When it comes to Digitalising your business we are often asked 3 “Key” questions:
- “Where do I start?”
- “How do I navigate my way through this myriad of change?
- “Is the pain worth the gain?”
“Where do I start?”
The businesses that start with a mindset of seeing data as an asset invariably accelerate their Digital progression faster & deliver stronger results.
Woman sketching a business plan on a placard at a creative office
It’s common sense really, structuring your data in a meaningful way is a “cornerstone” to any digital strategy. In fact I’d go further it’s a key component of what sets customer focused businesses apart from the rest. Get it right & you lay the foundations for using your data & business intelligence insight smartly with both your current & prospective customers. Skip this step & you’re setting your self up for failure & disappointment.
“How do I navigate my way through this myriad of change?
If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, but the transition really isn’t as difficult as you image, particularly if your a business that has Customer & Staff advocacy at the heart go your business values.
Our role is to help you set out a clear path so that the change is:
- Built on strong foundations
- Manageable
- Controlled & phased
- Focused on the priorities
- Embedded into your business
For some business starting this journey is intimidating, but typically once you have a clear framework around how you are going to go about this, it becomes:
- Exciting
- Cultural
- Progressive
- Energising
Is the pain worth the gain?”
For those that get it right, unquestionably “yes”. Whilst digitalising your business is “not for the faint hearted”, the benefits once you’ve started on that journey far outweigh the costs involved (time, energy, & financial).
Shot of a group of businesspeople arranging sticky notes on a glass wall in a modern office
Businesses that have a clear Digital Strategy & transformation plan in place:
- Tend to attract higher acquisition multiples
- Attract in investments
- Think about how they can use & access their Data as a real asset
- Focus more on how they can enhance their customer journey
- Attract in Talent
- Attract Customers
- Typically enhance their customer loyalty
- Are best placed to use predictive analytics to win
- Gear themselves up to improve their efficiency
- Customer experience driven businesses tend to see better returns on investments & outperform others across a whole variety of Customer metrics including higher average order value, & improved acquisition & retention.
- A growing % of customers (particualrly in the 18 to 34 age bracket) are prepared to share their data in return for personalised experiences.
- Members of loyalty programmes generate up to 18% more revenue than non members.
- Customers who have high quality experiences are 2.7 times more likely to keep buying from a brand than customers who have low quality experiences.
- Customers who have better historical experiences with transactional brands spend 140% more compared to customers who had bad past experiences.
Customer expectations continue to evolve & being able to access information & engage through their preferred “medium” is central to winning in an increasingly “Digitalised world”.
Author Derek Findlayson
I find it fascinating to see the different approaches adopted by businesses in managing & investing in their MI, data, & customer Insight.
At “one end of the spectrum”, we see businesses with historically a very “light touch’ approach to:
- The MI they measure.
- The Data they collect.
- The Customer Insight they gather & proactively use.
Whilst often still being solid businesses, they typically:
- Struggle to achieve the growth achieved by some of their competitors who use MI. data, & Customer insight to a greater extent
- Measure success in their business on a very limited & very narrow set of KPI’s which are mainly “backward looking”.
At the” other end of the spectrum”, we see businesses who continually invest in & enhance their approach to gathering & integrating their MI, Data, & Customer Insight.
These businesses:
- Have a huge appetite & thirst for Data, & Customer Intelligence.
- Continually look for ways in which they can use the data & insight they gather to enhance their customer proposition, journey, & experience.
When it comes to these “data hungry” businesses we find 3 common characteristics:
- Integrating all their Data – Wherever possible, they look for ways to Integrate all their data – Customer Journey, customer advocacy, business performance, CRM, Multi Channel Marketing activity & interaction e.g. social media, SEO, email, PPC, live chat
- “Dynamic Data” – Choosing & shaping the right Dashboard – They integrate all of their sources onto a “real time” Dashboard that gives they dynamic data to proactively to drive success & improvement in their business
- Focusing on the right metrics – They measure a much wider range of relevant KPI’s that look both “forward” & “backward”
Through having an integrated approach to aggregating & using their data, these businesses typically:
- Outperform the competition in terms of Growth, Cross & Up Sales, & accelerating Customer Lifetime Value.
- Uncover more opportunities within both their existing Customer base & their Prospect pipeline.
- Create & capitalise on the ability to benchmark their business against the market.
- Quickly drive real value & time savings from having all of their data in one place in a format they can easily access & interrogate.
Talk to us if you are interested in knowing more about our approach to helping businesses enhance their use & understanding of MI, Data, & Customer Insight.
Author Derek Findlayson
Old World or is it …
In what other industry would you regularly find examples where the contact between a client & their supplier (in this case a broker or an insurer) might be as infrequent as every 12 months – None I’d venture to suggest!! but incredibly even in today’s world that is the reality of some customer relationships particularly those loyal & highly profitable customers who never have the unfortunate experience of having a claim.
But times are certainly changing ….
New World …
We are fortunate enough to work with some great fast growth, customer focused businesses & what often sets them apart from the competition is their total focus on the customer & in particular the customer journey. Those that get it really right:
- Grasp ever opportunity they can to interact with their clients or their prospective clients
- Understand & engage with their customers at each stage of their customer journey
- Are obsessive about gathering data & insight about their customers at each stage of the customer journey
- Continually look for ways to enhance their customer experience
It won’t come as any surprise to most of you that these businesses tend to be the one’s that:
- Are growing faster
- Are more profitable
- Pull customers & people (talent) to them
- Invest in multi channels marketing
- Are really successful at increasing customer spend through relevant & targeted cross & up sale
- Are top scorers when it comes to customer & staff advocac
As a customer myself “new world” certainly hits the mark for me …
Speak to us today if your interested in a fresh approach to developing your & enhancing your Customer Journey.
Author Derek Findlayson
Being privileged to work with a range of great businesses across the Insurance sector, from Insurers, to brokers, to software houses, to MGA’s, we’re often asked “What do you mean by business intelligence?”
Today’s fast paced world has introduced a plethora of new buzz words that energise some, & strike fear into the hearts of others – from ‘forward” & ‘backward” KPI’s, to dynamic data, to big data, but for me what really matters is:
What information can you gather that will give you an insight into “How you can enhance your customer experience & through this your customer proposition”
Those businesses that put their customer journey at the heart of the business intelligence & insight they gather, tend to be:
- The businesses that are at the forefront of innovation
- Top Quartile when it comes to Customer Advocacy
- Top Quartile when it comes to business results
Why is that?
Well, it’s pretty simple really, they’ve made that transition from focusing on management information to “what do you do with that information” & what new information & insight do you need to gather” (Business Intelligence).
Those that get this really right join the loop between:
- Continuous Customer Feedback
- Smart & insightful use of data
- Thought Leadership based on real & meaningful insight
- & Customer Centric experience based Innovation
That feels like a great environment to be part of to me whether your a customer or a member of the team.
Speak to us today if your interested in a fresh approach to using business intelligence & insight to enhance your Customer Experience.
Author Derek Findlayson
Someone in the Insurance market asked me the other day, what does it take nowadays to deliver a “great customer experience”?
That got me thinking about a number of things:
- How do I want to interact with my Insurers(s) & service providers?
- What would really meaningful interactions & consumer engagement look & feel like?
- What would my children say?
It prompted me to consider what really matters to me, as a reasonably “tech savvy” consumer:
I want my Broker & insurer(s) to focus on understanding my preferences & behaviors whether that’s:
- Communicating with me through my preferred channel of communication (in my case digital)
- Using data that I choose to share as a consumer to understand what information might be relevant to me, or that I might be interested in … In other words, I’m happy to be engaged with if it’s relevant to me
- Time is important to me, so I want to access all of my insurance & protection needs in one easy to access place rather than having to go to a plethora of places to find/organize the products & services that are both important & relevant to me.
Doesn’t it feel “archaic” in today’s world that this is hard to achieve.
From speaking to a spectrum of colleagues in the industry it seems I’m not alone … indeed, the feedback from my children, took this even further. They expect to be able to interact with their insurers via their tablet or mobile, & will actively be influenced by social media activity & commentary when it comes to fulfilling their insurance needs. So if you haven’t already done so, move your thinking from:
- Product journeys to customer journeys
- Traditional marketing to Content marketing
I read an article recently , which stated that just 2 in 5 companies understand the customer journey and adapt their channel mix according. If 60% of businesses havent invested the time to map their current & potential customer’s journey to get a holistic view of the experience from the customer’s perspective and really understand what it’s like for them on a personal level is it any wonder that there remains significant room for improvement.
Done well the customer journey map is an illustration or diagram of all the places (or ‘touchpoints’) your customers (or prospects) come into contact with your company both online and off. The map can be used to improve the customer experience through identifying how customers are interacting with you now and help you to identify areas for improvement moving forward. The best customer journey maps are rooted in data-driven research, and visually represent the different phases your customers experience.
Done well, Customer Journey mapping:
- Will help you locate improvement opportunities, as well as identify the areas where there’s a risk of dissatisfying a customer
- Brings different teams together for a common goal: the customer experience
- Drives cross-functional change involving all elements of the organisation and is not just left in the hands of the marketing function
- Not only makes customers happy but also delivers quantifiable value to the business through driving customer loyalty whilst reducing cost to serve
Customers needs & expectations are changing & increasing, & the Insurance market need to rapidly evolve to keep pace.
Speak to us today about enhancing your Marketing strategy for a business that shows real growth and development.
Author Derek Findlayson
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