The data-driven approach has become a cornerstone for business success in the digital age. By implementing effective dashboards, retailers have the ability to make the most of the data at their disposal. These visual, easy-to-understand dashboards allow leaders to make decisions based on concrete, up-to-date information.
In this article, we will discover the benefits of this tool and some examples of metrics that can be visualized on the dashboard, find out everything we have to tell you in this article!
Dashboard features
Dashboards can be seen as a “summary” that collects data from different sources and optimizes decision making in just a glance at the screen. Some basic features of this tool are:
- Visually appealing and easy to understand. Information is presented in a clear and concise manner, helping users to quickly understand critical data.
- Customized: according to the needs of the retailer and the individual user. This means that users can see only the information that is relevant to them.
- Real-time: users can make informed decisions based on the latest data.
- Interactive: they allow users to dig deeper into the data and explore different aspects of the information presented.
- Goal-oriented: they are designed to help users achieve specific objectives. For example, a sales dashboard can help sales managers make informed and strategic decisions to increase sales.
What value do dashboards bring to decision making?
This tool is important in companies because it provides a quick, visual view of key data and metrics related to business performance. Some of the keys to the importance of dashboard use are:
- Quick and easy access to data: they provide a quick and easy view of critical data.
- Informed decision making: by providing real-time, up-to-date information, dashboards enable more informed and strategic decisions.
- Clear and effective communication: by communicating important information clearly and effectively to team members.
- Problem identification: by displaying real-time information, it optimizes the identification of potential problems before they become major issues.
- Trend analysis: display data over time, allowing you to analyze long-term trends and patterns.
What information can be displayed on a dashboard?
As we have already mentioned, dashboards are an essential tool for analyzing data and making informed decisions in any type of organization. However, not all metrics are equally important for all retailers or situations.
In general, the metrics included in a dashboard should be relevant to the retailer’s or team’s specific objectives and provide valuable and easily understandable information. Some of the metrics that can be displayed on a dashboard are:
- KPI’s: KPI’s can vary by industry, company size and specific goals, but some common examples include return on investment (ROI), cost per customer acquisition (CAC), conversion rate and customer satisfaction.
- Trend analysis: by observing trends over time, teams can identify patterns and changes in performance, which can help predict and prevent future problems. Trend metrics can include the rate of revenue growth, change in production costs or the evolution of traffic to a website.
- Operational efficiency: these metrics help identify bottlenecks in operational processes and allow teams to optimize their performance. Some of the metrics can be production cycle time, customer waiting time or technical support response time.
- Competitive benchmarking: these metrics allow retailers to compare their performance with that of their direct competitors and measure their position in the market. Examples of comparison metrics may include market share, customer satisfaction rating and cost per click on online ads.
But… What metrics to add to a retail dashboard?
If you still don’t know what metrics to add to your dashboard, don’t worry! Here are some metrics you can consider including for sales, operations, marketing and customer service.
Operations Dashboard
- Order Fulfillment Rate: proportion of orders that are fulfilled within the established time.
- Inventory level: quantity of products or raw materials on hand for production or sale.
- Cycle time of the production process: time it takes from the moment a request is received until the job is completed. It is a very useful metric to optimize the process and achieve greater production efficiency.
- Production defect rate: percentage of defective products or services that do not meet specifications.
- Machinery downtime: time in which machinery is not in use due to repairs, maintenance or breakdowns.
- Production capacity utilization efficiency: amount of work completed in a given period of time relative to the amount of resources used.
Commercial Dashboard
- Total revenue: monetary amount generated through sales or contracts.
- Net profit: total revenue minus costs.
- Number of new customers: number of customers added in a given period of time.
- Lead conversion rate: number of leads that convert into customers. This metric is important to know if it is necessary to increase leads or optimize strategies to improve conversion.
- Average sales value: average value of each sale made.
- Customer renewal rate: proportion of existing customers who have renewed their contracts or re-purchased in a given period of time.
Marketing Dashboard
- Website traffic: number of visitors to the website in a given time period. On its own this is not a metric that gives us much information, but it is necessary to take it into account to know if the brand is generating interest.
- Website bounce rate: the proportion of visitors who leave the website after viewing a single page. Fundamental data to know if the website is attractive to users. If it turns out to be a very high percentage, measures should be taken before continuing with the defined strategy.
- Time spent on the website: average time visitors spend on the website.
- Conversion rate of visitors to leads: number of visitors that convert to leads or potential customers. In many cases, it will be necessary for the user to visit the website several times in order to convert them into customers.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA) of customers: average cost of acquiring a lead or potential customer.
- Return on investment (ROI): the amount of revenue generated by advertising campaigns in relation to the cost of investment. This metric indicates whether the budget invested in marketing is paying off.
Customer Service Dashboard
- Average response time: average time the customer service team takes to respond to customer requests or complaints: the lower the time, the better. In case it is a high time, you need to find out why.
- Average problem resolution time: average time it takes to resolve customer problems. If it is too long, it may mean that an increase in staff is needed.
- Number of open and closed cases: number of requests or complaints that are open and closed in a given period of time. This allows to ensure that the staff is sufficient for the current level of work or, conversely, if the team needs to be increased.
- Customer satisfaction level: measure of customer satisfaction with the service or product.
- Call abandonment rate: proportion of calls that are abandoned before they are handled.
- Repeat call rate for the same problem: proportion of customers who have to call several times to solve the same problem.
Let’s get to work… Where can you build dashboards?
There are several platforms that can help retailers visualize and analyze their data more efficiently. In this article, we will show 4 of the most popular platforms that will be useful for creating dashboards:
Tableau: one of the most popular tools. It is a powerful platform that allows real-time data visualization, which makes it ideal for companies that need to make quick decisions based on real-time data. Tableau also has a wide variety of customization and visualization options, making it a versatile tool.
Microsoft Power BI: is a data analysis platform that enables the creation of interactive dashboards. It facilitates integration with multiple data sources and has an intuitive interface, capable of creating dashboards without programming knowledge. It is also a highly scalable tool, perfect for growing retailers.
Qlick View: a data analytics platform that makes it easy for retailers to visualize and analyze data from a variety of sources. It uses a “data association” technology that allows users to explore and analyze data in an intuitive and natural way, without the need to define complex queries in advance.
Google Data Studio: a free data visualization platform that makes it possible to connect to multiple data sources and create customized dashboards. It has an easy-to-use interface and integrates seamlessly with other Google tools such as Google Analytics and Google Ads.
Find out how to implement them in your company!
We have extensive experience in Data Visualization and development of dashboards that facilitate the monitoring and extraction of business insights. We cover the entire creation process, from the definition of KPIs to the production of dashboards. In addition, our use cases integrate analytics within Tableau and Power BI solutions that provide intelligence for decision making.
Want to learn more? Talk to us and we will answer all your questions.