Data is all around us and has become a key asset in business over the past few years, but it’s more than just a buzzword. It can help business owners and managers to track progress, engagement and profitability, along with our activities and how to grow or improve key areas.
Logging into a multitude of data platforms can be time-consuming and confusing, which is where dashboards such as Viur come in. They aggregate your data and present it in an easy-to-understand form, taking away the guesswork of how your business is performing in the areas you want to analyze. Here a few ways to get the best use out of your dashboard.
1. Monitor your business with real-time data
Dashboards can be a great way of viewing historical data, but did you know they’re also great tools to view your business data in real time? Check out your insights to immediately current trends and performance, and even to view sales forecasts, meaning you can react to new opportunities and markets quicker!
2. Get immediate feedback
Owners and managers want their businesses to grow faster and more efficiently. A good dashboard will make it easy to measure performance and offers immediate feedback. Check out the impact of your latest marketing campaign on sales, for instance, or which market segments want what products or services. This type of immediate feedback lets you figure out what works and lets you adapt without waiting on otherwise lengthy reports that take a long time to compile.
3. Unlock insights for new opportunities
The problem with individual data tools and platforms is that they can offer insight into one particular area, but using a dashboard offers you a glimpse into everything. Your online store analytics may never overlap with sales or marketing data on their own, for instance. A dashboard saves the laborious effort of compiling and comparing data by bringing all these strands of data onto one platform and offer a complete overview, including the ability to see growth opportunities that might otherwise be missed.
4. Improve customer relationships
With information spread across a variety of systems, from help desk to invoicing to marketing, it can be hard to make the links in the issue of customer satisfaction. Connected by the right dashboard it becomes easier to resolve trending customer issues before they become a problem. Create a customer support dashboard on Viur to monitor customer metrics such as reported issues, average response time and resolution time, and drop-off rates of customers. These metrics can be broken down even further to get even deeper insights, as you try to conquer that all-important area of customer relationships. Mastering this will help your business improve all areas of customer interaction, be it on the shop floor, online all the way to the back office and warehouse.
5. Optimize social media engagements
As the power of social media grows, one regular complaint from new business users is how long it takes to gain traction with it as a marketing channel. Your dashboard makes it simple to check out the impact of SEO, email marketing, and social media from your dashboard, letting you track leads, engagement and conversion rates easily. Your marketing dashboards will identify the channels that work for you and which don’t. Select the right marketing channel to match your market and their needs, so you can stop wasting time and money on non-responsive channels. Social media dashboards can monitor when you’re mentioned, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat demographics & interactions, as well as advising on what trends are relevant to you and your customer-base.
6. Get a wider view of your organisation
Can you visualise the wider view of your business? Dashboards offer an easy-on-the-eye set of charts that offer and immediate overview of your whole business or specific areas and actions. Data visualisation is not just about prettiness, but about power as they focus on and highlight the important data. Spreadsheet or reports can conceal important issues or highlights within a cacophony of drab details. Business dashboards let you understand your business’ inner workings better to know what’s working and what’s not, and keep your business healthy and growing.
7. Boost productivity
Business dashboards bring strands of data together, processing it and showing the results in real-time. This enables you to spend time understanding your business’ issues, cutting down on unnecessary distractions and allowing you to streamline operations and productivity.
8. Increase profits
Your business dashboard can also monitor revenue and cash flow, to understand quickly and easily where your business is spending, whether it's in marketing, sales or general overheads among others, and understand their impact on ROI. Cut down on unnecessary expenses and overheads, and focus on growth and seizing opportunities while increasing your profit.
9. Reduce the volume of individual reports
Nobody enjoys reading long reports and spreadsheets, trying to make sense of an array of figures. While your dashboard won’t replace every report, they offer a broad view and can assist in making decisions or understanding the days activities without getting bogged down in unnecessary minutiae. A dashboard will simplify your daily business life, by eliminating daily reports, freeing up your valuable time for more important matters.
10. Improve team collaboration
By offering your team - both general staff and management - access to aspects of the business dashboard, if not everything, they can better understand the state of the business and their role within the grand scheme of things. It can be a quick way to getting everyone onto the same track of thinking and understanding historical data as well as the goals to focus on.
Viur’s business dashboard is an easy to set up cloud-based platform that integrates with many of the most popular platforms used by small businesses, and can help you be a smarter business owner. Try it for free today and take advantage of everything Viur has to offer!