When you’re running a business, data can be your best friend. Before you begin collecting data and analyzing it, it might not seem like it’s that useful. Once you start gathering and employing data, however, you will constantly be on the hunt for things that are measurable and can be analyzed. The following will explore a few of the ways that gathering data can improve your business. More than likely, there are additional industry-specific benefits that you can research and apply to your workplace.
Productivity
One of the biggest areas that data can help improve your business is in the category of productivity. If you are tracking how productive teams or individuals are each week and compiling advanced employee data, very quickly you’re going to notice some vital patterns. You might, for instance, realize that after your Wednesday midday meeting, everyone’s productivity plummets. It’s possible that pulling employees away from their work in the middle of the day results in them falling out of the flow and needing time to get back into the swing of their work. If you have the data to back this up, you can begin experimenting. Maybe you move that meeting to the morning so that it’s the first thing people do instead of something sandwiched between work hours. You can collect more data to confirm whether or not this choice was ideal.
Employee Retention
Part of running a stellar business involves finding the best employees possible. It also involves keeping them around. Employee retention and satisfaction are major components in the success of a business, and the right data can help you figure out how to tweak things to keep your best workers happy and comfortable. If you start collecting data on how staff are feeling, you’ll soon be able to notice a few places with room for improvement. Sometimes small tweaks make all the difference.
For example, if you find out that everyone on the third floor has no issue filing paperwork, but staff from the second and fourth floor hate it and view it as one of the low points of their day, and you notice that the copier which is needed for this task is on the third floor, suddenly you’ve got an easy solution for satisfaction: get a copier for each floor. You might discover that staff who sit near windows or plants are happier and more energetic or that the ones near the bathroom are more likely to be disgruntled. You can take this information and rearrange the floor plan. Perhaps you realize that there’s one client that causes so many headaches, their money isn’t worth the hassle (especially not if you’re retraining new staff every time a team works with them).
Save Digital Efforts
As businesses jump into the ocean that is the digital sphere, it can be tough to know which forms of content marketing are working. Without highly specific data, it’s nearly impossible to note whether or not your efforts are worth the time, money, and energy you’re putting into them. You need to know how many people are interacting with your digital content and how many of them become customers, and at what points in the interaction. This can help you hone in your digital efforts so that you’re reaching out to the people who need your business and letting them know how you can help.
Customer Relationship Management
Data can also make your understanding of your customer and target audience stronger. If you know who is drawn to your product or service, what they’re willing to spend, how they prefer to shop, what questions they tend to ask, and what pain points your work is resolving, you have a pretty standard customer profile. Data can help take this profile to the next level by indicating the times of day where your ideal customers are online and looking for just your product. It can let you know the ideal funnel for your target customers and much more. Data can take your understanding of those who need your work to a place where you’re not only gaining customers but maintaining strong bonds with them by anticipating their needs.
Up-To-Date Information
Data also has the benefit of being available quickly. Too many business owners are stuck relying on dated information and losing out on precious customers in the process. Sometimes a method that worked well in the past isn’t effective anymore, but if something was once the best course of action, it could be hard to realize it’s no longer working without data. Data will let you know which strategies need to be phased out because it lets you know what’s working and what isn’t.
The above information contains just a few of the many ways data can aid your business. Data is the key to putting the right amount of effort into the right things for business growth.
