| > | | | | analyzing customer information, you can anticipate |
| For companies to succeed during tough economic | | | | your customers’ needs and desires. |
| times they will have to work harder and smarter than | | | | Who can Use Business Intelligence? |
| their competitors. | | | | Any business that uses an IT system that records and |
| Better products and services will have to be created | | | | stores data about customer activity, revenue, and |
| and strong customer relationships will have to be | | | | profit can benefit from business intelligence. Your |
| fostered. Fortunately, you can leverage the data that | | | | company can use BI to determine how well you |
| you have about your customers to improve customer | | | | measure up to customer expectation and where you |
| satisfaction using business intelligence. By ensuring | | | | are lacking. Using the information generated by your |
| that your customers are happy now, you can rest | | | | business intelligence system, you can decide which |
| assured that the next time they have to pay for a | | | | direction to go to improve your relationship with your |
| product or service, your company will immediately | | | | customer and your bottom line. The ability to mine |
| come to mind. | | | | and apply CRM (Customer Relationship Management) |
| Leveraging Customer Information | | | | principals to your customer data can prove to be |
| By taking the information that you have and | | | | invaluable for your sales team regardless of your |
| strategizing around what new information to collect, | | | | business’s size. You can focus in on your |
| you can use business intelligence to get to know your | | | | customer and present them with options that are |
| customers better and make informed decisions on | | | | more appealing to them right off the bat instead of |
| products and services that can help them right now or | | | | filtering through a variety of products and services to |
| in the future. With products and services that are | | | | see which one fits while you have them on the phone |
| uniquely tailored to the customer, your sales team can | | | | or in the store. Business intelligence is only as good |
| leverage the results of your analysis to your | | | | as the results it produces for a business, but by using |
| company’s advantage. Anticipating that your | | | | the information you get from your customer data, you |
| customers might be budgeting and offering them a | | | | can see improvement for your company. The more |
| product that will help them cut costs is one way to | | | | satisfied your customer, the greater the chance they |
| gain loyalty and repeat business when money is tight. | | | | will remain loyal to your brand. They will be more |
| In addition, being aware of the inevitable for your | | | | willing to recommend your product to their friends and |
| current consumer base is very important. As much | | | | more likely to purchase your product over another |
| as companies need to attract new business from a | | | | company’s when the time comes to buy |
| younger generation to stay buoyant, they also need to | | | | again. Business intelligence can help you gain the |
| be aware of the changing needs of their current | | | | advantage over your competition by focusing on your |
| customers in order to capitalize on their hopefully | | | | customers in addition to your other Key Performance |
| improved purchasing power. By tracking and | | | | Indicators. |