WVU IMC 642, Week 5 post

What's the Most Important Data for a Business? (Hint: It's not data.)

For any company in existence, both qualitative and quantitative data are essential. Qualitative data is based on feedback, usually of a target audience. It turns the target audience’s attitudes, interests and opinions (AIO) into (hopefully) usable data, through research methods like focus groups, surveys, ethnography, and reading through customer comments on social media or relative websites. This type of data takes a lot of effort to collect and dissect.  

Quantitative data, quite simply, is based on numbers. It’s reflected by numbers themselves, percentages, ratios, graphs, etc.  It allows for tracking progress or trends because it incorporates statistical analysis. This type of data is more readily available than ever thanks to analytics programs and software that compile it nonstop from websites, apps and other hosts.  When companies combine qualitative and quantitative data, they get the most informed, comprehensive picture of their target audience/s. 

The main quantitative data player in the game is no surprise: Google Analytics. Google Analytics (GA) is capable of an increasing amount of data-gathering on a wide scale. You can see data as broadly as you want, or as granularly as you want. Although businesses can heavily rely on GA for valuable, actionable insight, it’s still basically all numbers and can’t provide that comprehensive view with the other insights essential: the customer’s voice. 

Wouldn’t it be great to pull in qualititative data from your website, mobile and social campaigns as easily as GA shows quantitative from those channels? Well, there is an app for that. It’s called Medallia.

“Medallia for Digital helps companies capture customer feedback across emerging web and mobile channels, engage customers with compelling digital experiences and keep pace with customers’ constantly changing behaviors.”

Medallia specializes in capturing qualitative data in the moment of a customer’s or user’s interaction with a company’s online platforms or touchpoints to help companies improve customer experience (CX). This includes websites, social media, mobile (ads and apps), and contact centers. Medallia says its software:

“combines the data from your web analytics and session recordings with Medallia for Digital feedback data, offering you a unique and actionable end-to-end view of the digital journey. Get unrivalled insights into customer behavior, satisfaction and sentiment; drill down through your analytics funnels – select specific funnels and flows, over specific time periods – and see user behavior and changes every step of the way.”

Therefore, Medallia can complement the robust insights of GA to obtain that full profile of one or more target audiences. How does Medallia accomplish all this? There are a number of steps, as outlined by Medallia’s website:

Feedback Management – Medallia embeds surveys through brand apps, email, websites, 2-way text messages, other devices, online reviews and more. GA doesn’t collect feedback through any means.

• Example: Surveys that give you honest feedback are pretty invaluable. Surveys of customer AIOs in the moment of completing a desired action (on both parts) on your website are even more valuable. You can know instantly if your customer service, selection, check-out process, etc. were up to expectations.

Performance Measurement – Customer feedback is collected and rated according to benchmarks set forth by Net Promoter Score and other social ratings. GA doesn’t rate any aspect of CX; it might tell you which pages on your website perform well or not, but Medallia’s tools can tell you what the user thinks and says about them.

• Example: Was the shopping experience easy and pleasant on your website? You can see goal completions in GA, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the customer didn’t get frustrated at some point. Medallia can shoot a survey to the customer in the moment for feedback on the ease or difficulty of completing an action, or if they’re likely to recommend your company to someone else.

Analytics & Insights – Medallia combines and compares user comments with their behavior. What people do doesn’t always align with what they say. In GA you can see mountains of behavioral data, but Medallia can pair a relevant question with a critical conversion point on a website to really understand a user’s action.

• Example: In GA, you see a high bounce rate and think you’re doing something wrong with that particular page. For e-commerce, a pop-up question might reveal that that customer is just an online “window shopper” and didn’t have a problem with your site. Conversely, you might find they admit they made the purchase from a different site if that’s in the pop-up question/s.

Company Engagement - All relevant employees can see CX data related to their job in Medallia’s reports. Customer feedback is sent to designated employees so they don’t have to go searching for it. With GA, usually only one person in a company sees the data, and it isn’t always easily interpreted by other employees.

• Example: Medallia has an app where employees can access the data that’s relevant to them, that shows direct communication from customers or users. They not only can access it, but they can also respond to it. There’s not such communication support in GA.

Action Management – “Take systematic action based on what you’ve learned. Use our native apps for iOS and Android to connect 24/7 with individual customers, follow up on their concerns or suggestions, and promote the best ideas.” Through Action Management, Medallia administrators can test ideas with in-the-moment questions and feedback from customers. Questions range from asking about how a customer uses a service, to what they might use or do, to what they want from the company. None of this is possible with GA.

• Example: Testing anything new via GA can be time consuming; GA needs time to gather data after you’ve set up a goal, or added a new webpage, other performed other actions. With Medallia, companies can ask customers in the moment what they want or don’t want on a website, or what they expect from the company.

Reputation Management - With integrations including Facebook, Twitter, Google and TripAdvisor, users can share their reviews of their CX if they want. This may not be a very popular way of sharing company reviews; nonetheless, it is possible and not a service GA can provide.

• Example: Word-of-mouth (WOM) is powerful. If there’s a way to get your promoters to share their love for your company or product, why not give them that option?

World-renown companies that use Medallia and rave about it include Holland America Line, Mercedes-Benz, PayPal, Tommy Bahama, Four Seasons.

Don’t get me wrong, Google Analytics is a powerhouse that every company should have. But it is quantitative data that can only get a business so far. Furthermore, surveying customers for qualitative data can be painstaking, expensive, and take up resources. While I still advocate for putting in that hard work occasionally, having a software that can give real-time feedback on specific touchpoints from within all a business’s online channels sounds convenient, efficient, and ideal.