Knowledge is Power (Utilizing the Graph)

The world’s largest social media companies use the power of people’s connections and feelings to achieve mind-boggling growth. What if you had the same insights available to you?

The ability to create a unified view of customer interactions and relationships is available to all businesses that collect and store multi-source data about their customers. Called a customer knowledge graph, this data-driven tool captures a 360 contextual view of the customer by aggregating his or her activities across the board. What’s more, it can uncover previously hidden relationships between people and products to help drive business performance.

To better understand the power of these graphs, here are five examples of how they can be smartly applied in different business situations. 

1. To understand the importance of relationships

For any sales, customer service or marketing team, understanding the interplay between customers can be a powerful tool, and can add a layer of intelligent targeting to outreaches and offers. That’s because data graphs look at the proximity between people. For example, customers who are intricately linked to other customers may be more likely to desire similar products or services. When it comes to managing delinquent accounts, companies can better determine how to proceed based on a customer’s family and friends. All of this can result in better customer service and higher brand loyalty. 

2. To uncover new selling opportunities

Because of the detailed, interconnected view customer knowledge graphs offer, it’s easier for marketers to visualize the relationships customers have with products and services — and discover new upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Especially as information is pooled from different departments within the organization, the connections — and missed connections — among sales, customer service and marketing become apparent and easier to address.

3. To pinpoint potential areas of fraud

A perennial concern for businesses across the globe, fraud has historically been difficult to detect. Knowledge graphs uncover patterns between accounts, illuminating all activities and relationships; thus, they can be powerful tools for finance, risk, compliance and legal departments. In the long run, it makes identifying other fraudulent accounts faster and easier — saving a business time, money and manpower in an otherwise lengthy process. 

4. To help address compliance needs

The knowledge graph’s ability to illuminate fraudulent relationships can also help companies manage compliance requirements. They help establish relationships that aren’t obvious among people, services and companies that could potentially be problematic. Using these graphs to organize customer and account data can help eliminate surprises and reduce unwanted headaches for compliance teams. 

5. To create more efficient outreaches

In any sales or marketing campaign, there are expenses: the cost of media, materials and time. Knowledge graphs can effectively fine-tune outreaches and reduce expenses. For example, they can help identify customers who look like they would accept an offer, but in reality would not. Reducing outreaches to these accounts can create efficiencies and returns in marketing budgets and key performance indicators (KPIs).