Forward-thinking companies are gathering, analyzing and acting on information that’s coming to them from multiple inputs, including social, mobile, email, chat, call center, operational, transactional, and market data.
Leading companies are using this blend of insights to identify and act on new product opportunities or improvements for delivering on customer experiences in different channels.
For retailers, this can include the use of kiosks located throughout stores to help shoppers find products they’re having trouble locating. If a customer has trouble finding an item or it’s out of stock, a kiosk could help the store manager identify merchandise that customers want, including products the company may not currently carry.
Consumers also share a great deal of information about the types of products they need or are looking for via social media. Sometimes these sentiments are shared accidentally (“I wish there was a vacuum cleaner that converted into a mop” or “I wish fast food restaurants made mini ketchup containers you could use in your car”). Sentiment analytics can pick up on these shared ideas and help companies identify new product opportunities.
Social media has generated other sources of innovation for companies. For example, companies such as DirecTV have revolutionized customer support by mining customer sentiment and drawing upon the collective input of power customers who are able and willing to provide assistance to other customers who need help. Through its use of crowdservice, DirecTV has eight customers handling 228,000 queries per month.
Meanwhile, Giff Gaff, a UK-based mobile phone company, relies on crowdservice to address 95% of customer questions, most of which are addressed within three minutes or less. In addition, Giff Gaff has also responded to customer suggestions and implemented more than 100 improvements to date, including changes to its pricing structure.
Of course, there are vast opportunities for leveraging big data to identify new ways to drive innovation. According to a McKinsey & Company report, if US healthcare companies used big data and analytics to create efficiency and quality, the industry could save more than $300 million every year – two-thirds of that would reduce US healthcare spending by about 8%.
Of course, companies like Giff Gaff and DirecTV aren’t alone. According to a study conducted late last year by MIT Sloan Management Review, 58% of the more than 4,500 survey respondents said their companies were gaining competitive value from using analytics, a jump from 37% the previous year.
Is your company making full use of analytics to help identify new opportunities to drive innovation?
Next steps: To learn more about how analytics can help you uncover the most relevant data when you need it, check out our complimentary “5-Minute Guide to Business Analytics.”
