Closed Loop Reporting: Why Your Business Success Hinges Upon It

Business success doesn’t necessarily go to the bravest and strongest, although those qualities help. Business success goes to the analysts, the people who close the gaps, or loops, in their data streams.

By implementing closed loop reporting, they receive more detailed information about the entire business, from marketing and sales to customer service and call center solutions. They then turn that information into actionable insights, thereby enhancing business performance and day-to-day workflows.

When it comes to your business and its success, there are a couple of things you need to know about closed loop reporting and its role in improving business systems like call center solutions and CRM tools. The first thing to learn: key performance indicators (KPIs).

What Are Key Performance Indicators?

“Key performance indicators” or its acronym “KPIs” gets thrown around quite a bit in business conversations. But what does the term actually mean?

Simply put, KPIs put a quantitative value on crucial business objectives. The numbers act as objective measurements that assess your company’s effectiveness and overall success in reaching business goals.

KPI Best Practices
1. KPIs must be descriptive and quantifiable. (If you can’t put a number on the item, it isn’t a KPI.)
2. KPIs should be shared across the organization, not contained within a single department. (This proves especially pertinent when using closed loop reporting. Sharing KPIs can showcase how one department’s work impacts another.)
3. KPIs should be “key” to your goals. (That is, get rid of the fluff and focus on the necessities.)
4. KPIs should be aligned to your line of business and/or department. (Share KPIs, yes, but spend your days reaching the ones applicable to your department rather than someone else’s.)

KPI Examples for Call Centers
1. First Call Resolution (FCR), the number of calls resolved in a single contact with the customer.
2. Average Handle Time (AHT), the average total duration of a call.
3. Agent Schedule Adherence
4. Right Party Contact (RPC), the number of calls connecting with the correct party.
5. Hold Time, Idle Time, and Aux Time

Your KPIs likely differ from other businesses, and that’s okay. They should look a little different. The objectives important to your business may not be as essential to another. Regardless, you and that other company measure KPIs to ensure you’re on the right path and still headed in the best direction.

What Is Closed Loop Reporting?

Closed loop reporting generally describes a process that occurs between marketing and sales. It “closes the loops” between the data collected in a marketing automation system and the data gathered within a customer relationship management (CRM) platform.

The subsequent integration of data streamlines efficacy, or return on investment (ROI). With closed loop reporting, the C-suite doesn’t keep asking about marketing’s value to the organization, where leads are coming from, or how salespeople are following up with potential customers. They know that information — in concrete terms — because of the closed loop.

The shared data also enables greater efficiency and productivity across the organization. No one’s in the dark about who’s doing what or waiting for data to appear. Everyone has access to the information, from the marketing person qualifying sources to the salesperson contacting viable leads.

However, your business’ critical functions transcend marketing and sales. They also include customer service, an essential component in standing out from the competition and strengthening customer loyalty.

You can close that particular loop, too, thanks to call center solutions like TCN’s. It brings together all the data pools so that you can improve service and increase sales along every point of the customer journey.

How Does Closed Loop Reporting Help With Understanding KPIs?

Because closed loop reporting gets rid of the gaps in data streams, you can easily pinpoint where your leads come from and what happens after the initial point of contact. That information helps with KPIs because you gain a better understanding of time, money, marketing campaigns, leads, customers, and sales and customer service efforts.

In the past, you would have studied these data sets by department, then attempted to combine the findings in some sort of overarching analysis. The work took a lot of time and effort and possibly left you scratching your head.

The work doesn’t occur that way anymore. At least, it doesn’t have to. Big data and business intelligence have forever altered how you measure and refine efforts. The solutions parse the data for you, getting you to numbers that matter — the KPIs — faster.

Some solutions make the work even simpler than that. TCN’s cloud-based call center platform, for instance, features an intuitive and graphical dashboard. You can customize it so that you always see your company’s KPIs upon login. That information can then be used immediately to effect change within a single department or across the organization.

Closed loop reporting, combined with big data and KPIs – from call center business intelligence – makes a difference. It cements your success, and it guarantees your business’ longevity. If you’re interested in learning more about how big data and measurement can help your business grow, check out our infographic.