"Change Makers measure the journey through data. They look for a successful conclusion to the journey, measuring in financial terms, and then follow the data to see what caused the strong or ineffective outcome," says Jim Tincher, Founder, CEO & Journey Mapper-In-Chief at Heart of the Customer, LLC in Clootrack's 102 CX Expert report.
In this digital era, data has become the fuel for every business. From planning to execution of organizational procedures, data has become a helping hand for running businesses seamlessly. But the issue arises when business leaders are unaware of the hows and whys of data. Every organization knows that data is a crucial entity for the business, but they do not know how to link it with business outcomes. The first step companies need to take is to comprehend the association and benefits of data and business outcomes to drive and measure success and reach their goals faster and more effectively.
Here are the top 5 benefits of linking data and business outcomes:-
When your company combines data with business results that serve the best interests of the customers, the customer experience enhances that further boosts the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score, and reduces the customer churn rate. Your customers become more loyal, and you can notice a spike in revenue that make your business profitable.
Whether happy customers or good HR policies, the employees' satisfaction increases productivity and, in the end, brings desired business outcomes. And your company can accomplish that using data. Sharing customer success through consumer insights and improving employee experience through employee analytics brings positive business outcomes as data is involved.
When you create an iteration of measuring business outcomes of the data-backed business programs, then the operational efficiencies of your organization increase, obtaining influential outputs for every stakeholder associated with your company. With data and business outputs united, you can drive improvements in business processes and generate higher ROI.
Since the data is a significant informational source, your company can rely on it to rework business values that act as a backbone for your brand. The transition from old to new business values will be challenging. But it becomes much easier if you link it to the preferred business outcomes to increase their effectiveness.
Data and business outcomes jointly generate optimized results that not only elevate the economic condition of your organization but bring transparency to the ideas or concepts with which your companies should work in the future. Data is a valuable asset for identifying, measuring, and optimizing business outcomes. So it's better to stick with data for reliable consequences.
The continuous usage of data for bringing better business results shows how well-known brands connect data and organizational outputs to dominate their targeted market.
Here are 5 real-world examples of how top companies have utilized data to bring business outcomes that are advantageous:-
Amazon's recommendation system uses customer data to suggest products. It uses customer purchase history and interactions to make relevant suggestions to enhance customer experience and increase sales.
Netflix uses customers' watch history, search queries, and time spent watching a movie or show to construct the individual user profile and know their preferences. Aside from that, the brand uses the data for marketing purposes to attract more customers.
Spotify uses data to personalize the experience of its customers by proposing music and podcasts that match the user's taste. Also, the brand uses the data to run targeted ads that increase customer acquisition and retention rates.
Apple is well-recognized for its innovative products and services that use data for better customer response. The company creates application designs that help customers achieve their goals across its different devices with much ease, allowing this company to stand out with the assistance of data.
Instagram uses data to know consumer behavior and show similar content they like on their feed. Also, the brand provides insights using data and analytics for business pages to comprehend their status and performance on the platform.
It is vital to illustrate the connection between data and business outcomes for establishing your authority in the current market. Since the data is given utmost importance today, your dominance in the niche market will increase if you can demonstrate that your positive business outcomes are data-backed.
Here are 12 effective ways using which you can demonstrate the link between data and business outcomes:-
It is easy for a highly data-driven organization to recognize its priorities. The tons of data an organization has, on analyzing, reveals focus areas that need to be addressed first. The data guides top executives and managers to create a preference list of procedures according to the customers' wants and employees' efficiency.
Data assists your organization in understanding the business value thoroughly, which enables following and solving prime business concerns effortlessly. For example, let's consider a scenario where your company is facing problems delivering better customer experiences due to the lack of organizational resources, such as the availability of a representative. The data will reveal the resource issue that's troubling customers most and allow you to fix it immediately.
Data is the source of meaningful information regarding the whereabouts of your business, customers, and stakeholders. And making a data-driven decision is a fruitful way to solve problems that result in better business outcomes. Data help leaders to make impactful decisions on every step of an initiative. Apart from that, the possibility of an increase in the success rate doubles.
To illustrate, if the data collected showcases that your customers want you to add a particular component regarding your product or service to make their customer journey more convenient. Consider the data reveals most of the customers ask for product demo resources. It would be wise for you to work according to their needs and create video tutorials, blog posts, live sessions, and others to impart knowledge about your product.
The process of data analytics requires data as input to generate valuable insights through which you can easily figure out customer pain points and identify trends. Analyzing data and implementing its results bring positive business outcomes as you can make better business decisions. It helps you to achieve developments that align with your business goals. The actionable data insights assist you in maximizing your operational efficiencies.
To demonstrate, Clootrack's report Consumer Sentiment Insights From the QSR Industry indicates the top 5 delighting and concerning factors that affect customer decisions when picking a Quick Service Restaurants (QSR).
Using these data insights, any QSR can make a data-driven decision, create a data strategy and improve its capabilities to develop a pathway to profitable future outcomes.
Related Read:- 7 Best-in-Class Strategies For Personalized Customer Experience Using Data Analytics.
Business operation failures are common, but ignorance in determining the cause and finding the solution can cost your company a fortune because you never know what may go wrong. Fixing the issue is critical, so you can use data to pinpoint every aspect of the operation failure. In this case, you can utilize operational data to identify patterns that disrupt your processes and affect the outcomes.
For example, you are getting an abundance of customer complaints regarding the delivery of products. When you collect data and analyze it, you will find the exact reason behind the dissatisfaction of your customers. Whether there is a failure in supply chain management or production, with the help of operational data, you can revamp your business operations and bring better business upshots.
The HubSpot Blog's 2023 Marketing Strategy & Trends report discloses that data-informed marketing strategies have become vital. You have to collect and analyze data to develop robust marketing strategies and attract the right audience. Digital customers are highly influenced by value-based marketing, and to achieve it, you have to deliver upgraded value to your customers by identifying prominent consumer behavior to target them. Customer data plays a major role in supplying relevant details when amalgamated with data analysis.
Access to actionable insights generated through predictive analysis exposes the future trends that the customers will respond to the most. So, using data insights, you can design a meticulously-crafted strategy that attracts customers and provoke them to use your products and services.
Related Read:- 5 Ways To Unite Brand, Marketing, and Customer Experience.
A Salesforce research that surveyed more than 2,900 sales professionals shows that high-performing sales teams (the top 24%) are 1.5 times more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights.
Brands must understand the significance of decision-making through customer insights. Using data and analytics, your sales department can create an appealing sales process that receives a good amount of referrals, uplifting the sales numbers. The analytics report showcases the gaps between your plans and executions, considering business intents that drive the satisfaction of both customers and sales representatives.
The data facilitates running a smooth sales cycle that results in desired outputs, such as a frictionless sales approach, pitch, and all processes related to daily sales operations. If you start closing a lot of deals using data analysis, then you can claim that your business outcomes and data are linked.
Related Read:- Customer Experience Analytics In Retail: How Customer Data Drives Sales.
Utilizing any kind of technology demands input. In most cases, data is the input that serves the purpose of implementing a particular tech. And further, for the supervised implementation of technology, you need manual force. Since automation is on the rise, the combination of manual and technological forces justifies the drastic growth that a company is able to accomplish in this decade.
Without tech and roles like data scientists and data analysts that are ineffective in the absence of technology, digitally-functioning enterprises cannot even think of operating. Data insights are available for various departments in different variations, such as consumer, marketing, business, and many other insight formats, that provide processed information regarding each required segment. Organizations that work with data analytics reports on a daily basis can witness quick and favorable business results.
Related Read:- How To Humanize Experience Using Technology and Customer Data?
8) Backing Business Objectives with Data
Supporting business pursuits with data makes the link between data and business outcomes clearly visible. Further, the most common way to make it transparent is by employing business analytics. Business data clubbed with analytics makes business decision-making much more uncomplicated and quick. Your brand can revise the vision and goals with which it needs to operate to thrive.
Data help you to fixate on business objectives considering future events and trends in the industry, which means it's reliable enough to keep your business undertakings on the right track. The more you use quality data for running your business, the more benefits you receive, and that is also for the long term.
9) Getting Departments on the Same Page
If different departments use different data sets for the chain of interconnected operations, it will result in misleading outcomes. For example, your tech team is going to implement the chatbot feature by training the machine learning algorithm or model with a data set that is much different from the one that customer service and marketing teams hold. This will not only provide poles apart results but create a chaotic situation.
Whether tech, marketing, or sales, every other department needs data as a primary component to operate. And if the processes are executed with the right data sets and department cooperation, then the nature of business outputs becomes appropriate enough to fetch exceptional benefits and achieve goals.
Related Read:- Building Bridges To Overcome Departmental Silos For Better Customer Experience.
Without data, you are well aware that you cannot measure metrics. In addition, there are several metrics, and you need to define the rights once, as every business's needs and objectives differ. You can notice a positive and surprising change in the ways your organization operates by aligning business outputs with the metrics you set.
Through metrics, you can better connect with your employees and customers to fulfill their demands as you can measure and optimize business performances accordingly. You can deep dive into the detailed status of the rate at which your business is either progressing or lagging behind so that your teams can enhance the operational framework for pursuing what's suitable for the organization.
Related Read:- Customer Experience Metrics To Track CX Impact and Drive Continuous Improvements.
Customer data after analysis presents loads of opportunities for your brand to innovate products for your target audience. Customer insights reports speak for customer wants and expectations from your brand. Specifying the customer problem areas that will be more profitable if converted into a product becomes a painless task.
Backing innovation strategies and functions with data will ensure the successful implementation of the product. The customer data insights will also support you in determining if or not the product you are deciding to launch will be a good market fit. Moreover, consumer insights will aid in appointing proper resources to carry out product innovation-related projects.
The best way to enhance your business endeavors and stand apart from others in your industry is to stay above the bar on the scale of average marketing standards. And this is possible only when you have complete familiarity with how other businesses are performing against the set benchmark. Data displays the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and by using this as a reference point, measuring performance becomes more feasible.
Also, the data reveals the top industry players in every category of your niche. You can analyze the features through which your competitors are attracting more customers. If you have similar features as your competitor, you can compare to know your strong or weak points and work on them to get better business outcomes.
Without data, it is nearly impossible for a company to grow. To accomplish the desired output, your company needs to establish a link between data and business outcomes to understand if your organization is operating correctly with the data. From identifying business opportunities to studying competitors, we have discussed twelve ways in which data and business outcomes can be interlinked.
Data is a way to get everything straightforward if used rightly in the business system. All types of data sets play their unique role, and merging those with analytics brings some valuable outputs. On execution of insight outcomes, your foot is set for business success, and you will be ready to establish authority in your industry.
Bonus Tip:- Be careful while handling and operating with data and especially customer data. We have 4 Steps tip for you to implement unbiased customer data for a better customer experience. Read Here!