You knew this was coming: location data is now so easily available that someone is giving it away. Location analytics vendor Placed is giving free access to visitor traffic data for 1,900 major businesses, including giant chains such as Walmart, McDonalds, and Starbucks. They hope to spur demand by educating the market.
Lots of AI-based analytics news today. We have Series A fundings from Luminoso ($12.6 million to do natural language analysis such as analyzing customer comments, understanding inquiries, and conversational search) and from Tellius ($7.5 million for a natural language query engine that finds interesting insights based on patterns within giant data sets.) Barking up the same tree, Clearstory Data has launched ‘Instant Data Discovery’ to find insights within blended data sets created by their automated data harmonization tools.
Customer experience (CX) includes service, support, marketing, operations, and pretty much everything else. CX agency Verndale found the biggest challenges cited by CX professionals were lack of real-time data and operationalizing CX insights. Personalization was 9th from the top. Yet 92% said personalization is crucial to good CX and 51% said their organizations can’t deliver the personalization their customers want. No simple answers but much food for thought.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.