An organisation must have a thorough understanding of market trends, customer wants, and consumer attitudes in order to make smart business decisions and acquire a competitive advantage.
There are several online business intelligence platforms available through which you can access numerous ways to obtain business insights; below are some of the most generally recommended methodologies for gathering business intelligence.
Step 1 – Data Collection
Data collection is the initial stage in getting business intelligence. There are numerous data collection methods that can give trustworthy information for statistical analysis and assist an organisation in making data-driven decisions.
Surveys
1. Web/online surveys: The most dependable, cost-effective, and extensively used technique of reaching a bigger audience for data collecting is the online survey. Because it is difficult to manually generate, disseminate, and analyse survey results, most academics rely on survey creator tools to get the job done. The primary advantages of employing an online business information gathering platform are real-time results analysis, cost-efficiency, convenience of use, and flexibility.
Example: A firm may want to know the amount of client satisfaction with their customer service department, as well as customer feedback on how to become more customer-centric. The organisation decides to perform a customer service survey with the help of a business intelligence platform in order to acquire useful information about the employees, product, and overall level of service provided. The survey data can be utilised to calculate Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), or even Customer Effort Score (CES).
All of these findings help to analyse how customers feel about the current state of the service, areas that want development, what customers expect, and what their needs are. All of these insights helped the company to make changes, adopt initiatives, and begin employee involvement, guaranteeing a successful journey toward becoming a more customer-centric corporation.
2. In-person surveys: These are face-to-face interviews. For many years, it has been the most efficient technique of gathering the most precise data. Because this method of gathering business knowledge focuses on direct contact, studying the respondent's physical features, behaviour, and reactions is critical. Assume that if certain questions make the interviewee feel uncomfortable, indifferent, agitated, or frown, it is best to avoid them. Furthermore, the interviewee's body language, tone of voice, and mannerism help to identify whether the feedback he or she is providing is correct or incorrect.
In-person surveys are more expensive than other techniques of gathering business knowledge. Furthermore, the interviewer must be experienced and have great skills in observing and assessing people.
Example: Face-to-face interviews with employees to evaluate their immediate supervisors, for example, are a regular practise in many firms. Although the majority of these firms have a full questionnaire prepared, employing a supervisor evaluation survey template questionnaire to collect accurate information and develop a better work culture is occasionally a smart option.
3. Mail surveys: This is a time-honored method of gathering information from a wide group of people. This approach of gathering business intelligence has gotten distinct as technology has reached every nook and cranny of the globe. Furthermore, other disadvantages such as time consumption, cost, error-proneness, and poor response rate led to the method's low adoption. Online surveys have swiftly emerged as a superior replacement for this strategy. Mail surveys, on the other hand, are the ideal approach to obtain relevant business intelligence from them in areas where tablets, PCs, or laptops are still unreachable.
Example: The government intended to conduct a poll to better understand public opinion on the usage of plastic bags and to assess public knowledge of the government's intention to phase them out. They mailed the usage of plastic bags survey to a select audience from various regions in order to gain business intelligence for that area, and the government responded by implementing remedial actions to eliminate the use of plastic bags.
4. Telephone surveys: These are slightly more expensive than online surveys, but far less expensive than face-to-face surveys. Such an approach has a few downsides, such as the respondent's availability or even creating a pleasant relationship with the respondent.
Example: A church might wish to conduct a survey to determine why parishioners attend church and whether the church is meeting their spiritual needs. With the use of a church survey template, they were able to conduct telephonic surveys with all of the parishioners and obtain trustworthy information to help them understand their perspectives.
Questionnaires
A questionnaire is a collection of questions used for research purposes that can be both qualitative and quantitative in nature. A questionnaire can be in the form of a survey or not, but a survey always includes a questionnaire.
Example: A firm's human resources department wished to conduct a departure interview to find out how an employee felt about his time at the company. The elaborative and highly engaging Exit interview questions were used to measure the thoughts and collect feedback from employees who decided to depart. These insights were then used by the organisation to develop employee retention initiatives in order to reduce attrition.
Polls
Polls are not the same as surveys, and this method usually consists of only one question. Polls have a very high response rate since they are simple to answer and take very little time.
Example: Election polls, for example, are the best illustration of a poll. Polls are done to determine which party is favoured and preferred by voters to govern the given area for a specific term.
Forms
Forms are a type of survey; however, unlike surveys, which are used to gather broad data such as opinions, attitudes, values, and so on, forms are often used to collect specific information from a respondent in each field such as age, income, gender, and so on.
Example: A bank, for example, requires precise information from its customers in order to open a bank account. In such a case, the customer is given a form to fill out in order to supply the bank with the necessary information to open an account.
Step 2 – Analysis
This is the stage at which all of the data is consolidated onto a single platform. A Business Intelligence programme will allow you to collect and analyse data using powerful analytical capabilities that are included into the software.
Analysing data obtained through various methods assists a firm in understanding its customers' thoughts and identifying opportunities for growth. The software allows you to compare scores (such as NPS, CES, and CSAT) over time and between departments. The same BI Software may be used to analyse data under advanced conditions such as Conjoint Analysis, Maxdiff Analysis, Trend Analysis, Text and Sentiment Analysis, and many more. This manner, you can receive a clear picture of where your company stands with its customers at any given time.
Example: In the hospitality industry, customer experience and satisfaction must be measured on an ongoing basis. By regularly assessing and monitoring customer satisfaction and NPS levels, the business may improve the customer experience and become more customer-centric in order to obtain increased revenues and customer loyalty.
Step 3 – Reporting and Presentation
Following analysis, the next step is to comprehend what the measurements mean. This is the most crucial phase, because incorrect data interpretation can take your business off the rails.
Converting information into visual infographics can sometimes help people understand it better. Such comprehension will enable the corporation to identify solutions to the most important commercial, operational, and marketing issues.
Final Thoughts
These stages will assist you in getting started with business intelligence tools, but they are not the final step. To be competitive and fulfil the ever-changing client needs, a business must continuously monitor and evaluate real-time data. It must also figure out the next best moves for the future.
Following this approach to properly use business information will allow a firm to spend money and effort more wisely and successfully address future goals, needs, and trends.
