A 2011 study by Digital Universe Corporation showed that in 2011 alone, 1.8 zettabytes of data were produced by all companies. This is equivalent to 1.8 trillion gigabytes, the same amount as every American citizen writing 3 tweets per minute for the next 26,976 years. The study also predicts that the overall amount of data produced each year will increase by 5,000% by 2020. However, what good is this massive data collection if we are not even able to draw useful conclusions from it? ? Thanks to customer data mining, everything has changed. To better understand this developing sector, we'll explore what exactly customer data mining is and how it works, ending with how businesses are using this technology. According to Queens University Belfast, customer data mining involves searching through massive amounts of data. customer data to find patterns that can better increase revenue and reduce business costs. Customer data mining allows businesses to better organize and access data from customer interactions to find insights into customer usage patterns. Customer data mining has vast potential, but the inner workings of this business practice are quite complex. According to Jason Frand, professor of business computing and information systems at UCLA, mining customer data is a very complex process that requires experts with a high level of understanding. Several types of analytical software are available for customer data mining, the two main software being statistical software and machine learning software, which allows the computer to "learn" from the data. This software looks for four main relationships. The first relationship looked for is classes which are previously stored information...... middle of paper ......o its recently launched website by bombarding them with sporadic emails, which received approximately a 20% email open rate. Through the use of customer data mining software, Sway's email marketing campaign increased online revenue by 300%, 40% of recipients started opening emails and number of clicks tripled. Mining customer data as a whole makes a variety of businesses efficient by allowing them to gain insight into customer trends. We have now explored what customer data mining is, how it works, and how businesses can use this technology. Mining customer data has become a key practice for businesses large and small. This dynamic tool has the power to impact us every day, simplifying the consumer experience and helping businesses better assess what customers want. Overall, customer data mining is the key to understanding our data-filled world..