Welcome back! Let’s continue with the second episode of the data collection series and learn everything about data management! Last week we talked about data collection in general and which department can benefit from which data whereas today we will dive deeper into how to actually collect the data and how to manage the data. Later, we discuss the data that is available within the general data protection regulations (GDPR).
We want to make it short, snappy and convenient for you to have all the information at one sight and get familiar with the regulations!
Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
Data Collection Forms
After the last blog, you might wonder now: But how?!
Well, wonder no more! We will bring the data collection closer to you now. All in all, it all functions with data collection forms and it functions as easy as it sounds.
Data collection forms are the cornerstones of any data gathering and it is basically defined as any list of questions sent to employees or customers digitally and physically. Those questions should always be relevant and specific to only collect the data needed!
Crucial to clarify from the very first beginning is that there are many different collection forms:
- Lead capture forms
- Inquiry forms
- Request forms
- Application forms
- Research forms
- Support forms
Lead capture forms – Lead capture forms attract leads through webinars, sign-up, newsletters and so on.
Inquiry forms – Inquiry forms are contact forms to gather personal information. It is kept short and snappy. One example here is the contact form that Improovy asks to fill out when wanting to see case studies.
Request forms – Request forms are similar to inquiry forms, but allow you to gather personal information just broader, for example, donation forms.
Application forms – Application forms are forms with questions to gather information to find out the suitability of the customers with the company itself. Improovy, for example, has an application form included in the website for exactly that reason.
Research forms – Research forms are used for research purposes. Product feedback is one kind of research form.
Support forms – Support forms are touchpoints of existing clients asking them to leave a query.
All in all that can be summarized that data collection forms serve different reasons: market research, to gather contact details, or to figure out spending habits.
Moreover, sign-up forms, so lead capture forms, can be successfully used for retargeting when the email is collected.
In addition to those contact forms, data can be collected with polls and questionnaires as well.
A long form questionnaire gathers more than just personal data and indicates that all the questions asked are visible at one page. This kind of questionnaire is a so-called vertical data gathering form. In contrast, there is also a multi-step form. Here, every question has its own page which results in a higher conversion rate compared to the long form. This is because seeing all the questions at one page can be very overwhelming for the customer.
But how to create those questionnaires?
First of all, it is very important to be consistent! This way you focus on a continuous brand image and people won’t forget you that easily!
Moreover, make the questionnaire understandable. You want to gather information from a customer, so make it as easy as possible for the other party to understand for getting the most reliable information. So make it relevant, focussed and don’t put any distractions! Additionally, don’t use difficult language but keep it simple!
In the end, you want information, so just focus on making the questionnaire easy and convenient – don’t ask for too much and use multiple choice questions.
Another helping tool is to make use of smart goals. Which information do you want to collect? Why? Make it clear, precise, and detailed.
To focus on a high ROI (return on investment), focus on conversions! The landing page after the questionnaire is crucial to convert customers, so after submitting the questions. So, don’t forget to build a smart landing page with a clear call-to-action and a clear messaging in general!
Data Management
After collecting the data it is important to know what to do with it and how to manage it. Data management is basically the act of collecting data, analyzing it, and managing the data. It has several reason why data management is from importance:
- To solve customer issues and increase customer satisfaction – with improving based on data
- Increasing retention rate – because it was acted based on data
- For customer intelligence (CI) reasons – to improve sales and sales efficiency, to adapt to customer demands, to build a reliable and sustainable customer relationship, and to improve the customer experience for the loyalty stage in the customer journey
In fact, when focussing on customer experience, which is easy when doing data management right, the revenues increase 4-8%.
But what are the best practices for data management?
- User consent – Make sure with a ticking box that the user is okay with you collecting data. Being transparent here will make your company more trustworthy. Moreover, it is a must to align with the GDPR.
- Data security – If the user gave you a go, keep the information collected safe! Have a secure customer relationship management software with a back-up system.
- Ethical data collection – Ethical data collection is a must in today’s world where critical views on data collection increased! Again, make sure to have consent of the user, be transparent, and communicate openly about your reasons.
- No redundant data – To maintain trustworthy and to not overwhelm yourself, collect only relevant data that you need! So again, ask yourself which data you need and why.
- Data management software – Have a data management software but make sure it correlates with the general data protection rules. This data management software will help you to handle the data of your users easily without too much operation and complication.
- Validation tools – Clean up the data and make sure to have only updated data. Unnecessary data will just complicate the process for you.
- Trained employees – Train your employees for security measures to stress the fact how important ethical data collection is.
- Data access control – In order to keep a safe environment for your user’s data a data access control to your customer relationship management software is really helpful! Again, for ethical data collection reasons.
- Preventing data fragmentation – Keep it clean and relevant.
- Visualizing data – To understand the quality of your collected data, visualize it!
All in all it is important to say, always ask for consent, make your data gathering and management transparent in the privacy policy and don’t act against any regulations! To have a deeper look into the GDPR read our next blog coming soon!
Enjoy!
