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Ways to optimise data for your business

The information you have about your customers is invaluable. Knowing how to make the most of that data will help you shape an even better customer experience. Let’s find out how you can mine what you know about your customers to take your business to the next level.

Data – The heartbeat of your business

5 minute read

Data is more than a cool buzzword. It is the key to helping businesses understand not only who their customers are, but to also give us an insight into the kind of customer they will be in the future. Data offers an exciting world of discovery and here we share some ways you can make the most of what you already know about your business and the individuals it serves.

What is business data and what are its main sources?

You may ask yourself, is data management important for business? The answer – a definite ‘yes’. Simply put, data relates to the information that any business collects about its customers. It can also relate to operational information and day-to-day business functions. Data is important to help a business enhance services and products at all times.

 

Many businesses create, collect and store a lot of information about the people who make use of that company’s products and services. Many of these are via digital sources such as e-mail marketing, social media, newsletters, leads and enquiry forms and website analytics. But you also get data in more traditional ways such as from focus groups, interviews, company sales figures and consumer data sourced from the customer themselves via word of mouth.

Understand your customer’s needs, enhance services and improve products

The data that your customers share with you will help you understand who they are, what their needs are and will be in future. Data that has been sourced through trusted channels and has been properly collected, stored, streamlined and analysed

will give you insights into sentiment (how your customer feels about you), buying patterns, biggest challenges in customer service and what your customers would like for you to improve and do better.

 

With a keen ear on the ground and with AI and social tools able to monitor and filter what is being said about brands online, we are able to get real time feedback from our customers. Social media monitoring tools such as Brandwatch and Meltwater and others are powered by AI that enables them to track sentiment, key words and phrases used (relevant to a brand) and topics that are being spoken about. We can use the insights that we get to make improvements to products and streamline services.

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Build better relationships and brand loyalty

Nothing shows that a brand is listening better than personalised responses and community management. Being heard, seen and understood will lead to a person having a strong association with being valued, and may increase their likelihood to return to a brand or a service, and even tell their friends about it.

Trigger innovation and enhancements of new products

The real-time feedback that you receive from customers can help you to improve on your services and products. It could even bring about the development of something new. By doing a deep dive into data and analysing what your customers are crying out for, you can create products that align with their new and evolving needs.

Why do brands need to manage their data?

Data is the engine room of intelligence for a brand and quite literally the canvas you used to build new and enhanced products and services.

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Avoid poor data quality

The information that you receive about your customers matters. The more customised and specific your data is, the better the quality of your insights. Making a deliberate effort to gather your customers information will result in tailored campaigns, adverts and products.

Keep customers’ information secure

It’s vital that customers feel that they can trust you with their information. By having a proper data management system in place, you keep your customers' information safe. As an additional layer of support in South Africa, customer data protection is of paramount importance. The POPI Act was introduced in July 2020 and it is a data protection law that preserves the integrity of any information exchanged between a company and its consumers. It encourages the fair and lawful processing of customer information with anything linked to race, gender, pregnancy and cultural orientation. It also seeks to preserve and protect any information related to the medical, financial or criminal history of a person.

Access customer information more easily

Having well organised information on hand could mean the difference between a tailored advertising campaign that suits your customers, or shooting in the dark.

Social media as a channel and ‘listening’ tool for your business

An important channel tactic you can use to gain insight into how people feel about a particular service or product is by monitoring social media platforms and review sites such as Google.

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What does your data mean to us at Telkom?

At Telkom, we are always listening to what you have to say about us as a brand. The data that we receive from you informs our services, products and how we do business. We engage in continuous reporting and encourage the use of digital marketing tools to gain insights. Our weekly insights reports monitor customer engagement and sentiment, along with the consumer experience.

Addressing the challenges

As with any brand that is constantly growing and evolving, we understand that there are very real issues that need to be resolved. Our teams work consistently to monitor, address and alleviate network coverage issues and billing challenges. We are also mindful of the quality of our data services and sudden data depletion being one of the major areas for improvement that customers have raised..

The silver linings

Some quick wins to celebrate! We have seen a rise in positive sentiment towards Telkom and our operational and reputational scores. We have been keeping our eyes on the ‘socials’ and have seen the events that you’ve shown some real love! High on your appreciation list were the champions crowned for the Telkom Netball League, the prizes given away on our Father’s Day giveaway and the 100GB data giveaway on Youth Day, celebrating young innovators, dreamers and leaders of tomorrow. In the latter half of June, our brand increased speed in response time to customer queries – reducing response rate from days to hours. Now that’s progress.

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