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ICX Symposium: Data analysis drives the interactive customer experience

Whether you manufacture kiosks or provide bitcoin wallets, you need the right data to craft the best customer experience. In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."

November 30, 2015 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com

As interactive digital and video signage, dynamic touch-screen kiosks, motion-detector tools, store design and a personal, customized shopping experience are collectively spurring tomorrow's customer experience forward, it is all happening due to one critical and required element: data.

In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."

That quote served as the introduction by Jeremy Sublett, software architect and co-founder of Composable Systems, for his session during the ICX Association's fall ICX symposium in Atlanta. Composable Systems develops mobile apps, custom business software solutions and business intelligence technology.

Sublett's presentation Wednesday, "Data analysis trends and techniques," sponsored by Workplace, was the fourth of five at the event, called "Inflection Point: The Future Tech of Customer Experience," which is aimed to provide B2C brands actionable insights in applying effective tech-based customer engagement strategies.

Each event in the ICX Symposium series focuses on a single topic, and the Atlanta event offered attendees practical steps for using emerging technologies to secure success for the future.

Sublett's talk on data analysis explained why data is the foundation for the customer experience effort -- and various tools an enterprise can use to collect, assess and analyze data to enhance the interactive customer experience strategy.

Data analysis, according to Sublett, requires a few core elements:

Ensuring strategic data collection is done in a well thought out acquisition model;
Parsing data for specific and relevant insights geared toward boosting customer experience and interaction (such as knowing who's shopping when and for what, average spend in demographic regions, shopper demographics and behavior within the commerce environment); and
Analyzing data to support and drive best-of-breed decision making on customer experience directives.

"It's a back and forth process," said Sublett as he diagramed data tool processes using Windows data and business intelligence tools tied to Excel and powerful new modules such as Power Pivot, Power Query, Tableau and Power BI. The analysis starts with "massaging data" to the ultimate result of data visualization.

"You have to look at data in the course of your business, collect and analyze and then present data in a meaningful way," he said.

The data can be gleaned from an ever-growing spectrum of collection points, from the wearable devices such as the Apple Watch to home-grown data insight apps and external resources such as online government agency databases and even data points such as the weather and census sites.

"The days of culling through piles of dot matrix printouts are over as most of this can all easily be done in a browser. The quest is to make good decision for the customer experience and turning all the data you have into knowledge and wisdom for that effort," Sublett said.

Once an enterprise has that knowledge and wisdom it can begin identifying future opportunities as well as missteps and ensuring there's no repetition of missteps.

"You want to empower subject matter experts, make strategic decision. The business user in the enterprise needs this data to do that," he said.

The analysis process is all about what happened, why it happened, what will happen and how to make it happen, explained Sublett, as he detailed the various data analysis tools and strategic methodologies that can be adopted by the enterprise.

He focused on using Excel, given its increasing popularity and tenure as a data analysis tool.

"It's well understood, allows for the self-serve capability, and [is] flexible," he noted, and it integrates well with new analysis tools such as Power View, Power Pivot and Power Query which can help in data acquisition, modeling and visualization..

Sublett then walked attendees through a short demo process and within minutes illustrated how it can be done in-house by data analysis staff, noting it can also be done with third-party providers and consulting services.

Within minutes he presented the various charts and data illustration options that could serve as an interactive canvas and dashboard for driving that next customer experience project.

Noting most of the tools used in his session are free and accessible to today's business, Sublett also stressed that such technologies are constantly advancing in capabilities and scope.

"You can take these tools and start moving forward and apply to big and small business efforts," he said.

About Judy Mottl

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Judy Mottl is editor of Retail Customer Experience and Digital Signage Today. She has decades of experience as a reporter, writer and editor covering technology and business for top media including AOL, InformationWeek, InternetNews and Food Truck Operator.

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