Make More Money in Your Business by Utilizing Data

If you’re running your own business, you obviously want to make as much cash from it as you can. However, with so many competitors in your market and with a never-ending list of tasks to complete, it’s easy to feel like you’ll never get done what you need to and enjoy financial freedom. That’s where technology can come to your aid: Big Data is a godsend.

Over recent years we’ve seen Big Data tools become available to entrepreneurs at all levels, no matter the size of their venture. This tech can make a huge difference to the success and profits of an organization. Read on for some ways to make more money in your business by utilizing data effectively.

Deliver Better Customer Service

A key element of success in business is delivering superior customer service. While you can do a decent job of by yourself, when you employ data you’ll wow clients even more. By using the information, you glean, you can determine how to give potential customers a better browsing and buying experience at every step along the way on their purchasing pathway. This will make them much more likely to complete a sale.

While many people think that customer service is only required after a sale, or right at the checkout; the fact is that people are interacting with your business at every touchpoint. From when they first call your organization or click onto your website through when they learn about what you sell and how to when they consider the options, place an order and even come back to buy from you again, customer service should be available and effective.

Using Big Data, analyze things such as where people click away from your website. A problem could be that there isn’t enough information for them to make a decision or that they go to the Contact Us page on your website to get a phone number, but one isn’t available. Also look at what your peak times are when customer service staff need to be on hand.

You can also find out how people best like to contact you, such as via phone, email, Live Chat, on social media sites and so on, and you can get a good idea of the types of questions shoppers ask regularly. From there, update your website and other collateral so these answers are given up front, and people don’t have to go searching for them.

Target the Right People

Analyzing data will also help you to ensure you target the right people. If you want to grow sales, after all, you need to put your brand and its products in front of the shoppers who are most likely to pay for it. Use data to determine which are the most profitable customer types for your business, and then see how these people shop and when. You can also learn where people are “hanging out” online and in person and target your marketing initiatives accordingly.

Once you have all these details, you’ll act more strategically. You can spend your marketing dollars in the right places as well as your sales and customer service time. You can tweak your website content and/or physical store layout to suit your ideal buyers, and you can provide the kinds of shipping, returns and other services that such shoppers are looking for.

This information can be used to design your checkout processes and to reduce the number of unfinished orders you accumulate. No matter which industry your venture is in, learning how to take advantage of Big Data this way, via the best business analytics programs, can be invaluable.

Manage Inventory Effectively

Lastly, whether you stock complete products in a warehouse or have a raft of parts and other supplies on hand, you’ll know that inventory management can have a huge effect on your cash flow as well as your sales output. As such, it’s necessary to manage these items carefully.

You want to reduce the amount of money you have tied up in goods that don’t sell or that don’t move quickly, and you need to put more cash into the purchase of items that customers want and will buy. You also need to have the right amounts of stock on hand at the busiest times of the week, month or year to maximize sales.

Analytics information will show you details such as how much of a given product you have sold over a period; how long it generally takes to move this stock; what the most popular goods; when there are spikes in sales; and much more. Trying to figure this out by yourself can be an almost impossible task. However, thanks to Big Data, you don’t have to play a guessing game.