Understanding user behavior across a multitude of touchpoints is essential for delivering a seamless customer experience. At PlayerZero, we recognize that achieving this requires a robust identity resolution system. Here’s why identity resolution is crucial to our operations, the challenges we’ve faced, and how we’ve engineered a solution that sets us apart.
Why Identity Resolution is Important
Identity resolution is the method of connecting all customer interactions and activities, across different touchpoints, platforms, or channels, to a single unified customer profile. This enables you to track a user’s actions in real time across your product (web, mobile, server), as well as through external touch points (tickets, emails, phone calls).
Identity resolution lies at the heart of PlayerZero’s mission to enhance engineering team performance. Our core belief is that mature engineering teams can minimize problems from reaching customers and swiftly address issues when they arise. This belief hinges on our ability to understand user interactions across various dimensions—what users are doing, what issues they encounter, and what feedback they provide.
By representing all these data points through a single identifier, we can build a comprehensive graph of user interactions. This unified view allows us to predict how specific code changes might cause customer problems and debug issues down to the line of code. It also allows us to semantically talk about a specific user – there needs to be a way for us to define what a specific user means, and all the context and information related to that user. Simply put, effective identity resolution is fundamental to providing the insights our clients need to move fast and not break things, or fix broken things fast.
The Challenges of Identity Resolution
While the concept of identity resolution is straightforward, implementing it is anything but simple. Identity resolution requires coordinating across multiple systems of record, each with its own way of representing user identity, while also handling streaming resolution for continuous data flows. Additionally, managing order variance, where data arrives out of sequence, complicates the process of accurately merging identifiers. Here’s a closer look at each of these challenges
Coordinating across multiple systems of record
The predominant challenge lies in coordinating across multiple systems of record, each with its own representation of user identity. For example:
User IDs and Email Addresses: These are identifiers that we can confidently assume engineering teams will have instrumented or at least will have the functional ability to capture.
Service Requests: A customer complaint might come through a service platform like ServiceNow, where the only identifier is an email address.
Phone Interactions: Users might call our support team, identified only by their phone numbers.
Our task is to merge these disparate identifiers into a single, unified representation of each user. This requires building and maintaining an identity graph that can evolve as new data comes in and adapt to changes in how identities are defined.
Streaming resolution
Streaming resolution involves continuously resolving and merging identifiers in real-time as data flows into the system. This means that instead of batch processing data at intervals, the system must dynamically integrate new information from various sources on-the-fly, ensuring that the identity graph is always up-to-date and accurate. Doing this well is crucial for allowing the immediate recognition and reconciliation of user identities across multiple touchpoints as they occur.
Order variance
Order variance requires handling data that arrives in a non-sequential or unpredictable order. When integrating and merging identifiers from different sources, the data may not come in a linear fashion. This can complicate the process because the system must accurately resolve identities even when pieces of information about the same entity arrive at different times and out of order. Effectively managing order variance ensures that the identity graph remains consistent and accurate despite the irregular arrival of data.
Building the Identity Graph
Creating an effective identity graph involves significant engineering effort. We need to ensure that our graph can handle large volumes of data efficiently and accurately. Here are some key aspects of our approach:
Data Integration: We integrate data from various sources, including support tickets, analytics, and observability tools, each with different identifiers.
Scalability: Our system is designed to scale with the growing amount of data, ensuring that identity resolution remains accurate and efficient over time.
Flexibility: We can incorporate new types of identifiers and data sources as needed, reflecting the evolving nature of user interactions.
Real-World Application of Identity Resolution in PlayerZero
The power of our identity resolution system is best illustrated through its practical applications in our product and how it delivers value to engineering teams.
Semantically ask about specific users
To be immediately effective and actionable to users, PlayerZero needs to define what a specific user means, and all the context and information related to that user. No issue happens in a vacuum, there is always related context that can help paint a better picture of the broader impact and potential root cause of the problem. By setting a baseline for how data sources talk about a user, we can set a strong framework for user to natively ask questions and digest answers.
Root cause issues down the the causal line of code
By resolving user identities across different interactions, we can quickly pinpoint the root cause of issues. For example, we can identify that a user who reported a problem via email is the same user who encountered a specific error in the product. In turn, we can connect this error to the line of code that introduced it originally. The result is a hands-free, precise debugging experience – from complaint down to the line of code.
Surface the entire trace following customer actions
PlayerZero creates a single pane of glass for entire system traces (and all related spans), from button clicks on the front-end to database responses on the backend. This moment-in-time view of the entire system is only made possible with PlayerZero’s ability to connect a user's actions with downstream impact of those actions, which relies on our ability to identify a user at any point in time, on any device.
Conclusion
Identity resolution is a cornerstone of PlayerZero’s strategy to improve engineering team performance and customer experience. Despite the challenges, our dedicated engineering efforts have resulted in a powerful system that unifies user identities across multiple dimensions. This capability not only sets us apart but also empowers our clients to move faster, make better decisions, and deliver superior customer experiences.
Discover how PlayerZero can transform your engineering processes and elevate your customer experience through the power of unified identity resolution.
Understanding user behavior across a multitude of touchpoints is essential for delivering a seamless customer experience. At PlayerZero, we recognize that achieving this requires a robust identity resolution system. Here’s why identity resolution is crucial to our operations, the challenges we’ve faced, and how we’ve engineered a solution that sets us apart.
Why Identity Resolution is Important
Identity resolution is the method of connecting all customer interactions and activities, across different touchpoints, platforms, or channels, to a single unified customer profile. This enables you to track a user’s actions in real time across your product (web, mobile, server), as well as through external touch points (tickets, emails, phone calls).
Identity resolution lies at the heart of PlayerZero’s mission to enhance engineering team performance. Our core belief is that mature engineering teams can minimize problems from reaching customers and swiftly address issues when they arise. This belief hinges on our ability to understand user interactions across various dimensions—what users are doing, what issues they encounter, and what feedback they provide.
By representing all these data points through a single identifier, we can build a comprehensive graph of user interactions. This unified view allows us to predict how specific code changes might cause customer problems and debug issues down to the line of code. It also allows us to semantically talk about a specific user – there needs to be a way for us to define what a specific user means, and all the context and information related to that user. Simply put, effective identity resolution is fundamental to providing the insights our clients need to move fast and not break things, or fix broken things fast.
The Challenges of Identity Resolution
While the concept of identity resolution is straightforward, implementing it is anything but simple. Identity resolution requires coordinating across multiple systems of record, each with its own way of representing user identity, while also handling streaming resolution for continuous data flows. Additionally, managing order variance, where data arrives out of sequence, complicates the process of accurately merging identifiers. Here’s a closer look at each of these challenges
Coordinating across multiple systems of record
The predominant challenge lies in coordinating across multiple systems of record, each with its own representation of user identity. For example:
User IDs and Email Addresses: These are identifiers that we can confidently assume engineering teams will have instrumented or at least will have the functional ability to capture.
Service Requests: A customer complaint might come through a service platform like ServiceNow, where the only identifier is an email address.
Phone Interactions: Users might call our support team, identified only by their phone numbers.
Our task is to merge these disparate identifiers into a single, unified representation of each user. This requires building and maintaining an identity graph that can evolve as new data comes in and adapt to changes in how identities are defined.
Streaming resolution
Streaming resolution involves continuously resolving and merging identifiers in real-time as data flows into the system. This means that instead of batch processing data at intervals, the system must dynamically integrate new information from various sources on-the-fly, ensuring that the identity graph is always up-to-date and accurate. Doing this well is crucial for allowing the immediate recognition and reconciliation of user identities across multiple touchpoints as they occur.
Order variance
Order variance requires handling data that arrives in a non-sequential or unpredictable order. When integrating and merging identifiers from different sources, the data may not come in a linear fashion. This can complicate the process because the system must accurately resolve identities even when pieces of information about the same entity arrive at different times and out of order. Effectively managing order variance ensures that the identity graph remains consistent and accurate despite the irregular arrival of data.
Building the Identity Graph
Creating an effective identity graph involves significant engineering effort. We need to ensure that our graph can handle large volumes of data efficiently and accurately. Here are some key aspects of our approach:
Data Integration: We integrate data from various sources, including support tickets, analytics, and observability tools, each with different identifiers.
Scalability: Our system is designed to scale with the growing amount of data, ensuring that identity resolution remains accurate and efficient over time.
Flexibility: We can incorporate new types of identifiers and data sources as needed, reflecting the evolving nature of user interactions.
Real-World Application of Identity Resolution in PlayerZero
The power of our identity resolution system is best illustrated through its practical applications in our product and how it delivers value to engineering teams.
Semantically ask about specific users
To be immediately effective and actionable to users, PlayerZero needs to define what a specific user means, and all the context and information related to that user. No issue happens in a vacuum, there is always related context that can help paint a better picture of the broader impact and potential root cause of the problem. By setting a baseline for how data sources talk about a user, we can set a strong framework for user to natively ask questions and digest answers.
Root cause issues down the the causal line of code
By resolving user identities across different interactions, we can quickly pinpoint the root cause of issues. For example, we can identify that a user who reported a problem via email is the same user who encountered a specific error in the product. In turn, we can connect this error to the line of code that introduced it originally. The result is a hands-free, precise debugging experience – from complaint down to the line of code.
Surface the entire trace following customer actions
PlayerZero creates a single pane of glass for entire system traces (and all related spans), from button clicks on the front-end to database responses on the backend. This moment-in-time view of the entire system is only made possible with PlayerZero’s ability to connect a user's actions with downstream impact of those actions, which relies on our ability to identify a user at any point in time, on any device.
Conclusion
Identity resolution is a cornerstone of PlayerZero’s strategy to improve engineering team performance and customer experience. Despite the challenges, our dedicated engineering efforts have resulted in a powerful system that unifies user identities across multiple dimensions. This capability not only sets us apart but also empowers our clients to move faster, make better decisions, and deliver superior customer experiences.
Discover how PlayerZero can transform your engineering processes and elevate your customer experience through the power of unified identity resolution.
Understanding user behavior across a multitude of touchpoints is essential for delivering a seamless customer experience. At PlayerZero, we recognize that achieving this requires a robust identity resolution system. Here’s why identity resolution is crucial to our operations, the challenges we’ve faced, and how we’ve engineered a solution that sets us apart.
Why Identity Resolution is Important
Identity resolution is the method of connecting all customer interactions and activities, across different touchpoints, platforms, or channels, to a single unified customer profile. This enables you to track a user’s actions in real time across your product (web, mobile, server), as well as through external touch points (tickets, emails, phone calls).
Identity resolution lies at the heart of PlayerZero’s mission to enhance engineering team performance. Our core belief is that mature engineering teams can minimize problems from reaching customers and swiftly address issues when they arise. This belief hinges on our ability to understand user interactions across various dimensions—what users are doing, what issues they encounter, and what feedback they provide.
By representing all these data points through a single identifier, we can build a comprehensive graph of user interactions. This unified view allows us to predict how specific code changes might cause customer problems and debug issues down to the line of code. It also allows us to semantically talk about a specific user – there needs to be a way for us to define what a specific user means, and all the context and information related to that user. Simply put, effective identity resolution is fundamental to providing the insights our clients need to move fast and not break things, or fix broken things fast.
The Challenges of Identity Resolution
While the concept of identity resolution is straightforward, implementing it is anything but simple. Identity resolution requires coordinating across multiple systems of record, each with its own way of representing user identity, while also handling streaming resolution for continuous data flows. Additionally, managing order variance, where data arrives out of sequence, complicates the process of accurately merging identifiers. Here’s a closer look at each of these challenges
Coordinating across multiple systems of record
The predominant challenge lies in coordinating across multiple systems of record, each with its own representation of user identity. For example:
User IDs and Email Addresses: These are identifiers that we can confidently assume engineering teams will have instrumented or at least will have the functional ability to capture.
Service Requests: A customer complaint might come through a service platform like ServiceNow, where the only identifier is an email address.
Phone Interactions: Users might call our support team, identified only by their phone numbers.
Our task is to merge these disparate identifiers into a single, unified representation of each user. This requires building and maintaining an identity graph that can evolve as new data comes in and adapt to changes in how identities are defined.
Streaming resolution
Streaming resolution involves continuously resolving and merging identifiers in real-time as data flows into the system. This means that instead of batch processing data at intervals, the system must dynamically integrate new information from various sources on-the-fly, ensuring that the identity graph is always up-to-date and accurate. Doing this well is crucial for allowing the immediate recognition and reconciliation of user identities across multiple touchpoints as they occur.
Order variance
Order variance requires handling data that arrives in a non-sequential or unpredictable order. When integrating and merging identifiers from different sources, the data may not come in a linear fashion. This can complicate the process because the system must accurately resolve identities even when pieces of information about the same entity arrive at different times and out of order. Effectively managing order variance ensures that the identity graph remains consistent and accurate despite the irregular arrival of data.
Building the Identity Graph
Creating an effective identity graph involves significant engineering effort. We need to ensure that our graph can handle large volumes of data efficiently and accurately. Here are some key aspects of our approach:
Data Integration: We integrate data from various sources, including support tickets, analytics, and observability tools, each with different identifiers.
Scalability: Our system is designed to scale with the growing amount of data, ensuring that identity resolution remains accurate and efficient over time.
Flexibility: We can incorporate new types of identifiers and data sources as needed, reflecting the evolving nature of user interactions.
Real-World Application of Identity Resolution in PlayerZero
The power of our identity resolution system is best illustrated through its practical applications in our product and how it delivers value to engineering teams.
Semantically ask about specific users
To be immediately effective and actionable to users, PlayerZero needs to define what a specific user means, and all the context and information related to that user. No issue happens in a vacuum, there is always related context that can help paint a better picture of the broader impact and potential root cause of the problem. By setting a baseline for how data sources talk about a user, we can set a strong framework for user to natively ask questions and digest answers.
Root cause issues down the the causal line of code
By resolving user identities across different interactions, we can quickly pinpoint the root cause of issues. For example, we can identify that a user who reported a problem via email is the same user who encountered a specific error in the product. In turn, we can connect this error to the line of code that introduced it originally. The result is a hands-free, precise debugging experience – from complaint down to the line of code.
Surface the entire trace following customer actions
PlayerZero creates a single pane of glass for entire system traces (and all related spans), from button clicks on the front-end to database responses on the backend. This moment-in-time view of the entire system is only made possible with PlayerZero’s ability to connect a user's actions with downstream impact of those actions, which relies on our ability to identify a user at any point in time, on any device.
Conclusion
Identity resolution is a cornerstone of PlayerZero’s strategy to improve engineering team performance and customer experience. Despite the challenges, our dedicated engineering efforts have resulted in a powerful system that unifies user identities across multiple dimensions. This capability not only sets us apart but also empowers our clients to move faster, make better decisions, and deliver superior customer experiences.
Discover how PlayerZero can transform your engineering processes and elevate your customer experience through the power of unified identity resolution.
