Analyzing customer sales data can help you to keep your company agile and responsive to your customer base.
But there are lessons to be learned and pitfalls to be avoided so that you use the data to improve sales productivity.
Here’s our handy guide on how to analyze customer sales data.
Collate Your Data
If your data is not brought together coherently it will defy all attempts to analyze it.
It can also be difficult to pick out anomalies or trends when data is just presented as a mass of numbers on a spreadsheet. To make this data more meaningful, graphical representations are needed.
It’s worth either getting seriously clued up with the functions of a spreadsheet program like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, or using a specific piece of software that can take data from multiple sources and present it logically.
Quality Check the Data
To analyze data and make important decisions from it, it is crucial that your data is good quality.
Consider the source, the accuracy and the quantity. Ask yourself:
- Is this data good enough, and sufficient, for me to draw meaningful conclusions from?
- Can I present my findings with confidence to key stakeholders, and know that the decisions we make will be based on the very best data available?
If the answer to either question is no, think about how the quality of data collection can be improved, or if there is additional data available to you that could fill in the blanks.
Also, data needs to be normalized, to iron out kinks and redundant data, allowing it to be compared and analyzed.
Drill Down to the Micro Level
Overall sales data is useful, but unless you analyze what underpins this, it’ll be impossible to identify trends that need your business needs to address.
By going down to the sales by stock keeping unit (SKU) level, you can see exactly how well each product is moving in each sector of your business.
Once you can see this data, look for patterns. For example, are sales of gloves up in Arizona, but down in Alaska? Did a promotion move lots of merchandise in Florida, but barely any in Kansas?
Once you spot these trends, ask the big question – why?
The key to planning your next move is in the answer to this question. The more intelligence you can gather about local markets or about the business from your staff and records, the more responsive your company will be able to be.
The Takeaway: How to Analyze Customer Sales Data
Collect good quality data and sufficient to see what’s going on, present it clearly and ask the right questions and your customer sales data analysis will unlock the secrets of your future growth.
The answers are there – you just need to do the digging to find them.
With strong analysis, forecasting and decision making will improve and you can move ahead with greater confidence.
