether it’s accessible to others within the organization, and really just reexamine the foundation of their customer experience processes.

So, that’s why talking today about what organizations are doing with their contact centers and what they’re thinking about with regard to overall customer experience is so timely. That’s really what we’re going to dive into here. So James, before we get started on some of the specifics in this conversation, I’d love to hear more about you and your backstory. So, let’s hear it.

James Riseman: Sure, Shelly. Great talking to you. So, a little about, so I started my career starting college as this chess and math nerd, that I was really data nerd. And after that, my first role out of school was I was consulting in governments, both internationally as well as in the US. What I found which really frustrated me, was that a lot of the work around this consulting was putting together data, so that governments could understand their programs. I just saw a ton of inefficiencies and it was just really frustrating seeing how these programs were mismanaged because they just didn’t really understand what was going on.

So, I transitioned from the consulting role more and more into the business world, and what I found is that businesses, the private sector had a lot of the same issues, where they had data and they didn’t know all their data, they didn’t know what to do with it, and it was linked to a lot of it inefficiencies within companies, as well. So that really led me more and more into the CDP space with Treasure Data and that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m really enjoying it, is to really help companies understand much more about their customers and to help them work as efficiently as possible to create great experiences for them.

Shelly Kramer: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I wasn’t a math and chess nerd. I was a communication nerd. So, I went through college having to stand up in front of groups full of people in my classes and actually act like I knew what I was talking about. So, that has served me well for my career and I became a math nerd within about the last 20 years. So, data is truly the heartbeat of any organization and I think that even more important today, right?

James Riseman: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Shelly Kramer: So, talk with us a little bit about Treasure Data and what this organization is all about and give us the backstory there.

James Riseman: Yeah. So, Treasure Data, I mean, you know CDP as well, but I’ll explain to the audience, so customer data platform, what it does, it really has a number of functions. So, you have disparate data, you have data silos all over your company. What CDPs do and customer data platforms do, is they ingest that data from all these different parts of the company, all the customer data out there, and then they unify it so that you can understand the data across a particular customer’s profile and really get a very comprehensive understanding of that customer. Then there’s the next step of activating it, so once you have all that data and the unified view of your customer, you can then analyze it, you can get an understanding of the type of customer they are, what segment or segments they can fit into, and then you can activate it and send it to marketing channels, or even send that information to an agent, so that you can create the best possible experience for them and interact with them as well as possible.

Shelly Kramer: Makes perfect sense to me. So, speaking of customer experience, we have, I think … Well, we’ve done a lot of research in the area of customer experience and it’s not new that customer experience is really the foundation upon which all of your business processes and operations should be built. That’s not news, but what is news is that over the course of the last couple of years, we had a wrench thrown in our collective plans by way of a global pandemic. So, I think that we’ve seen dramatic shifts in customer experience in the last few years, exacerbated by a pandemic. What are your customers seeing on that front?

James Riseman: Yeah, Shelly, we’re seeing this real sea change towards digital transformation. So, while companies might have been talking about digital transformation before, now they’re right in the midst of it. I mean, they see the necessity. I’m sure you guys are seeing this at Futurum as well, but it’s just all the touch points. Whereas before, you might have had a number of customers coming to the store, interacting with staff at the store that way and getting most of their information, most of their experience that way. Now, most companies are seeing that a majority of their customers are going digital, where it’s not just Amazon, but it’s almost every company now. So, they’re interacting, they’re going to the website to learn more about a purchase or a product, they’re interacting more with the customer service agent online that way, with chat and so forth, rather than going into the store to ask questions. So yeah, everyone’s going through this digital transformation and it’s a learning experience for all of us, for a lot of companies.

Shelly Kramer: Yeah. You know, I’m an internal optimist, and so I am prone to looking at something like a pandemic, which is not been easy for any of us the world over, but I tend to look at it and look for the various silver linings that have come out of that as a … My dad’s saying is, “We don’t know what we don’t know until we know.” But it’s true, and it’s kind of like, we have certain behaviors and certain things we’re accustomed to, and what a pandemic did is it caused all of us as consumers to shift. We had to change the way that we did things. We didn’t go to pay a bill in person, we did it online. We did our grocery shopping online.

We learned quickly about things like mobile payment, or just all different kinds of things and once you realize, my 83-year-old mother-in-law talks often about how she had no idea how amazing it was to do her grocery shopping online until she actually had to do it. So, I look at this pivot to digital transformation that has really been, as you said, companies oftentimes, had a list and we were working toward that, working toward thinking about this software solution, or integrating this into our processes, but we haven’t just quite gotten around to it yet. What happened is that we didn’t have any time, we had to immediately pivot. We had remote workforces that we had to enable to do their jobs and to serve our customers.

In some industries, we had customers with really big problems. Thinking in the early days of the pandemic, financial institutions and health insurance companies and telehealth companies, and at all kinds of organizations had to automatically just shift. A lot of those organizations in the financial services space, for sure, had for the first time contact center employees working from home. So, that was a big deal and it was a big shift and a balancing act, I think. So to me, it’s been very interesting times and in some ways, of course it’s been challenging for businesses, but I think it’s also been really cool because what we’re seeing is that it’s like the little engine who could. I can this, I think I can, I think I can, I’m doing it. Obviously I’ve come from raising little kids and I’m thinking about children’s story books today.

But anyway, I do think that’s interesting, some of what we’ve seen in our research, we’ve seen an acceleration of digital engagement and a need and a desire on the part of customers for personalization, and a need for brands to really understand the importance of trust. Some of what our research showed in the last couple of years is that in a recent research study that we did, 83% of brands are rethinking what it means to deliver superior customer experiences moving forward in a post-pandemic world, which we’re not really in right yet. 73% of the brands that we surveyed agreed that the future of customer experience lies in real-time data collection and analysis and the ability to use those real-time insights and feed them to our contact center and our customer service agents, and let them have all of the information they need right at their fingertips. I think that that’s really not surprising results.

And lastly, we had about 66% of respondents to our Digital Transformation Index, which is a survey that we do every year, and those respondents reported that big data would be the second highest priority for their technology spend over the next 12 to 18 months, second only to cloud-based solutions, which again is not surprising. So, as we talked about in the first part of our conversation, CDPs are truly becoming a vital part of our MarTech stack. So, why are they so popular and what do they solve for your customers?

James Riseman: Yeah. Great question, Shelly, yeah. First of all, I just want to relate to one of your experiences, I can’t get my mom to do online shopping yet. So anyway, but going back to your question. Yeah, so CDPs, as companies move more and more towards data, towards digital, there’s all these data silos and there’s a number of challenges with that. You’ve touched on quite a few of them. So, the first challenge they face is being able to unify all that data and unify it so they get a comprehensive view of each customer. So, that’s a major challenge that smart CDPs can handle.

A second challenge, which you touched on is trust. So now there’s all these regulations out there like GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, PIPEDA in Canada. I mean, they’re all over the place though. With that, trust is paramount. Companies need to let customers know, their consumers know, that they’re a trusted brand, that they aren’t going to misuse the data. That they’re not going to be calling them all the time if they don’t want to get phone calls and so forth, and Treasure Data can manage that trust for them.

So, not only do we unify the data, but we unify the consent and so forth, so that as marketers are running these programs, someone else, when the company’s running the programs, then they can see that these particular customers don’t want to get that phone call, don’t want to get that email, or they have the right to be forgotten. So, it’s all integrated within this holistic framework. So, we’re solving that problem as well.

And then there’s other problems that we solve for companies like with AB InBev, for instance, the company behind Anheuser Bush. What we’re doing with them is we’re enabling them to run much more efficient marketing campaigns. So, as they have this data on their customers, they can see, “Okay, this customer, we’ve already reached out to them with this campaign.” Or, “This customer’s particularly interested in Budweiser,” or something, that particular brand. So, they can target them with the right messaging, it’s much more efficient, it’s much better experience for the customer. So, that’s how we’re helping companies like AB InBev for instance.

So, there’s a number of steps as you integrate the data. It’s not just one and done, there’s a number of steps that we help along the entire path as these companies work with their consumers.

Shelly Kramer: Yeah, absolutely. I think that when it comes to those experiences and I always go back to, when I’m looking at technology solutions, technology platforms, I just always put myself in the consumer’s shoes and I’m the consumer, my husband calls me a consumer. I’m a professional consumer, but when you have an experience that is so seamless and so efficient, and it’s like just walk away from it going, “Oh my gosh, I wish every experience was like that.” I know it’s possible and I think that we start comparing those examples from the great experiences to the less than great experiences and just think, “I know there’s a better way and why am I going to put up with this when I could have this?”

I think that consumers, what we value are we want trust, we’ve already touched on that, but we really value our time. It’s our most important and most limited asset. So, when we are trying to get something taken care, trying to get a question answered, trying to get information, trying to complete a process, trying to buy something, don’t get in our way, remove all the challenges and all the barriers and let us walk away from that experience going, “Oh my gosh, that was so amazing.”

I think another part of that equation, and I think we’ll talk a little bit more about this later, but is as a business leader, when you think about your talent recruitment and your talent retention efforts, you also want to think about what is it like to work on the front lines in our contact center? Are we empowering our agents, our employees to do what they need to do quickly and efficiently? I think that’s as an important part of the equation as what it is we’re doing for the customer.

So, what I want to talk about a little bit is I know you have some thoughts on trends and what we’re seeing out there. I mentioned at the top of the show, that I do believe it is 100% the time of the CDP. Our team has written about this extensively. This is not a nice to have, this is a critical part of your technology stack. I think that one of the interesting misperceptions that I think some organizations have is that a CDP is just for marketing, or a CDP is just for sales.

The reality of it is, I believe it’s relatively new technology when it comes to the contact center tech stack, but I think it’s tremendously important. I was prepping for this show and I looked at some data from Salesforce and it said the average customer uses nine channels to browse, seek help, make purchases, and 79% of service professionals say that it’s so difficult to provide excellent service without … It’s not difficult, it’s impossible to provide the kind of level of service that our customers want without access to data from all those touchpoints.

That’s really where the right CDP has the potential to serve as a data management tool for all customer access throughout the whole organization. I think that’s the direction that we’re moving. That’s what the customer expectations are of their experience with us.

So what I’m interested in is what are you seeing in terms of, in the market? Are your customers coming to you and saying, “Yeah, we were thinking about this CDP solution as being here, but we’re really seeing that we might need it more here.” Are you seeing that as well? Your customers getting that?

James Riseman: Yeah, yeah. So first of all, taking a quick step back. As these customers, or the companies are going through their digital transformations, I mean, the contact center is absolutely key, right?

Shelly Kramer: Oh, absolutely.

James Riseman: I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but my wife was trying to arrange a trip recently and she was calling in and this … I mean, the airlines, I guess, have just been flooded as things have been changing with COVID, or there’s been restrictions on flights have been open, or it’s all over the place. So, she was trying to make a flight while everything was starting to open up and there was literally an eight hour backup. So, you talk about a bad experience and …

Shelly Kramer: Oh, wow.

James Riseman: Yeah, just thinking, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want to deal with this brand ever again.” There was an eight hour backup in their contact center. So, I mean, it’s key to create great experiences, or else you’re going to leave forever a bad taste in your consumers’ mouths. So, going back to your question, some of the trends that we’ve been seeing are … We’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from our customers about their contact center, so that’s one thing. As you’re going through the digital transformations, we’re seeing that they’re often asking, “Hey, can we get our contact center involved with this? Can we provide this data to our contact center?” So, we’ve been a lot of those questions. That’s for one.

Also, as we work really closely with marketing departments, we’ve seeing some collaboration between the marketing departments and the contact centers. So, for instance, one of the companies we work, they’re called Asian Paints, they’re really big in India and Asian Paints, they have this whole loyalty program, the VIP program, where they provide these design sessions for their customers, as they’re choosing their paint, they’re different colors and everything.

With that, when the consumers were calling into the contact center, the contact center had no idea about who the customer was. Were they a VIP customer? Were they in this VIP program? And were they interested in this consultation session? So, there was a lot of wasted time and it was initially a bad experience. So, Asian Paints had the foresight to work with us to really integrate the contact center and their data in with the marketing data. So, they could really get a holistic perspective. When the agents were dealing with a consumer who was interested in these consultations, they knew that upfront, and it led to much better experience, much better conversion for Asian Paints, where the agents were then empowered to know, “Hey, this particular consumer is interested in our design services.” So they were able to create this really nice flow of experiences, led to much better conversions and it’s been a real success story for them.

Shelly Kramer: No, I think that’s awesome. What I was thinking about when you were talking about this was, a lot of times what we don’t think about, and again, this is not new, but what we don’t think about sometimes from a marketing standpoint, a marketing strategy standpoint, is that those people in our contact centers are truly on the front lines, as of course are our salespeople. They’re privy every day to insights, to customer insights, and questions, and requests, and challenges, and frustrations, and all of those things. That’s information that they are privy to, that if it doesn’t get back to marketing, we can’t fix problems we don’t know we have. So to me, that’s both the importance of, and the beauty of, having CDP that connects all parts of an organization, because then you have … information is so critical and it just makes perfect sense, that of course those insights from sales or from contact centers should fuel our marketing messaging, our marketing campaigns, our valuation of the efficacy of our marketing campaigns.

All of those things, I think are an important part of the equation. And again, in my mind, that’s the reason that the time for the CDP, really for organizations to understand that it’s a critical part of technology, a technology stack across the organization, not just marketing, not just sales, not just contact center, but really … and I think that that’s important as you evaluate technology solutions, to be looking at it in that way and to be understanding the importance, I think that a CDP can play throughout the organization.

James Riseman: Yeah, yeah. That’s a great point. There’s really a lack of bidirectional flow of information between Global 2000, between their marketing departments and their contact centers. So, I mean, what we’ve heard is that a lot of times the marketing department, they want to know how the customer experience has been but they get that by conducting a focus group of their agents, rather than just being able to have access to the contact center data and being able to see it for themselves. It’s a much coarser, much slower approach that they use. So yeah, getting this bidirectional flow of information between them leads to much better results for both marketing and for service.

Shelly Kramer: Thinking about an experience, as I said, I’m a professional consumer, I’m thinking about, I’m the customer who, when I have an experience and say, for instance, I need to return something and I’m the customer that makes time to say, “You know what, chat agent?” Or however it is, Facebook Messenger, however it is, and if I’m unhappy with the return process … and my point is that sometimes when I complain, I complain about brands who make the act of returning something particularly onerous.

I think today, certainly in today’s e-commerce driven environment, and what Amazon has taught all of us, is that buy it quickly and easily, return it quickly and easily if it doesn’t work. So, when brands create processes that make it challenging for customers to return things, you will lose me forever as a customer, but I’m also the customer who takes time to tell you that, “I don’t like this, and here’s why.” That’s a prime example of the kind of data that you could have in your contact center channels, that if you’re a marketer, you really want to see, this is really pissing people off, we need to change this. But if you’re not pulling all that data and all of those insights together, you’re missing out, I think on some really valuable customer feedback, that I think could be important.

James Riseman: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of the feedback from campaigns, contact centers see a lot from campaigns, marketing campaigns, that could be going wrong. One of our customers, it’s large retailer and they were running these campaigns frequently, and there were problems with the campaigns where there’d be too many emails sent out to a customer. It’d be repetitive or it’d just be a problem with the system. This was going on for a while and it was leading to a bad customer experience and contact centers were flooded with calls after these campaigns, but they didn’t really know what was going on until they started leveraging this technology.

Shelly Kramer: Yeah, yeah. We can’t fix what’s broken if we don’t know that it’s broken. That actually truly it is because I’m somebody who’s developed campaigns and because I’m an analyst and I look at these things, I do as a consumer always make time, whether it goes into the ether or not, to let brands know, “Here’s where you’re missing.” Sometimes maybe they take advantage of it. Most times they don’t. I don’t know, but at least I try.

So, I actually just published an article about this this morning and I’m super excited about, I know Treasure Data just launched CDP for service and I think this is … In fact, in my article, I called it the right solution at the right time. So, take us inside the thought process for this new solution and why it’ll be a difference maker.

James Riseman: Yeah. No, we’re really excited about it. We think it’s going to make a huge difference in the marketplace as all these companies are going through their digital transformations. So, the thought process behind it was, again, we’ve seen a lot of feedback from customers that they wanted more for their contact center. And we’ve done some work, as I mentioned with Asian Paints, with a global retailer, we’ve done some work already in this space. So, we saw this need and we just wanted to meet the market where it was and where it was heading. So, what we did is we created some new technology, based on our existing technology.

So, we have this great foundation of our customer data platform. On top of that, we have this real-time data layer where we’re able to get data real time, from if someone’s browsing through a website or on one of your apps. You can see that just seconds later with our real-time technology. Then we build in these integrations to all these major service desk and contact center applications, like Genesys and Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, and so forth, so that agents could then see that information within the applications that they know, so there wouldn’t be all this training involved for the agents and so forth.

So, we brought that all together, so now agents can really be empowered with this data and they can see what’s going on. Not only do they see the data, but they can see machine learning driven insights as well. So, if there’s insights about, “Oh, this customer is a churn risk,” or, “This particular consumer is high lifetime value, VIP consumer,” the agent will know that. They’ll be able to interact with them in a more appropriate fashion.

Likewise, the routing system can know that as well. So, the routing system could route the VIP consumer over to the proper agent for more of a white glove treatment. So, that’s really what CDP for service does. It takes our existing foundation as CDP and puts on this whole new layer, so that we can empower the agent with it.

Shelly Kramer: Right, that’s awesome. I do think that personalization is such an important key there, and everybody likes to feel special. Everybody likes to feel valued. When it comes to the things, the consumer choices, your brand is easily replaced most likely with another brand, another solution from another product, whatever. So, it’s just leveling up that experience and making me feel like, “You know what?” I know you’re a VIP customer, we really appreciate you and here’s how we’re here to serve you.” And you don’t even have to say those words necessarily, but the way that you treat me, and of course we treat all customers with respect and we treat them all fantastically, but it is important, I think, and very helpful from a sales standpoint, to know exactly who it is you’re dealing with. That’s one of the things about this new platform that I think is super exciting. I mean, it just takes what you’re already doing to the next level, and I think that’s very cool.

So, on this front, we’re talking about transforming contact centers from cost hubs to revenue, generating exp centers, kind of like what we just talked about. I mean, you’re talking with me, your agent’s talking with me, you know I’m a high lifetime value customer. You know, exactly what I’ve bought over the years. You know what I like. I think this is a very exciting turn of event and opportunity for businesses to really shift. What kind of impact do you see CDPs playing in that role in terms of a revenue-generating experience center?

James Riseman: Yeah, we’re seeing some companies that are starting to move towards looking to make their contact center agents more revenue-generating and why not? I mean, if you can leverage these agents and make revenue off them, it wouldn’t hurt at all. So, as I mentioned the Asian Paints example, that’s one. We’ve seen a lot of it where there’s collaborations between the marketing or sales department and the contact center, where this has been happening. So, by providing this information about type of customer, are they VIP customer, what did they just browse on the website? What are they interested in? Seeing those machine learning driven insights that we can provide, about the products that they’re most interested in buying and giving those insights to the agent, that’s all the ways we can help with converting a customer into a sale and generating that revenue.

But that said, I don’t want to just pigeonhole CDP for service and say we’re only a revenue-generating solution, right? We help contact centers, service departments, really where their needs are today, not just where they’re heading, but what they really need today, like time to resolution, being able to empower our agents, make agents happier and reduce that agent turnover. We’re improving the customer experience. So we’re helping with all those fundamental areas, all the fundamental issues, because we’re able to provide that information, that data, about a comprehensive view of the customer, what they’re looking to do here and now, and provide that information to the agent to help them make the best conversation.

Shelly Kramer: Absolutely. So, you talked a little bit about some of your existing customers, Asia Paint, AB InBev, a global e-commerce company or retailer. Are there specific types of companies that you most often serve or who can benefit from the Treasure Data CDP, or is it across the board we can kind of work with anybody? Or give us some examples of some specific use cases that are personification of your customer and prospect base.

James Riseman: Sure, sure. Yeah, we work a lot with CPG customers, as I mentioned, AB InBev are an example of them. Asian Paints is also a CPG customer. We work a lot with retailers, so I mean, retailers face these issues all the time. We also work quite a bit with auto companies, like Subaru, Honda, Stellantis, a lot of the major auto companies out there are working with us.

Also, we work within financial services as well. Financial services has a lot of needs around their contact center and finding the best experiences for their customer. So yeah, in terms of if you want some concrete use cases, yeah, I mean …

Shelly Kramer: Well, you’ve given me some already. I was most interested in whether … and I thought that across the board, what you’re talking about, CPG, financial services, automotive, I wasn’t aware of automotive as much. I assumed banking and financial services. So, what you’re sharing makes perfect sense, absolutely, absolutely.

James Riseman: Yeah, yeah, and we work with other industries as well. Those are some of our major ones, but there’s other verticals that we work with.

Shelly Kramer: Well, I think that we have reached the bottom of our show here, but I wanted to just, James, this has been a fantastic conversation and I am so all in on CDPs and what it is you and your team are doing, and the innovation that I’m seeing out of Treasure Data. I think it’s really exciting and I want to thank you so much for joining me today.

James Riseman: Thanks, Shelly. Great to be here, yeah. Great talking to you.

Shelly Kramer: Absolutely. And for our LinkedIn audience, or for anyone viewing this on YouTube, or listening on our podcast channel, I want to let you know that I will link James’ LinkedIn profile as part of our show notes in case you want to connect with him, and I encourage you to do that as well as mine, if we’re not yet connected. I invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to our webcast on YouTube, or if you’re listening on a podcast channel, do hit that subscribe button. With that, we’re going to wrap our show. James Riseman, thank you so much for joining me today, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

James Riseman: Thanks Shelly, take care.

Author Information

Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years' experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging development, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly's coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”

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