Are you waiting for a week or longer to see your sales data? If you’ve been working with a data lag for years, it might not seem like a big deal. But real-time data can be a fantastic tool to help you grow your business.
Real-time data is delivered to you immediately after collection – so you can see a sale within minutes of the transaction occurring instore or online. There’s never been a more unpredictable retail environment for Kiwi business owners, and up-to-date data can help you keep on top of the latest changes. Here are five ways real-time data can help your business succeed:
1. Real-time data means real-time reactions
If your data is delayed, your reactions are slow. That can mean lost opportunities or even wasted promotional budget. If it takes a week to find out an expensive promotion isn’t driving sales, you could have wasted a lot of money by the time you pull the promo. Conversely, if your promotion is succeeding and you find out immediately, you can expand or extend it.
Real-time data can give you the information you need, at a glance, from any device. You can make decisions at the pace of your customers.
2. Help your managers support their teams
With real-time data available on a data dashboard like Paymark Insights, managers can make a correlation between sales and staff members – which can help them see who’s performing outstandingly and who needs more help to succeed on the job. Superior performers can be recognised and rewarded for their work daily or weekly. Employees who need additional training and assistance can get the resources they need.
3. Accurately manage your business in a rapidly changing retail landscape
This year has changed the way people shop, and sometimes those changes have happened day by day, varying by region. People have been rethinking their priorities, which has meant their shopping habits have changed, too. Kiwis have been doing more online shopping, preferring local brands, and a trend towards lower-cost basic brands instead of luxury name brands.
You could be experiencing an unexpected surge, and real-time data lets you keep on top of your sales and call in extra staff. You can also alter your pricing rapidly to react to competition and market surges.
4. Up-to-date responses to customer calls
A Paymark Insights data dashboard can be configured to immediately display vital customer information when a call comes in. You can see up-to-the-minute sales to the specific card, quickly find a specific transaction and rapidly process a refund if one is required. Your dashboard can also be used to identify where bottlenecks are occurring in the call queue and where extra staff members are needed.
5. Manage downturns more quickly to minimise damage
When your local economy experiences a downturn, you need to be monitoring the impact on your business extremely closely. If you don’t realise the scope or magnitude of a downturn for many weeks, you could be making significant unnecessary losses. Real-time data means you can track your revenue daily, take loss-reduction action quickly and minimise any damage.
Paymark Insights: free, real-time data on any device
Making the best use of the data you have available could help set you apart from your competitors. Because there’s no delay between collecting and delivering real-time data, it lets you quickly capitalise on opportunities and act rapidly to counteract downturns.
Every Paymark customer now has access to free real-time data using Paymark Insights. Insights allows you to track your sales, revenue and customer loyalty numbers as they happen. Access from anywhere, at any time, at the touch of a button, to any online device.
Not yet signed up for Paymark Insights? Get in touch and we’ll set you up.