Data capture is such an important pillar of the structure of any business. It helps with everything from developing extensive email lists to producing special offers to unique customers. You can create incentive programs to serve your clients better while driving sales and boosting revenue. Because of this, data will always be king, no matter how your business evolves and grows over the years. This means the ability to capture data and ensure its accuracy will prove to be of critical importance.
The problem with data capture is it is more than just sending out a blank form in hopes of having clients fill it out. You need to be able to receive and store the information and categorize it so you can search for customers based on specific attributes. You will want to tweak the questions you ask and the information you seek as you offer new products and as different holidays approach.
In order to assist you with this, it is always best to partner with an expert service provider specializing in this kind of task.
The Challenges For A Business
Starting up data capture for your small business is an excellent idea. Because it is new and you’re just starting out, you might decide not to invest in the practice heavily. After all, you want to ensure it is worth your time, energy, and finances before pumping more money into it.
While this might make sense initially, if you are only receiving a handful of completed data forms every day (if not every week), as the amount of data you collect increases, so will your staffing and manpower requirements.
Whether customers fill out a hard copy at your brick-and-mortar location and leave you with the paperwork, or they do so via email or through your website, you will have the information you need to add to a dedicated application. Adding a few per day might not take much time, but what happens when it turns into dozens a day and hundreds per week? That might require you to put in more hours of work or pay an employee to work extra hours. In some instances, you might even need to hire another employee to handle the growing workload.
Beyond this, you will be forced to utilize a prebuilt application. These applications are serviceable when starting, but you’ll quickly discover they will not fit you like a glove. There will be features you’ll never use and other attributes you wish the software had. In addition to trying to learn a new application, you will be forced to depend on it during seasonal increases, which can strain your ability to keep up with demand. Holiday season shopping is when you’ll likely gather your most data, not to mention expand any current incentive program you’re offering. If your application of choice is unable to keep up with the demand, you might find the software crashing, which can result in data loss and upset customers (especially if they put in the work to complete an incentive program and now they are receiving their agreed-upon reward).
As the demand for your time and application increases, your input accuracy will decrease. You’re trying to add as much information in as short of a time as possible, which opens you up to mistakes. Every mistake will cost you the data of a customer, costing you repeat sales. It is crucial to minimize any kind of input errors.
Business Solutions
Instead of attempting to invest in additional employees and prebuilt applications, it is better to partner with a service provider such as Incentive Insights. With the help of Incentive Insights, you can have a customized data capture field designed to your exact needs. Instead of going with a cookie-cutter form, you can have specific questions and details added to what you ask of your customers. After all, every business is different, so the questions you ask will be different.
Perhaps you run a toy and collectible shop and want to know what kind of figures or franchises your customers are interested in. Or you can be a clothing retailer and want to know what styles and prints your clients would like to buy. Every business has unique questions, and Incentive Insights allows you to create specialized data request forms.
In addition, you will work with a highly trained and skilled staff that will do all the capture work for you. This way, you are not forced to work overtime or spend money on bringing in new employees, nor are you forced to pick and choose from inferior applications to capture the information. All of this is done for you. And, because you have a specialist capturing and monitoring the information for you, this will reduce the chance of errors and increase accuracy. It doesn’t matter if you use freeform text forms, character strings, check boxes, or multiple-choice documents. Everything can be handled for you. And with flexible staffing that adjusts to your processing demands, you’ll never pay for the service you don’t need.
Discover the Incentive Insights Difference
As a business owner, you already have so much to do during any given day. The last thing you need is to handle additional tasks. Data capture is an important part of your business, as it will help you customize marketing information and better serve your customers. The problem is this will take more of your valuable time. Instead, you need to partner with a service provider like Incentive Insights. With Incentive Insights, you can have a service package designed specifically for you and your business, and this plan can grow or constrict based on your needs throughout the year. To learn more about the Incentive Insights difference, all you need to do is fill out the form right on the website.
