The valuable and overlooked data source all businesses have
There is no doubt that the golden source of data all businesses want, is regular and structured customer feedback. A regular temperature check of clients’ feelings towards your products and services, not just an annual survey, can help increase retention rates and in turn improve the bottom line. All businesses thrive upon structured client feedback and the age-old statistic remains highly regarded and widely quoted:
“Attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer”
However, there is another key source of data within all businesses, which can positively contribute to retention and acquisition strategies but is often overlooked and undervalued; Feedback from client facing teams!
It is our view that commercial teams are one of the greatest data sources all organisations have at their disposal and truly unlocking this dataset can deliver significant, long-term benefits. However, in many cases, there are no internal, well defined ‘feedback loops’, meaning data collection is sporadic and unstructured with no agreed metrics to manage and share this data across the organisation.
In a recent Asensus study across the B2B space, 50% of companies stated that they have no formal process in place to collect competitor intelligence. This is a critical source of data and there is no better source of competitor information than commercial teams, who are encountering them on a daily basis.
Therefore, key feedback on competitor activity, market need as well your own products and services can often be lost to an organisation and remain hidden in unstructured meeting notes, in notepads, buried in large email chains or mentioned in an internal meeting and then forgotten.
Sales and Account Managers are tasked to interact with clients and prospects on a daily basis and most, if not all commercial training focuses on qualification, asking open questions and collecting valuable market intel. However, what are the internal processes to collect this data in a structured manner in order to analyse market trends?
If organisations can build a robust and structured process to collect data from commercial teams, (without increasing the admin burden) businesses can unlock very powerful datasets which, merged with direct client feedback, can provide a powerful 360-degree view on the market and deliver deeper time series data to shape future decision making.
The key is striking the right balance between ensuring your front-line teams are focused on the job in hand and building a robust feedback loop which will allow businesses to remain at the forefront of their respective industries. A Salesforce study from 2019 outlined that ‘today’s sales professionals spend just 34% of their time selling’, with a Forbes study also indicating that ‘over 25% of a salesperson’s time is spent on administration and research.’
These statistics point to a need to improve existing processes and at Asensus, we believe that our CRM integrated technology can deliver powerful insights to businesses, whilst reducing the CRM administration burden for front line teams. Visit us at www.asensus.io and book a demo of our collaboration platform.
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Paul Smillie, Founder of Asensus
