Why should we be looking at insights to inform our decisions? The simple answer, money.

It’s that time of year again and I’m receiving campaign mailers for local elections for two towns. I don’t live in either one. While I’m honored that they think my “vote is important”, I can’t vote in either election. An easy check against public records would save each of these campaigns more than $1,000 – where budgets are often not much larger than that.

Instead, over the last couple weeks, I’ve accumulated over 50 campaign mailers – even at a low end cost of $2 each, that could reach – in my neighborhood of 400 homes (none of which can vote in either election, but are receiving these mailers) – a cost of $40,000, none of which will have any positive influence in the outcome. Matching against a list that costs about $50 would have saved these campaigns precious funds that could have been better used for their targeted audience.

Are you working to improve the right KPI?

Think about the amount of time, effort and money spent at your company looking to improve customer experience. Often these budgets can reach into seven digits, not including the man power spent on the efforts – but:

• Are you reaching the wrong people?
• Are you working to improve the wrong KPI?
• Do you spend all your time fixing individual complaints coming from your data, but not driving strategy from insights?

Shine a fact-light on data

Our businesses succeed when we have revenue and make a profit. While we can look at other measures that help drive our business towards that success, our efforts in improving them should not take away from the goals of the business. We gather transaction data, basket data, customer information and loyalty data – but all too often they aren’t brought together and understood – and therefore you can´t reveal decision-worthy insights.

Do you have examples where companies gather data, but they are not using insights – and not utilizing the opportunities of generating financial outcomes?

Comment and let me know about your stories. You can also download our CX IQ eBook to learn more about using data to gain insights.

Ken Peterson
Managing Director of Nepa USA