Remember the 80s? Well even if you weren’t around, movies will show you the business boom that happened during the era. Computers had come into an age of their own and everything from the stock market to the local accountant was using one. The world has suddenly become faster and customers could buy and be serviced like never before. Yet folders and files still existed because the storage capacity wasn’t up to scratch. Strangely, despite this problem being fixed businesses still use hard copy storage. With a supply and access to endless gigabytes of online storage, you would think that more businesses would utilize this new way of life. However, storing data is one thing but centralizing it is another. A cloud storage system can’t do everything even though it’s very useful. Data aggregation fixes this issue by gathering information and summarizing it into a statistical analysis form.
Customer journey
Singularity is the enemy of customer data analysis in the fact that, just looking at one line of data such as to how long a consumer stays on the landing page is shortsighted. A holistic view of the customer experience on your website and overall business can only be done if you study their journey. This is where data aggregation comes into play as it studies all the types of interaction possible. Instead of the customer telling you what they link through search engine results, a backtracking of their previous websites, data aggregation collects their previous purchases, and studies clicks they made onto advertisements before they ever reached your website. Their journey tracked from the very beginning will undoubtedly provide you with a more detailed picture of their habits and interests.
Cause and effect
All businesses and industries should have their data departments using aggregation for all kinds of uses. Marketing new and existing products to the correct customers are the glaringly obvious benefit to this practice. For traditional industries such as pharmaceuticals, patient history data is vital to know what kind of drug is going to be more effective. When patients move from one healthcare provider to another, their medical file is merely transferred over. However, if a healthcare company goes over the record and sees that all their options for treatment have already been exhausted by the previous provider, what can they do? A Hub Services Company can take their data, and cleanse, integrate and aggregate it. This data can then be supplied to specialist pharmacies which in turn contact manufacturers. A solution that may be less common or perhaps even new and in testing can then be offered to the patient. The hub has the provider, payer, pharmacy and manufacturer in one place where all data can be analyzed. Your business is doing less and getting more done with data aggregation services.
Smiling and pleased, you’re grateful that a customer has arrived at your business and is now buying from you. If you can track their footsteps and analyze how and why they got to you, your business moves closer to where they started from; securing a more immediate relationship. Data aggregation pools the relevant sectors of your industry into one space making it quicker for you to respond to the needs of your customers.