Q. 102  Explain the usage of web analytics in business growth and in capturing Voice of Customer. Which industries can use web analytics better than others for these objectives?

 

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Web analytics is the process of analyzing the behavior of visitors to a website.

 

The use of web analytics helps in growth and CSAT enhancement for a business in more than one way :

 

ü  Determining the likelihood that a given customer will repurchase a product after having purchased it in the past

ü  Personalizing the site to customers who visit it repeatedly

ü  Monitoring the dollar volume of purchases made by individual customers or by specific groups of customers

ü  Observing the geographic regions from which the most and the least customers visit the site and purchase specific products

ü  Predicting which products customers are most and least likely to buy in the future

 

In a nut shell web analytics enables a deep dive study of customers buying patterns and accordingly promoting specific products to those customers. This in turn can help in enhancing the ratio of revenue to marketing costs. 

 

Industries where web analytics can be used in a better manner in achieving the objectives of growth and CSAT

 

Sports: 

Web analytics can be used to understand the patterns of viewership of different sport events in specific regions which enables TV channels to design program and attract revenue to advertisement. In addition the performance of individual players and teams by analysis. Major sporting events like Cricket world cup, FIFA world cup and Wimbledon can use of web analytics in a big way.

 

 Healthcare:

Web analytics can be used to collect public health data for faster responses to individual health problems and identify the global spread of any new virus strains such as Ebola/ Zika. Health Ministries of different countries incorporate big data analytic tools to make proper use of data collected after Census and surveys.

 

Transportation:

Web analytics enables better route planning, traffic monitoring and management, and logistics. This is mainly incorporated by governments to avoid congestion of traffic in a single place.

 

Insurance:

Web analytics can be used from developing new products to handling claims through predictive analytics. Insurance companies use business big data to keep a track of the scheme of policy which is the most in demand and is generating the most revenue.

 

Education:

Web analytics can help in updating and upgrading prescribed literature for a variety of fields which are witnessing rapid changes. Universities across the world are using it to monitor and track the performance of their students and faculties and map the interest of students in different subjects via attendance.

Web analytics provides customised details of every customer it's a very key information to any industry to grow since analytics provides complete customer information. 

Again capturing voice of customer will used in any industry that brings the value to the industry. Either banking, online training, service based industry would take more advantage of it. 

Web analytics is very useful tool to measure, collect and analyse the Web data for better understanding as it is used for business growth by seeing the behaviour of visitors on Web page by seeing its contents by consumers and by clicking on different pages and tagging them. It is also monitored by the location and timing of the visitors for better understanding to make proper strategic plan for their growth. Nowadays It is mostly helps the companies to advertise right at right time according to their products. And companies do marketing of their products online via websites or online marketing. Any sector company can do Web analytics for their business growth to market their product and to better understand the consumer for increasing their sales to get more revenue as well as profit. 

Latest example we can see that a new method is adopted by Xiaomi Products for doing marketing of their products. They have analysed and decided to sales their mobile of particular model on a particular day at a particular time and we see that even in couple of minutes Xiaomi is able to make higher sales which other companies are not able to achieve throughout the week. So web traffic is more and they analysed properly the system before taking this type of marketing where people used to wait when will sales will start.? 

So Web analytics is very useful tool and used by companies more which can sell their products online and for other companies which wants service and feedback for their products and services. 

We can see it is also used in elections to track people opinion on social media by analysing their comments, tagging and collecting and analysing the whole data. 

The web analytics is used to measure the customer behaviour while visiting any website. It is used to measure, collect data of customer visiting any website. Spending time, the interest of the customers and their choices during their visits, which will enhance better customer experience and target the right customer with correct recommendation in their next visit. It helps web based companies which do business online and are dependent on customers visiting their websites to get information or buy products from their website. There are many sites like YouTube, facebook, google, amazon, flipkart which use customer information to recommend them more products and give discounts to increase the revenue and customers visits.

Let us begin this topic with the definition of Analytics and then , Web Analytics. 

 

Analytics Definition: As per English dictionary definition, it is a process in which a computer system examines information using mathematical methods, so as to find useful patterns. There are quite a different amount of categories of analytics and we are going to focus on Web Analytics, in particular.

 

Web Analytics: It is a systematic way of measuring and gathering of the web data, dissecting the data for analysis and then seggregating the data as needed, for gaining knowledge (about the web traffic and flow patterns) and for effectively increasing the usage of the web. While to know more on the basics of Web Analytics, we can always go to Wiki page on Web Analytics, let us see about the usage of web analytics in expanding the business growth and in capture of Voice of the Customer, across various industries.

 

Voice of the Customer and Business Growth:

Voice of the Customer:
Voice of the customer will need a proper analysis to be done. The customer segmentation could happen as below or even different than this , though this is a typical structure. 
  - Internal or External   , 
  - Age wise seggregation (some industries/categories like FMCG might have this. Note FMCG is Fast Moving Consumer Goods)  
  - Geography

 

Survey, Customer Feedback ,Face-to-Face conversations, Focussed workshops are good techniques of data collection for knowing/getting the needs of the customer.All the stated and unstated needs of the customer need to be recorded properly. By affinitization of the customer needs and then Using a Kano model technique, customer needscan be prioritized. 

 

Business Growth & Why Web Analytics: 
The first step before going to the usage of Web analytics is to have a strategy and a firm Objective for a successful organisation, driven with concrete SMART goals.   Some key steps in having this are listed below:
1. Having a clear-cut strategy will help the customer (organisation) in deciding what it wants to achieve(objective) and what is the focus area which needs  improvement (goal to achieve the objective). 
2.Know the Customer(End-users)' changing needs(Specific) and the current industry trend and ensure that the Organisation's strategy is aligned in line with that. 
3.What uniqueness can the organisation bring in to the customer to be called as a stand out provider ? i.e., Being tagged as 'Numero Uno'  
4. Have a roadmap for achieving the goals - with the help of SMART goal approach. SMART as you know stands for 
'Specific, Measurable, Achievable( read also Attainable/Actionable as called in some indutstries), Realistic, Time-bound'. 
5.Drive that Visionary Roadmap to Implementation, with the help of dedicated teams.

This is nothing new and every organisation in this world, probably would be doing such an exercise or such activities in a systemmatic manner, it it not ?  So whats new here. Why are we even talking about this ?  This is where Web analytics come into picture now. What is an Organisation's goal could be , in terms of its customer. Providing the Customer Satisfaction in terms of Cost, Delivery and Quality. Delivery could be of tangible or intangible. How that customer satisfaction can happen ? What are the expectations and needs of the customer. How can an Organisation identify the ever varying demands of its customers? What if an Organisation does
not know well what is its Unique selling proposition to differentiate itself from the rest of its competitors?  Well Web Analytics is a great source to capture all of these . Let us see some of the industries which uses Web Analytics with some examples. 

 

Which Industries can leverage Web Analytics ?
Virtually any industry can leverage the power of web analytics. In my opinion and also based on what i have observed, there are certain industries which use web analytics more than other industries. To name, some of the industries that use web analytics, more lot as far as i have seen, are, Travel & Tourism, Retail/Ecommerce, Media(Social and Electronic), Entertainment(read Cinema, Television and Fun,Theme parks...),Information Technology(IT), IT Enabled Services etc..,.   

 

Let i traverse with you as how the organisations in few of these industries expand their business growth with the help of Web Analytics. 

 

Travel and Tourism: Organisations in this industry use Web Analytics more. Assume you have registered yourself in a travel site. In a normal environment (without Web Analytics), you will have communication with the travel site only when you book for a trip. However when Web Analytics is used, then the game changes. Once you are registered with the site, you may get a lot of personal offerings.Offerings normally are a kind of benefit that an individual might get because he/she uses the travel
site (in this context) effectively, [primarily that would happen due to that individual's travelling or booking frequently- for domestic or abroad trips using that site]. A message comes from the site as that you have not travelled for a while and then you are shown that offerings from the site. How does this happen ? How do the site know that you have not travelled for sometime(assuming you travel only by booking through that site). This is where Web analytics come into play. Your personal data (such as EMail id, Name, phoneno, etc..,. ) are captured as part of your sign in info. Personal interests can also be captured subject to your knowledge. While
personal data along with your browser data can be technically captured as part of user sessions or through cookies, the key thing is that your booking destinations can be analysed for finding patterns/trends in your journeys. In case , you have booked your last two trips to a pilgrim place, then the travel site organisation , can give a hint to you (through your email or provide a feed(message) to its app that you would have downloaded) by suggesting few other pilgrim places and provide a budgeted cost plan for going to that places. Similarly if you had gone say for year-end vacations to hilly places in the past 2 years, the travelling site might
provide or suggest a customized viewplan of another hill station which you might have not gone. By analysing the data related to your travel, the service providers (travelling site Organisation) might be able to understand or provide a valuable insight into your needs, in case you have planned for such trips in the nearby future.  Even you can find that some of these travel sites can tie up with Social Media and get a clue from the social media of the interests and needs of their customers and the general trend or seasonal trends that are being followed. For instance, people want to goto cold places, when the Sun is scorching in their place.  Now let us move
to Media Industry and how that is impacted. 

 

Media (Social Media and Electronic Media):

Social Media: Organisations tend to exploit the power of Social Media now, more than ever before. Why ? Because Social Media has replaced the next-door neighbours as the best companion for a man. These days, A person with a smart phone, is prevalent across all spheres of life.He/she lives with that virtually everyday. He/she accesses social media stuffs like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.... He/she talks about himself/herself in these social media, which is the primary source for expressing the individuality/characteristics. As more and more information , about an individual is obtained through the media, the organisations that are tied up with the social
media get to know the varying and dynamic needs of their customers and then act accordingly. Imagine you are doing a research in Quantum Physics, which you would have put as your interest or passion. You may get a sponsor link for your research because the sponsoring organisation is also looking for a researcher on that topic. This can happen if only the Web-analytics could have provided the data. Therefore, quite a no.of organisations use the Social Media effectively. This is like just a tip of the iceberg. There are umpteen no. of uses that web analytics can provide.

 

Electronic(Online) Media: How many people in this generation read newspapers, magazines (Printed Media) ?  That population size is getting reduced increasingly!! People find it convenient to read news articles or online contents on the fly, at their own time of convenience and pace. What does Web Analytics over here? Imagine you are interested in scoreboard updates of the current cricket test series between two cricket playing nations. So you frequently visit a cricket website for getting that status.  Now , you have a downloaded application (related to that Cricket Status) as well. The app will ensure that you get the Cricket details that you wanted ,
every now and then. Imagine now you have registered yourself to a news article site(registered member). Assume that, often you are interested in Cinema topics. So whenever you login to the news site or login with a registered app, then the site can customize its screen(web page) and show some commentary or links related to your   cinema topics. That is how Web Analytics can do wonders to the Media industry .

 

Retail/ECommerce:  Let us assume that you are going to buy some products through an Online Retail giant. You are a registered member of that company. After several times of your buying, the Online retailer, can record your pattern of purchasing the goods. Upon your subsequent online visit to that retail site, it can offer you discount in your regular purchases and can suggest you to buy advanced version of the products that you might have brought. This is just one example of Web analytics.
We need to consider the fact that this exercise would be done for all the customers who visit the online retailing site. The speed with which this needs to be done and the magnitude (for all customers) of this exercise is what will be taken care by Web Analytics technique. Also let us take one more instance, in a Super market. Every shop would have its items(products) arranged in a way, which is easier for the shopkeeper to pick and give it to the customer/consumer. But often the categorisation of items in a super market would be important because you would expect all items from A-Z would be there in that shop and hence you expect the
shopkeeper to arrange them to ensure that everything is accessible (in terms of transparency of an item and the placement of that item-in the rack in which the items are kept).  But how will the shopkeeper can do this for all the items in the shop? How will he/she know which is the important item for every customer ? Which are the moving items? Well with Web-analytics, we can do this. Web Analytics based Software applications can help in analyzing the trend for each of the items . For instance, by recording the items that move out of the shop(sold) everyday, one can find out which item(s) have moved out more than which other items. The Shopkeeper can also find out which items are moving faster on the weekends. By doing this exercise, the shopkeeper can rearrange the items's placement(location of the items) within the shop, so that customers find their items quickly. Finding the needed item in a super market is a critical and most of the times, a one-dimensional customer satisfaction. If a customer is able to find it easily, then he/she is happy. Else he/she is not going to relish it, in a super crowded super market , which is what you would find it more often than not.   
 

Benefits of having Web Analytics:

Service Providing or Vendor Organisation 
1. Align strategically more towards the customer needs as they understand the market trends (applicable to many industries)
2. Capture the unstated and stated needs of the customer efficiently as they try analyse the customer trends/patterns before providing the service/product.
3. Provide customer satisfaction in terms of Delivery of Tangible/Intangible value (happiness in case of travelling sites, products in case of tangible deliveries) ,  Cost(cost minimsation/effectiveness), Quality(eg: risk free travel with high comfort, no loss of information, no defective equipments,... and so on and so forth)   and therefore increase the brand image 

  For Customers,  
1. Having got the outcome as what was needed 
2. Having got a satisfactory product/service - in terms of budgeted cost, quality and value from that product/service
3. A reliable provider of Service or a Vendor , who you can always go back for subsequent need

 

Caution or Constraints of having Web Analytics
1. Primary Constraint - Customer has to ensure that the Service Providing or Vendor Organisation does not use web analytics for any unwarranted purpose. In General there may be a disclaimer from the Vendor/Service Provider that your information would be stored for such and such purposes. However no organisation is going to declare that it would use web analytics to capture your trends/patterns. Onus shifts squarely on an individual if he/she allows the cookies information about them to be stored or not.

 

Conclusion:
We have seen how Web Analytics can help in shaping the face of an organisation in a given industry. With the help of it, an organisation can desginate itself as leader
of an industry. We saw some of the examples in various industries. There are even some departments in the public sectors that are using Web analytics. It can be used
anywhere virtually. The onus is on the individual organisations of the respective industries to the harness the power of Web Analytics. 

 

"Web analytics origins from the lead based businesses"

This line covers the answer for the second part of question. I will attempt to explain it for the first part of the question.

 

There are various types of web analytics

1. Google analytics - this gives view of people who have landed on your website. Trends of such appearance are based on time, place and gender.This is usually linked with any kind of changes made in our website or its promotion strategy which gives us the best strategy for making a websites visibility better based on which change attracted traffic.

2. Heat Maps- this is a lesser used web analytics, it gives us an insight into what parts of a website page or which page customer spends time on. A cause and effect relation is established to lure more customers into subscribing or buying products. For eg customers mostly return on "cart" page after spending a lot of time and re attempts to pay..

This means that our payment system is not customer friendly

3. A/B testing- this is a startegy that is not only applicable to web but in real world also. In this two feasibile versions of same product are launched and consumer behaviour is judged to know the better one. Sometimes both are equally good in different segments of people(eg male and female)

4. Marketing tools like SEO, PPC, SEM, Social media marketing- all these are based on this startegy itself, but these are used by marketing companies instead of website owners

 

In todays world every business runs on consumer behaviour except for necessities.

Even the smallest business can implimemt these at any level to give a nudge to their business.

 

R Rajesh does it again! The sheer detail makes it impossible to choose another answer as the best answer. I must say though, "every answer" today has some nugget of information not to be missed. So, do read them all! 

 

Happy Learning!