When seeking advice on how to run your business, you hear a lot of adages. One such adage is “You don’t know what you don’t know,” and it’s a hurdle you need to overcome in order to be successful. But if you don’t know it, how can you overcome it? You need visibility into your business, your operations, and your workforce in order to be successful. Sometimes data analytics can provide the insight you need.
What Your Data Can Tell You
Data analytics has the potential to uncover patterns, discover outliers, and raise red flags that people may miss day to day. If you follow the hints that the data is trying to give you it’s possible to quickly address issues, sometimes proactively. The following realizations are just a few of the lightbulb moments our clients have had once their data analytics is organized into concise reports.
Which customers are costing you money?
Some customer accounts aren’t profitable. To calculate profitably, you need good data analytics and great data management. Your business may be profitable overall, but some customers may be costing you money in time and materials that are unchecked until an appropriate data-tracking is in place. A regular audit of customer profitability can help improve your organizational health. This is especially true when new employees are onboarded or client contacts change.
Which employees are preparing to leave?
The Great Resignation continues, shifting into what some analysts are calling “The Great Uncertainty.” With a national economy that’s starting to slow, job growth is stalling for many industries. While the labor market has cooled significantly, the trend of “quiet quitting” recently picked up steam on social media. The concept in a nutshell? Employees are tapping out at work, putting in the bare minimum and calling it a day.
Data can show which employees are exhibiting signs they’re unhappy and may become employee turnover statistics. If you see signs, intervene to avoid the costs of replacing employees. The cost to replace an employee, in many workplaces, can cost a significant portion of the position’s salary in onboarding costs. Solid communication strategies, competitive benefits, and a sharp eye on organizational fairness can help burned-out employees feel heard and appreciated.
Which practices are efficient?
The best way to monitor performance is with key performance indicators (KPIs) KPIs. Managers may sense that things are on track, but the data may reveal something different. To effectively monitor what’s working, determine the data points that will help gauge efficiency. For example, this might be time to respond and number of calls to resolution for a customer service team. You can use data to set a baseline and monitor processes over time. If efficiency decreases, this practice of monitoring and auditing workflows can make it easier to intervene quickly and find the root cause.
Are customers satisfied?
It costs more to acquire new clients and customers than to retain current contracts and maintain productive relationships. According to a recent study, 65% of a company’s business typically comes from current contracts, and businesses that see just a 5% increase in retention see a 25-95% uptick in revenue. Consider that the same study pointed out that it’s seven times more expensive to onboard a new client.
You need to ensure customers are satisfied with the products and services your business provides. One way to do this is to collect and analyze data to determine customer satisfaction. This might include data points relating to extra projects, the number of follow-up calls needed between regular meetings, and the amount of urgent requests received within a specified amount of time.
Achieve & Maintain Organizational Health
It takes strategy, a united team all responsible for different elements, and the data to monitor everything as it happens. While this might seem like a Herculean effort in some ways, it pays off with lower costs, a more productive team, happier customers.
But many businesses can’t get past “you don’t know what you don’t know.” They’re not able to work through data challenges to understand the big picture for their organization and haven’t figured out how to deliver insights to the people throughout the organization who need it. If that sounds like your team, contact us. We’ll help you use data to increase visibility into your business and your operational health.
