Website Chat Software, Data-Driven Action and Why You Need It
Data-Driven Decision-Making, DDDM, D3M or DDD can be defined as the process of collecting and analysing multiple types of data from multiple sources to guide a range of decisions to achieve stakeholder goals. Data is the holy grail of business, determining the goals, what decisions need to be made and what actions will increase your chances of success. With the explosion of Big Data, Data-Driven-Decision-Making is one of the most promising branches for business science; destined to become the 21st century tool of choice.
The potential of DDDM might seem limitless, but can you really embed decisions into transparent and automated processes? Business consultants will spend a lot of their valuable time pouring over data to try and work out the best course of action, and automation might just complicate the process. A business has to make a wide spectrum of decisions, but these generally fall into one of two types:
Operational – structured, routine and short-term oriented decisions that are closely integrated with software.
Strategic – Complex and long-term directives that are less structured due to greater uncertainty and risk.
There are also decisions that fall between the two (i.e. unforeseen circumstances outside the scope of operational processes that require a more bespoke approach) but these are dealt with and incorporated into their own operational routine. This is the fine line where Data-Driven-Decision-Making ends and Data-Driven-Action begins.
Data-Driven-Action
Data-Driven-Action is not just a play on words, it’s about following up DDDM with action. While collecting data and choosing a course of action is crucial, the people that take the risk and actually implement the changes are at the forefront of reform.
Being able to collect the data and convert this into actionable insight that can be used to improve results is one of the biggest challenges for businesses. Ten years ago the challenge would be collecting the data whereas today it’s about how to best act on that data.
To counter this, companies need access to easy-to-use systems that provide concise reports on key information without the need to drill deeper. Giving employees the most relevant information at their fingertips is the best way to turn data-driven-decision-making into data-driven-action.
At Click4Assistance our website chat software provides users with multiple channels of data without overwhelming them, from weekly reports and a real-time heatmap of visitor behaviour to bespoke reports and the keyword that directed the visitor to your site. This information can be used by the operator to identify the visitor’s needs and by strategic decision makers to evaluate operator performance and overall effectiveness of their chats.
Studying visitor movement around the site can also help to rectify navigation issues and identify pages that need more information or are otherwise weak
From a marketing standpoint, visitor behaviour can be used to track the success of an e-mail or offline campaign for a particular product or offer. Online information can be a highly effective way of measuring offline efforts especially if you promote a different discount code through each advertising medium (TV, radio, call centres, etc.).
From the tools included in the Click4Assistance website chat software toolbox it should be clear that we are big advocates of taking action on data-driven-decisions. If you’re an existing subscriber, take a moment to rediscover the in-depth tools and reports at your disposal. If you’ve come to our site some other way, why not start with our free 14 day trial and see what Data-Driven-Action you should be taking?
