Using Customer Services Data to make smarter business decisions
Founder of Funding Options, Conrad Ford once said, “Decisions are only as good as the information they’re based on.”
This statement couldn’t ring truer for eCommerce companies, especially when using customer service data to make smarter business decisions.
Though you might have a wealth of customer data at your fingertips, are you actually using it to make more informed decisions, improve your customer journey and experience or is it just sitting there, collecting “data dust”?
According to Bi Survey, though 91% of companies say data-driven decision-making is essential for their business growth, only 57% said they make data-based decisions. This statistic comes as no surprise, considering the challenges eCommerce business owners face when extracting meaningful insights.
From a lack of data and analytics technology and disorganised data files to a lack of training, though many eCommerce owners know how to add tools like Google Analytics to their website, learning how to use that data for decisions is an entirely different skill.
So, how do you go about using data-driven methods?
Making decisions without automated data tools – the risks
Despite the large array of automated data and analytics tools available today, many eCommerce companies still choose to make decisions without data insights which comes with its own set of problems.
Relying on gut feelings is risky
Without data to back up your decisions, the risk of failure is far greater. Relying on gut instinct alone, whether it’s “this dress will sell out, let’s order more” or “customers buy more at the weekends, let’s add extra customer support personnel”, can lead to revenue loss and inefficient use of company resources.
Manual methods eat into time
Still using spreadsheets to identify customer behaviour, customer service results, or predict seasonal trends? While this system may help you prepare for upcoming spikes or see what customer service agents are performing better, it can be time-consuming, painful and inaccurate to make decisions using spreadsheets, as human error can skew data.
Vital data goes to waste
Sifting through an infinite amount of raw data is simply not a good use of time. Not only will it take hours or even days to extract valuable insights but you might also be missing out on the big picture – strategic insights that only technology can generate. When your data isn’t presented in an easily digestible format, vital information inevitably gets lost in a sea of data.
The benefits of using customer data to make strategic decisions
Now that we have discussed some of the risks of making business decisions without using best practice data tools and methods let’s see why making data-based decisions is the way to go.
Minimise risk
First and foremost, the most crucial benefit of data-driven decisions using customer service data is that there’s less risk of something going wrong. Let’s say you want to switch up customer service and keep it confined to Instagram.
Suppose you have the data to say that this is the most used customer support channel. In that case, you can confidently make the Instagram-only decision without risking the loss of customers who prefer to contact you through your website.
Improve efficiency
With automated data insight tools, you won’t have to spend hours trawling through endless data streams to see what’s working with your customer service processes and what isn’t. Instead, it’ll be clear as day what needs attention and what you should repeat because it’s so successful.
Stay competitive
Comprehensive data and analytics technology, especially run on the cloud, offer eCommerce businesses real-time insights and help them predict trends based on historical data. With instant data updates, you’ll be able to implement a proactive customer service strategy rather than react to what your competitors are doing – helping you stay one step ahead.
Delight customers
By making data-driven business decisions, you’ll better meet your customer’s expectations and demands. Instead of delivering customer support based on what you think they want, you’ll know based on previous ticket resolution data, customer behaviour and associated sales/retention data.
Increase profits
According to BI Survey, companies reported 8% revenue increases and a 10% reduction in costs from analysing their data. You can reduce costs with less employee time spent mining insights from databases and make more strategic, smarter and successful business decisions that lead to greater profits.
How to make data-driven decisions for your business
How can you make data-driven decisions for your eCommerce business?
- Set customer service goals
What customer service issues do you need to address? What areas do you want to improve? Maybe you want to speed up ticket resolution time or figure out why a country you operate in is underperforming in CSAT scores. Knowing what you’d like to achieve will dictate what data you need.
- Invest in data and analytics tools
Invest in cloud-based software that helps you visualise your swarms of data, make sense of the numbers, automates data collection and gives you instant insights to make data-driven decisions much more feasible.
Also, see what tools can work together for better insights, like your automated customer support and delivery platforms. When investing in tools, make sure they have robust security solutions to remain compliant and abide by GDPR laws.
- Gather any relevant data
Figure out what data will be the most important for your specific decision. What’s relevant to your goals? Using social listening tools, website analytics, data from your customer support platforms, and even your CRM software, identify the data that matters most when making your decision. Ticket resolution times? Customer satisfaction rates? Compile the information you need and go from there.
- Draw conclusions
Once you’ve gathered all your data sources and see all the numbers (usually easier to understand in graphic form), see what trends you can identify. Maybe you’ll find that CSAT scores are higher on Social Media channels than on your website or that rewriting your onboarding sequence has increased ticket resolution time, so you know it’s working.
- Plan your strategy
Now you have the data to drive your decision, put it all together in a strategy to outline why the data says it’s a good (or bad) idea to do XYZ. Then create a plan to implement that decision and measure its success to learn for your next one!
Need help making data-driven decisions?
We hope this blog has inspired you to start collecting, visualising and analysing your customer service data to run your eCommerce business more effectively and reap the rewards of data insights.
About DigitalGenius
DigitalGenius is a powerful customer experience platform that automates tickets, speeds up ticket resolution time and connects with your existing tools to process customers’ requests such as refunds and order status requests.
With DigitalGenius, you can offer customers a better, faster experience as the algorithm learns from historical data and conversations, ultimately reducing the need for human intervention as well as increasing revenue.
Read the DigitalGenius “23 CX Trends for 2023” ebook here.
