Drive Profits With A Customer Experience Dashboard: Part 2

As if my first post wasn’t enough.
Here’s part two of a series on the benefits of creating a customer experience dashboard. If you need a refresher, or want to start from the beginning, go back and peruse part one. Alternatively, you can review the customer experience archive.

With that, we’ll pick up where we left off…

First of all, I should be answering the question, “What is a dashboard?”. In a nutshell, a dashboard is a central location where all your KPI’s can be reviewed and monitored on a regular basis. The benefit of having all of your metrics in one place is twofold. First – convenience. Because you’re busy enough during the day, having to dig up metrics and data from 10 different sources is just a plain hassle. Secondly – and most importantly, there is a knock-on benefit of having these metrics displayed in one central location together. Over time it is easier to spot trends, see cause/effect relationships and make better decisions about your business (photo by gwen).

3. What should your dashboard look like?

How should the dashboard look? Well – that’s kind of up to you. As long as you’re able to read the data accurately and make decisions, it’s probably not all that important to have a bunch of fancy bells and whistles. A few standard charts will probably do. The key is to not overload yourself or your dashboard with data. 8-10 key points from across your business, with the ability to dig deeper is probably enough to get you going.

Here’s the problem: How do you combine click-stream data and polling data in one central location or spreadsheet? Doing this can be difficult. If you’re part of a larger organization and you’ve got a data jockey who knows database management and Excel – you could be off to the races. If not, you may be able to create a work around.

For example: a key indicator of customer satisfaction is the tendency for customers to recommend your product or service to others. By asking a “would you recommend” question on your site – in the checkout process, or whatever – the information could be easily pulled into Excel on a regular basis and the calculated metric is the percentage of yes/no answers over time. If you see a swing one way or the other, or just want to dig deeper into the data, you can take the extra step and dive into your polling data in Bizrate, 4Q, etc.

If you’re not able to centralize all of the information in one spreadsheet – that’s ok at first. As long as you have the ability to get at each data type easily and you’re not spending a bunch of time manually updating or digging for data. The important thing is to begin to establish a process or system of collection and looking at the information regularly.

Automation is the key. You should be able to easily set up a system where you are compiling click data and polling data automatically. If you’re using a system like Omniture, you can have the information emailed to your inbox at regular intervals: weekly, monthly, etc. If you’ve decided to use Bizrate as your polling source, the email functionality comes right out of the box.

So – even if you don’t take the time to centralize at first, you’re at least receiving the information regularly without having to remember to dig it up. Good on you.

There really is an art to this. I’ve been digging around over the last couple of weeks, and it looks like Hubert Lee at Dashboard Spy really knows his stuff. He hasn’t posted new information for a couple of months. But, there’s looks to be a wealth of templates and how-to’s that can help in the creation of your customer experience dashboard.

4. Establish a feedback loop

You’ve established the goals, decided on your KPIs and developed your dashboard. You’re receiving your information. Now what? It’s important to review the data on a regular basis that is set within you calendar. In addition, if you’re looking at this information regularly, it’s important to create a process to respond to customers in a timely manner, if it’s warranted. Many times, when customers are given an opportunity to sound off, they do it in spades. Some have issues that haven’t been resolved or need attention immediately. It’s important to take these instances into account when developing your loop.

If you’re part of a larger organization: It’s important that stakeholders from across the company have access to the information within the dashboard – maybe within a scheduled monthly recurring meeting where everyone can review the data face to face. Some points to remember:

1. Do the KPIs align to the goals we’ve established?
2. What actions can we take to improve upon the KPIs in the short term?
3. What actions require longer term planning?
4. Remember to review the actions from the previous meeting prior to looking at the new month’s data – and ask for updates from owners. It keeps team members accountable.

Putting it all together

By estabishing a dashboard and the feedback loop – you now have a 360 degree view of the customer. In addition, your users will notice your organization taking action on the feedback they’re giving. Just this communication alone will help create the type of advocacy for your products and your organization all the advertising in the world couldn’t buy. In addition – you’ve just established a foundation for change in your business that goes much deeper than click-stream analytics reviewed by the Web team. A customer experience dashboard can be used as a basis to make improvements throughout an organization, with all the stakeholders buying in.