Most businesses have access to customer data, but not every business makes use of the information at their fingertips. Data analytics – gathering, measuring and combining data to reveal actionable insights – sounds complex, but many of the tools engaged by brands today, take care of the hard parts. They chew up and spit out analytics that help brands understand their customers’ profiles: who they are, what they like and how they interacted with the business.
If that’s not reason enough to be accessing and reviewing your gathered data analytics, here are three specific data areas that can help you, and how.
Stock Forecasting
Being able to foretell your cashflow is always beneficial, but that benefit is even more important at times of crisis, as the business world is in now. Using data, you can review trends emerging from the days of the week, times of the day, changes in weather and events such as tennis tournaments, football or elections. Those trends can then be applied to the coming days, weeks or months to help plan how much stock is needed and how many employees should be scheduled per shift.
Aside from the obvious benefit of a reduction in waste, stock forecasting can save a business money through the knock of effect of having anticipated the busyness of a day, or shift. With this information you can optimise the staffing schedule, reducing employee costs wherever possible.
Customer Analytics
Customer analytics turns a single visit into a pattern of visits, and a pattern of visits can be used to inform marketing strategy and more.
If you’re not making use of data, it’s unlikely that you know the names of your customers unless they are dedicated regular attendees and your business is of a size where the same staff interact with them regularly. Imagine what you could do if you did know, not just their names, but their favourite food/products, how much they spend each time and how regularly they visit.
That insightful preference data can be used to personalise the guest experience whether in-store or online. The more you get to know your customers, the more you can tailor your messaging using customer segmentation so help customers feel connected with your brand.
Without data analytics, that would be an impossible task.
Menu/product Analytics
The data used to forecast stock can also be used to widen or refine a menu or product list. In the restaurant world, small menus have been known to do well for digital ordering and delivery – but it’s data that businesses can use to decide what appears on any slimmed down version of their menu. That’s why having detailed sales data and spending time reviewing it is so important. Accurate information on what sells and what doesn’t is the difference between success and failure for many brands at the moment.
Analytics isn’t just about numbers. It is a combination of data points and can even include customer ratings and written feedback. Sending a feedback survey that uses a Likert Scale can provide powerful insights that help businesses achieve the right balance between cost, quality and quantity. When any element of the business – menu/products or otherwise – isn’t living up to standards, that feedback provides the impetus needed to change strategy and improve in the future.
Over the years, we have seen businesses transformed by analytics. The digital transformation moving through industry at the moment is making the gathering of information – and the analysis of it – easier than ever. Businesses that don’t take the time to review their analytics are potentially missing out on cost and time savings that could set their brand onto a fresh path of profitability.
Talk to us about how the data your technology is gathering can help your brand.
