Pitney Bowes Portrait Explorer Tames Big Data on Desktops
Customer analytics software tool displays customer information graphically to improve targeting queries, highlight data quality problems.
Note: TDWI’s editors carefully choose vendor-issued press releases about new or upgraded products
and services. We have edited and/or condensed this release to highlight key features but make no
claims as to the accuracy of the vendor's statements.
Pitney Bowes Software has launched Portrait Explorer, a new software solution that brings data analytics into the hands of today’s business users. The solution makes understanding and navigating complex “big customer data” as easy as using a digital photo album.
Portrait Explorer empowers business users to access customer information directly to perform their own ad hoc queries and reports providing fast, actionable insight without the need for power analysts or IT. The interface was designed to look, feel, and behave like applications marketers use in their personal life, making it instantly usable.
Popular digital photo management apps help consumers make sense of thousands of individual photos by organizing them, with the click of a mouse, into albums based on date, location, tags, or other selection criteria. Portrait Explorer delivers that same level of accessibility and usability to marketers for customer data.
Every customer is represented graphically as a “customer card” with dozens of key attributes to provide a clear customer portrait of that individual. Cards can be examined individually to give deeper insight into segments and selection decisions using specific examples. The collection of cards representing all customers can be segmented or selected by any attribute, with heat maps used to highlight quality differences between segments, providing a visual environment to improve targeting queries and highlight potential data quality issues.
The role of customer insight is paramount in consumer-focused organizations. Brands are applying data to customer communications and looking at data analytics for customer insight on everything from “Which customers reacted positively to a recent marketing offer?” and “Which customers recently contacted the company with a complaint?” to “How do I understand who are my highest value customers?”
Traditionally, customer data queries have been a process of trial and error between business managers looking to apply data to marketing activities and data analytics professionals who expertly parse customer data to create customer insight. Each query often presents new segmentation information that may require clarifying queries until the two teams arrive at the best data analysis for each situation. By sharing appropriate access to customer data and tools more broadly, business and marketing users can make better data-driven decisions more quickly, delivering increased productivity and more effective customer interaction management.
More information about Pitney Bowes Portrait Explorer can be found here.