Have you ever wondered how businesses, organizations or marketers assess their success and progress? They all make the most out of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in order to gauge their business performance. Therefore they will be able to meet their operational and strategic goals.
Whether you are a nonprofit organization, a small business, a large corporation or just a website owner, learning how to monitor and improve KPIs is of paramount importance for your company’s survival and for its prosperity. Read on to discover how to easily monitor and improve your KPIs.
Monitoring your KPIs – Effective Steps
The first thing you need to know about KPIs is that their aim is to help you complete & reach your organization’s objectives. Whether you use simple spreadsheets or sophisticated computer applications, you should be willing to monitor business performance. Having determined the right KPIs for your company, the next step is to ensure that you will be able to monitor them.
There are three main methods for tracking your KPI data: trend, change and benchmarks. The first method studies the data at various time intervals in order to understand if the trend is upward or downward. The second method compares data from different periods of time. The last method is used to compare data from a specific time frame against other variable considered stable. Each method is quite effective in its own way. However, the steps to monitoring your KPIs are standard. These are:
1. Establish which KPI you want to track: for starters, you need to establish which KPIs are the most valuable to your organization. Most companies define no more than 6 KPIs. For instance, a customer support department might track the total number of inbound calls, CSR quality rating, average wait time, customer satisfaction rating and total number of abandoned calls. Establish the best KPIs you want to track, taking into consideration your business needs and your niche.
Still, remember these four KPIs: customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, internal process quality and financial performance index. These four are considered the most important KPIs today that every manager has to use.
2. Segment the data by certain specific criteria: next, you need to ensure that you are looking at the right data. For instance, show product sales by country and region. Also, try to sort out customer calls by age and interests.
3. View dynamic data: in order to make real-time decisions which are much more informed, you need dynamic data, such as website analytical tools, including Google Analytics, Alexa or Web Trends.
4. Share your KPI results among departments: in order to fully assess the effects of various KPIs on your company, you need to ensure that all departments are well aware of these results. For example, your manufacturing department can greatly benefit of positive feedback from customers who interact with the customer service department.
5. Compare the data with other companies in your niche: data such as customer satisfaction, sales or operational costs should be compared to the data of your competitors in order to see in which areas you need to make improvements.
Improving your KPIs – A Complete Guide
You need to ensure that your organization is functioning at its highest capacity in order to thrive in your industry. As a business leader, you can easily improve all internal and external processes by measuring and by improving the KPIs. Use the following tips and start improving your KPIs for becoming successful in your industry.
1. Identify those areas & departments that can be improved based on the key performance measurements. For instance, if you run your own shop and you sell various products, you might see the need for diversification, in order to cater to all the needs of your customers. Similarly, if you run a large corporation and the average waiting time is higher than 5 minutes, you should probably invest in the customer service department – hire more people, offer rewards, buy faster desktops computers and invest in additional tools & software.
2. Start implementing changes: after you manage to identify those areas that need to be improved, you should aim for improving the KPIs related to these departments. Although most of these changes may be procedural, others may deal with people or with personal duties. Start by preparing written plans for each department in order to ensure your staff fully adopts these changes. For instance, if you have your own health care organization and you want to implement a new case management system, you should talk to your staff and tell them to organize the files in such a manner that patients with similar needs are cared only by doctors specialized in their specific needs.
The Bottom Line
Now you know how to monitor and improve KPIs. Capitalize on all these tips and steps and start getting your business to a whole new level. You might even break new ground in your niche by offering truly outstanding customer service services or high-end products that are superior that those of your competitors.
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