Real-Time Customer-Facing Reporting - Why Showing Users Data Sooner Rather than Later is Better

In today's fast-paced business environment, companies are increasingly turning to real-time data to gain a competitive edge. One of the examples are real-time live dashboards and up-to-the-minute reports.

While such dashboards and reports are extensively used internally (e.g. operational monitoring), in this article I will focus on the customer-facing ones. I'll explain why presenting data to your end-users sooner rather than later ... is better and brings many benefits.

I will intentionally skip use-cases such as real-time product recommendations, real-time personalisation, fraud detection, customer notifications such as alerts, anomalies and fraud, as they will be a topic of discussion in one of the next articles.

Let's start in real-time with real-world examples!

Increasing user engagement & retention

LinkedIn processes vast amounts of data in real-time, enabling features such as post impressions, article views, content performance and profile views - it displays them in the form of continuously updated dashboards and reports. These real-time content insights contribute to increased user engagement and retention.

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Of course, similar aggregated metrics and dashboards are provided by companies that allow their users to create their own content (e.g. posts, articles, podcasts and music) that can be consumed by other users. What's interesting is that this increases engagement for both creators and consumers, because consumers are often attracted by personalized trending and popular content.

An interesting example of this comes from Shopify. They have Live View to help their store owners track their store’s performance in real-time. Apart from increasing engagement, real-time store insights are key to optimizing their marketing campaigns and supply chain operations, especially during periods such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. (If you want to dig deeper into real-time analytics for e-commerce, read our blogpost: Nailing e-commerce: all data in near real-time analytics with Snowflake Dynamic Tables & Snowflake Alerts.) 

Reducing the costs of customer support

An interesting example of this can be seen at Florida Power & Light. This interactive dashboard allows customers to view real-time information on power outages and restoration efforts. This transparency helps customers stay informed about the status of their power supply and plan accordingly. This also saves on  customer service costs, simply because the real-time nature of the dashboard ensures that customers receive up-to-date information about outages and restoration efforts. This way it reduces the customer’s need to call FPL's customer service line for updates, as they can access the information they need directly from the dashboard.

Real-time dashboards help end users to self-troubleshoot the issues if they occur. For example, photovoltaic apps can display information about the amount of energy generated and consumed in real-time, so in case of any issues or damage, users can narrow down the source of the problem and possibly fix it by themselves e.g. restarting the device, checking the power supply etc. I have personally done this successfully several times without even needing to contact customer support.

One more good example is the Azure DevOps Services status portal, that displays up-to-date indicators which reflect the severity of a service health event, based on the number of customers affected by the issue. “Our top priority is to communicate the incident status and our next step is to mitigate the issue” says its documentation webpage. 

Similar dashboards can of course be built by companies that offer IoT solutions or similar, e.g. cars, electric bikes, ergometers or dishwashers, especially where there is a mobile app because it can display the health of the devices, KPIs and recent logs in real-time.

Dashboards and reports that promote transparency and self-service status updates can also be built by banks, telecoms and retail companies - anywhere where there is a need to contact customer support to ask questions, get documents, apply for item/money return or report issues. Typically, such inquiries take days to be resolved, so by having a live dashboard, users can track the progress and find out if it is necessary to send reminders, contact customer support again or just wait.

Enabling of self-service decision-making

By displaying real-time traffic conditions using color-coded overlays (e.g. green for light traffic, red for heavy traffic), Google Maps enables users to make informed decisions about their travel routes. Users can quickly identify congested areas and opt for alternative routes to save time, avoid frustration and enjoy a more pleasant travel experience. They can also estimate arrival times more accurately and make adjustments to their schedules as needed.

Of course, by only showing how to get from point A to point B, Google Maps would still be a useful app.  However, by showing additional information in real-time (e.g. traffic on the roads or crowded restaurants) it can provide even more value to the end user and outcompete other apps.

For example, banks and fintechs can also provide customer-facing real-time dashboards to display insights related to the customer's holdings, based on market news. This means  they can be continuously informed about risks and opportunities. What’s more, Gen AI and LLMs can be used to classify what the news is about, what financial instruments (e.g. stocks, currencies) it concerns, whether there are any potential issues or financial risks that could arise, based on the content of this news. For example, ING is leveraging the power of LLMs to automate the ingestion of multi-language news articles and generate high-level insights for informed decision-making. You can learn more by watching this fantastic video on YouTube.

Benefits of customer-facing real-time data reporting

There are a number of benefits of providing data to your end-users sooner rather than later:

1. Increased customer engagement, loyalty and retention - Real-time data reporting can gamify the customer experience, encouraging customers to engage more actively with the company's products or services.
2. Reduced customer support costs - By providing customers with real-time data and self-service tools, companies can reduce the volume of customer support inquiries. When customers have instant access to the information they need, they are less likely to contact support teams, saving the company time and resources.
3. Improved decision-making - Real-time data reporting enables customers to make informed decisions based on up-to-date information. For instance, real-time energy consumption dashboards allow customers to adjust their usage patterns to optimize costs and efficiency.
4. Competitive advantage and a more preferred product - Companies that offer real-time data reporting to their customers can make  themselves stand out from their competitors who lack this level of transparency and customer-centricity.
5. Building transparency and trust - Real-time data reporting demonstrates transparency and builds trust between the company and its customers. By providing customers with instant access to relevant data, such as order status, service performance, or account information, companies show that they have nothing to hide and are committed to keeping their customers informed. For example, real-time account dashboards help them monitor their usage and avoid unexpected charges.

From reports to immediate actions

Once data is collected and processed in real-time, you can also implement various new use-cases on top of this,  e.g. identify trends, fraudulent activity, anomalies and opportunities in real-time, as well as continuously personalizing customer interactions, display relevant ads, tailor product recommendations and send customer-facing notifications.

This will be a topic of the next article though, so I won't go into the details right now. 

Learning more about real-time data & AI

In case you are interested in

• how to build real-time live dashboards and up-to-the-minute reports
• what technologies to use
• how this can fit your existing data platform and data analytics & AI landscape
• best practices to follow and mistakes to avoid

then feel free to book a free 30-min consultation with GetInData here.