Data collection is absolutely essential to the efficient functioning of any website. Methodologies may have changed over time, but the technology is now available to rapidly improve business processes by using real-time data and actionable intelligence to facilitate improved return on investment and satisfied customers. Nowadays, cutting-edge technology capable of producing the types of results that companies need is here with us.
The availability of streaming data, by way of high-speed Internet connectivity, applications and intelligence allows for rapid responses to events as they happen. These insights can be gleaned from all manner of technological sources, including satellite feeds, radar, historical data, social media and even customer self-service communication channels and powerful knowledge base systems. New conditions are continually being created as new perceptions are born and insights change.
The purpose of collecting actionable data is to gain a better understanding of the environment, including customers’ needs, wants and preferences. As the technology evolves, so integrated democratization of data transfer takes place – revolutionizing business cultures around the world. Businesses have shifted from storage of volumes of data to the value-driven data collection. This is done in an effort to gain deeper insights into all aspects of business development.
Generating Insights: Business Resources
The most obvious resources available to businesses – especially e-commerce sites, are social media networks. Real-time streaming of live information in the form of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, customer self-service, video, e-mails and transcripts are available. The goal of course is to develop actionable insights that seek to empower a broad spectrum of management activities for the benefit of the enterprises a whole. Many such software technologies are available today, and they are geared towards high levels of interaction, real-time responses and instant updating of knowledgebases.
Chief among the insights that businesses can generate from their customers include buying preferences, customer reasons for not purchasing products or services, gathering information on pricing and competition, likes and dislikes and other negative sentiment. Chat functionality is an important consideration too. Businesses can use live chat softwares, dynamic FAQ softwares or even self-learning Q&A system to increase conversion rates and optimize their e-commerce sites while simultaneously reducing support costs. All manner of metrics can be correlated and themes can be uncovered by way of customer analytics software that specializes in that type of analysis.
By optimizing the processes in respect of chat agents and the conversations they have with customers, it is possible to gain leads, reduce abandonment rates and improve overall customer satisfaction. Businesses are able to delve deeper into the agent to customer interaction system with real-time insights by way of customer analysis. Information can be collected from the best performing customer service agents and conversely all negative sentiment can be tracked and corrected accordingly. The collection of all the data allows for performance measurement metrics, with an eye to overall improvement of customer service agent performance.
Using Analytics to Gain Insights into Customer Perceptions
It’s important to take every customer’s query seriously, because they are the backbone of every business. Analytics can certainly help to understand things like SLA, traffic, conversion rate tracking and return on investment, general analytics, knowledge-based analytics and BI integration. The type of information that can be used with analytics includes e-mail escalation of queries, measuring monthly traffic volumes, Q&A traffic charts, conversions charts, tracking conversion rates, tag data for the purposes of conversion tracking, return on investment charts, integrating with Google analytics, viewing questions that have been asked and beyond.
Insights can provide businesses with data regarding answers to questions, most liked questions, most escalated queries and beyond. Knowledge-based analytics are measurable by way of knowledge-based size charts, usage charts and so forth. The technology is now available for users to receive answers through self-service customer support resources, and for their responses to be quantitatively evaluated and documented. The goal is to improve the customer experience, and the customer’s perception of the e-commerce site. With greater satisfaction, comes greater ROI and reduced shopping cart abandonment. The net effect of understanding what your customers think is a dramatically boosted bottom line!
Roy Goffer – is nanoRep’s Director of Marketing. He has over 10 years of experience in B2B marketing and a passion for online marketing and website optimization. nanoRep is an online customer service solution that improves customer experience through intelligent engagement increasing conversion rates, satisfaction and loyalty.
www.nanorep.com