Businesses create customer-centric attention when analytics is combined with unified communications. Multichannel reports - analytics reports on varied referral sources – is one set of analysis that can be done with analytics.
The potential value from multichannel reports lies in organizing the influences to a business. It can also aid a business relying on unified communications. The reports can produce a variety of options for a multitude of productivity and operational concerns.
First a few words on unified communications, otherwise known as UC. Simply put, it is a protocol set in the browser to provide video conferencing on the cloud without the use of a plugin. The business advantage is being able to communicate to partners and employees more easily across multiple devices.
While UC is steadily growing in usage among business organizations, tech savvy users have become more agnostic about which device they use for their daily tasks. They switch devices from one activity to another, being frictionless in being productive. In fact, Clickz noted device agnostics as a 2012 consumer trend. The trend is based on a tipping point of smartphone capability established in 2011.
This means businesses looking to connect with customers with UC must consider where the consumers are accomplishing their tasks digitally. It also shows how multichannel reports become handy. Multichannel reports identify the sequence of visitor touch points to a conversion activity. Thus these reports can rate different channels as significant contributors to conversion goals, as opposed to last click attribution – the assumption that an action from one channel is the main contributor to conversions.
A conversion path analysis from multichannel reports can influence a number of operations. Here are a few examples:
One example is evaluating online touch points against an assumed sales funnel process. An organization can review the number of interactions against its sales cycle. The review can imply ways to speed sales activity, such as providing better sales information upfront to the most responsive segments.
A second example focuses on the sequences in a conversion path. The sequences can show UC users where it should engage with customers digitally. Most multichannel reports reveal the sequence that happen before a conversion – a segment can, say, start with a mobile-related search, arrive to a site, leave, and then through Instagram return directly to a page. A customer care team can send mobile messages with one set of reminders prior to a conversation and separately send tweets containing general tips. The coordination of message types can simplify interaction, which can lead to faster communication or eliminate calls that can cost response time for more complicated matters.
A third example, API usage, can organize how data is consumed within an organization. Knowing which data to use can be a continual challenge. Most analytic solutions include multichannel report metrics in an API. This permits data visualization in a dashboard, one that can combine data from a number of sources. The unique advantage is that incorporating multichannel-related data will permit correlation of online conversion data with offline sales data and UC-related cost data to reveal a more complete picture of ROI. Thus multichannel reporting can guide how communication metrics are monitored and managed relative to business value.
Success from these examples do require cross management of teams. Imagine a customer service team coordinating with the marketing group that is responsible for the social media accounts, and you get the idea. But with that idea in place, multichannel reports and analysis provides a means to make an organization as customer centric as possible. The right analysis can reward a business with an empowered UC program responsive to customer demands.
