Apr
20
Written by:
Tony Lopresti
4/20/2010 4:01 PM
A couple of years ago, Clarabridge wrote a white paper about three major trends that are speeding up the adoption of text analytics. To be honest, I've been fascinated by the rapid pace at which this adoption has played out.
A couple of years ago, Clarabridge wrote a white paper about three major trends that are speeding up the adoption of text analytics. To be honest, I've been fascinated by the rapid pace at which this adoption has played out.
In the not-so-distant past, I would need to explain to prospective customers what text analytics was all about, discuss the challenges related to customer experience, then connect the dots. How times have changed! Companies today clearly understand the inherent benefits of this discipline and how it helps to improve customer experience. We see this understanding reflected across all sorts of activities from increasing numbers of inbound calls to RFPs to self-service downloads[link]. The light bulb has gone off and everyone now "gets it" intuitively.
The Missing Benefit
As the market moves from early adopters to mainstream users, our company has focused increasingly on demonstrating the tangible value of text analytics. Recently, we led an entire session at C3 on how to communicate the value of text analytics to your CFO. Panelists talked about increasing efficiency in customer care by driving down repeat calls, creating self-service opportunities, and more. Still, there’s been one key benefit of text analytics that remains hard to quantify and pin down. What impact does this have on revenues?
By chance, I recently came across a study by Watermark Consulting
How do Clarabridge customers measure up in their financial performance as compared to their non-Clarabridge peers? Wouldn't it be cool if I could find an easily understood benchmark showing how Clarabridge customers actually outperformed their peers?
ROI Revealed?
So here’s what I did. First, I looked at the two dozen Clarabridge customers that have been with us for more than one year. I then eliminated the ones that are not publicly traded and I was left with a set of mostly Fortune 1000 companies representing almost all the major industries in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index. Using this set, I created a model similar to that of a mutual fund—comparing the performance results of $1,000 invested in our “Clarabridge Major Industries Index” versus that same investment in the S&P 500.
The results?
Those who invested in text analytics, and by extension in better understanding the concerns and desires of their customers, outperformed their peers. Pretty compelling evidence that working with Clarabridge tends to lead to greater tangible returns over time, all in a simple but striking visual that hits home!
Looking at this chart, I’m tempted to quit my day job and invest in companies that use Clarabridge!