Data Automation and AI Analytics

Today, we are proud to introduce a new guest writer. C. Stephen Clegg is a Managing Director at Winsby Inc. where he oversees the analytics division, Zintoro. He’s developed an AI model that shows exactly what your company’s strength and weaknesses are, based on your past three years of invoice data. The model is trained to predict where your revenues, customer retention, and purchase frequency are headed if nothing changes in your approach. It also provides the ROI on Winsby’s marketing programs, according to your customers’ purchases. In his debut blog for Learning Without Scars, he writes about data automation and AI analytics.

Data Automation and AI Analytics

Today, data automation and AI analytics is available for equipment dealers to easily service their
customers by identifying what defines the best customer service to drive profitable growth. The
days of opinions, intuition and guessing to make business decisions are in the past.
These automated and AI driven systems are affordable to almost every dealer of any size to
compile metrics into simple actionable real time reports and forecast the future. This approach
allows management and employees at every level to focus on what the customer needs and
expects while anticipating what resources will be required in the future. The ROI on these
programs is paid for many times over with reduced operating, sales, and marketing costs.
The equipment industry is extremely cyclical and seasonal. Most equipment dealers do not have
the tools, key metric reports and forecasting programs to take action and make intelligent
decisions in a timely manner. They often rely on subjective metrics that are not linked to
measurable operating and financial results. The lack of usable data causes management to be
reactive and always scrambling to solve the latest unanticipated problem.
Successful equipment dealers use AI automated systems and reports to monitor and solve their
major customer service and customer engagement issues which include: employee engagement
with customers, internal operating performance metrics, customer retention and engagement,
and identifying and closing sales opportunities.
If you do not have accurate operating and financial information, you will be unable to allocate
your time and resources effectively to the activities that will keep your dealership profitable and
support your future growth.
Programs such as Zintoro.com Artificial Intelligence (AI) Analytics shows you what you can
expect in your business over the next 12 months. It forecasts the number of transactions, the
number of active customers, and the expected revenues with an accuracy that exceeds 95%. It
also provides specific recommendations on how to improve your growth. This data can be
analyzed by department and by location, as well as overall.
The platform identifies customers that are at risk of being lost and tracks key metrics on a rolling
12-month basis, shows and tracks the key metrics that drive your company’s growth and
identifies leads for your sales reps.
By understanding your potential for growth and your current market position, the program
identifies the areas where you are falling short and where you excel, producing insights, backed
by data, into how to grow effectively and efficiently. The program is also able to identify what
tools are working and which customers are at risk of leaving, and it shows the markets and
industries you need to target to grow your business profitably.

The reports clearly identify sales reps, departments and customers that require attention, so you
have an easy-to-follow road map for growth using the key metrics and forecasts.

Some of the core key metrics reports used by successful equipment dealers include:
o Forecast and actual results for revenue, transactions, and active customers by
customer, department, branch and overall
o Sales retention leads for your sales reps to contact—customers in danger of being
lost
o Comparative rankings for branches and sales representatives
o Market Industry Analysis with the greatest opportunities
o ROI on sales and marketing programs

The following is an example of a Revenue ROI report for marketing programs, such as calling
prospects and customers and sending information to them, distributing emails, and conducting
customer satisfaction surveys, removing the guesswork from whether your marketing and sales
programs are working.

The equipment industry is a difficult business to operate. Zintoro.com, an AI analytics program,
allows you to plan and focus on building your business versus always struggling to react to
customer demands.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.

For our course lists, please click here.

TESTIMONIALS

Just a short note. A good man with a world of experience is starting into the world of the blog. His blog is - growth without pain. Check it out you won't be sorry. The time is now.

May 3, 2012

Are We In a Golden Age of Information?

Are we in a Golden Age of information? I have to admit that I am being spoiled almost every single day. Every day, 99% of everything I can think of for which I do not know the answer I can find the answer. It is remarkable. I can Google darn near everything and find it. I can search through a “magnifying glass” on most of the website I use. I don’t have to go to the library or “call a friend.”

So that is a wonderful thing. I can get answers to almost all of my questions. But there are several questions I still struggle with on a daily basis. The most important one is “WHY?”

And no, the answer is NOT why not. That is much too easy. It is being lazy. Although I still think I have lazy tendencies most people don’t equate the word “lazy” with me. I do too many things, poorly perhaps, but a lot of things get done. Every day. And be fair to yourself too. You get a lot done every day as well.

But the WHY questions haunt me. Constantly. I have been cursed I suppose because I never got over the “why” phase of my life when I was growing up. Do you remember those days yourself? Why is the sky blue? Why is clear water in a lake black? Or as George Carlin made famous “why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway?”

Alex Schuessler coined a phrase I can’t get out of my head. We have gone from “Paper to Glass.” We have taken most “computer improvements” and moved from a six-part paper form (PAPER) we filled in with a pen and put the document on a computer screen (GLASS).

I have been involved with computerization all my work life. I took “computer science” as a minor at university. We used punch cards, FORTRAN and COBOL programming languages. I wanted to get a job as a computer programmer but IBM wasn’t hiring when I finished school. When I started in the business in 1969. I was hired to find and fix a problem with a computer software installation. The Parts Inventory, which was managed with a “Double Exponentially smoothly Poisson mathematical statistics model (Phew). I didn’t know it at the time but that turned out to be an unbelievably wonderful opportunity for me both professionally and personally.

Of course, we found the problem and fixed it. From that point on I was put into areas where there were some problems or difficulties or situations that needed to be solved. Looking back, I couldn’t have designed a better training program for my work life as a consultant. I was involved in “CQI” - Continuous Quality Improvement or “TQM” – Total Quality Management right from the beginning. Typically, however, is I had a question that I needed to have answered I either had to ask someone and they gave me their opinion or I had to start my own research. I did both and I had many men who were mentors or helped me along the way.

So today I don’t need to ask anyone other than my phone or my computer. But the WHY question still lurks out there.

I talk to a lot of people in the industry. I talk to leaders, managers, workers everybody. They are normally asking me questions. As in my classes and our employee development business, Learning Without Scars, I use the Socratic method of teaching. I rarely answer questions. I typically flip the question and ask what the person asking the question thinks is the answer. And normally they have a very good answer. BUT they lack confidence. That is a learned response. When we challenge the status quo, and want to make a change. There are a lot of people that are vested in the current methods and approaches. They dismiss your ideas out of hand. Many times, they make it personal and disparage you. In a normal manner we start complying and fitting into the current mode of doing things. That is really disappointing to me.

As a consultant I am being paid for my opinions. As an employee you are being paid to do a job. There is a real difference there. Happily, those days are coming to an end. We are on the cusp of a generational change in almost all aspects of our society and workplace. The Alpha Generation, Gen Z and Gen X and even the younger millennials will not accept the status quo. That is part of the reason for what Sonya Law calls “The Great Reshuffle.” That is what we call in America the “Great Resignation.” That somehow changes the onus of responsibility, doesn’t it? It isn’t because we wanted to have a more challenging job. It is that we quit.

We have many opinion surveys, from watching television with the Nielson ratings to the famous Gallup Polls. We seem to want to have reasons for everything. We want to understand why things happened. Gallup says that employees are leaving their jobs because they don’t feel that they are engaged at work in what they do. I liken that to a tool box. An employee has a “task” that needs to be done. They define the kind of tool that is required to perform the task. Think of a job description and performance standards and job prerequisites. They interview people for the job. They hire the person that they think is best for the job. In my way of thinking they “bought a tool” to perform the task. Then someone teaches them (they call it on the job training) how to do the job. Then they have the employee practice it and get faster and faster at it. They want efficiency in performance. That means speed. Then business establishes performance criteria - they call them metrics, for what productivity should be for any specific aspect of their businesses. One common metric is sales per employee. This is measured in terms of currency. Money. And the common thinking is that the higher the number the better it is. That might be applicable in some areas but how do you think it works in a customer service environment? The higher the sales per employee, that means there will be fewer people to do the job. That means customers will wait. It first became evident to me when we introduced “Call Waiting.” The phone would ring and ring because we didn’t have enough people to answer the phone. Do you remember “Can I put you on a brief hold?” Then we got to “Voice Mail.” We were told there would be a wait but would you like to leave a message and someone will call you right back. Remember that? Then I found some dealers had a radio type of message running while the customer was on hold. Some dealer actually had every call listen to the commercial before the call was answered. I was only 30 seconds that won’t hurt anything. Who are we trying to satisfy here? The company or the customer.

I am asked often – “why aren’t customers loyal anymore?” Or I hear “Customer Loyalty is a thing of the past” To both comments I ask – “What have we done to make our customers loyal to us?”

My conclusion is that we haven’t done very much to make our customers loyal.

Yes, we are in the Golden Ago of information. We can get answers to almost all of our questions. We still don’t have the answers to the most important questions. What does our customer want and need and desire? Until we start focusing on those questions pertaining to our share of the after-market business, parts and labor, will continue to decline. And please don’t forget. That is where you make all of your money.

I would hope that there is a tingling somewhere in your body. YOU are at RISK. Unless we start to concentrate on making our customers happy more than we concentrate on making money WE all will be at RISK. I think we need to get to work.

The Time is Now.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.

For our course lists, please click here.

June 29, 2022