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Customer data drives today's businesses. Without this information, a company may struggle to gain the insights it needs to foster long-lasting partnerships with customers, ensure its customers are fully supported along each stage of the buyer's journey and more. 

Although many business managers leverage data analysis technologies, it is important to note that a wide range of technologies is available to support managers at companies of all sizes. In fact, data visualization and data mining represent two of the most common data analysis technologies, and both can help managers optimize the value of customer data. 

How Are Data Visualization and Data Mining Different? 

Data visualization involves the use of charts, graphs and other illustrations to highlight customer data. Comparatively, data mining requires a business manager to evaluate customer data sets that are available and find actionable insights hidden within them.

To better understand the key differences between data visualization, let's consider how text analytics services work.  

Text analytics allows managers to collect a broad array of customer data from across the web. It ensures managers can retrieve customer feedback from blog posts, web polls and surveys and other online sources instantly. Thus, text analytics offers a valuable service, as it ensures managers can streamline the process of obtaining customer data. 

On the other hand, text analytics fails to provide managers with a quick, easy way to analyze customer data. The service often must be used in conjunction with data mining, i.e. a process that could become extremely time- and resource-intensive, to optimize its value. 

To mine a customer data set, a manager will need to review all of the information contained within the data set to identify customer trends and behaviors, and this process may require many man-hours to complete. Plus, if a manager makes a mistake along the way, he or she might struggle to gain meaningful customer insights.

Now, data visualization tools are available that empower managers to minimize the need for data mining. One such tool is Self-Service Text Analysis, a free service that brings data visualization capabilities to managers at companies big and small. 

How Does Self-Service Text Analysis Work?

The combination of text analytics and Self-Service Text Analysis provides business managers with unparalleled data visualization capabilities. Together, these technologies ensure managers can produce interactive PDF (iPDF) reports that illustrate customer behaviors and trends like never before. 

Text analytics allows managers to obtain a wealth of customer data. Meanwhile, Self-Service Text Analysis provides managers with a reliable service that enables managers to produce interactive PDF (iPDF) reports that may contain dozens or hundreds of data visualization in just minutes. 

To generate an interactive PDF (iPDF) report via Self-Service Text Analysis, a manager only needs to upload an Excel spreadsheet that includes user-generated content. The Excel spreadsheet will serve as the basis of the interactive PDF (iPDF) report and may include customer feedback from social networks, websites and other online sources. 

After the upload is finished, a manager will receive an interactive PDF (iPDF) report via email within about 15 minutes. This report will feature data visualizations that illustrate data related to consumer sentiment, the customer experience (CX) and customer behaviors and trends. Thus, managers should have no trouble evaluating data visualizations to find out why customers may choose one brand over another, how customers feel about a brand, its products and its services and more. 

In the past, maximizing the value of customer data required a combination of data mining and data visualizations. Thanks to text analytics and Self-Service Text Analysis, managers can forego data mining and retrieve comprehensive data visualizations any time they choose. These technologies simplify the process of transforming customer feedback into actionable insights, and as such, could deliver immediate and long-lasting value for managers at companies worldwide. 

Summary

For business managers, data mining is rarely, if ever, a viable option. Data mining usually requires substantial time and resources, and in some cases, may deliver limited return on investment (ROI). Today, managers can leverage text analytics and Self-Service Text Analysis and reap the benefits of superior data visualizations immediately. Text analytics and Self-Service Text Analysis ensure managers can produce interactive PDF (iPDF) reports with ease. As a result, managers now can obtain data visualizations based on customer feedback and use charts, graphs and other illustrations to find ways to drive their companies forward.