[PODCAST] Meten is (z)weten: waarom dashboards je voor de gek houden 📊
Watch on YouTubeVideo summary
The podcast features a strategic discussion between host Harry van Ek, Raymond Pietersen from Kompas CRM, and Wouter Schram from SuperOffice, focusing on the critical relationship between data quality and business decision-making. The central argument challenges the common belief that watertight data analysis is the sole prerequisite for sound strategy; instead, the guests emphasize that while data provides the hard evidence, human expertise, market knowledge, and organizational context are equally vital. They illustrate how companies often fall into the trap of "window dressing," where inaccurate or biased data—such as sales teams attributing lost deals solely to price rather than product fit—is used to justify decisions without proper validation.
A significant portion of the conversation addresses the fragmentation of data ownership across different departments, particularly between sales and service functions. The hosts explain that CRM is frequently misunderstood as merely a sales tool, whereas it should serve as a comprehensive system for managing the entire customer journey involving finance, marketing, and support. This siloed approach leads to inconsistent data definitions, such as varying interpretations of what constitutes a "customer" or how many addresses should be stored, which creates confusion when processes change. The dialogue highlights that without clear agreements on roles and responsibilities, data quality degrades rapidly because employees view entering specific fields as an irrelevant burden rather than a necessary step for their own downstream processes.
The discussion further explores the misuse of metrics like KPIs and NPS, noting that many organizations focus only on end-level results while ignoring the process measurements that actually drive those outcomes. The guests argue that KPIs should be viewed as thermometers indicating progress toward strategic goals rather than just targets for bonuses, and they stress the importance of defining sub-KPIs to identify specific areas of improvement. They also touch upon the subjectivity inherent in data entry, such as reasons for lost leads, which can easily become biased interpretations unless validated by objective feedback mechanisms like customer surveys or behavioral data analysis.
In conclusion, the panelists offer a practical remedy for these systemic issues: organizations must visually map out their end-to-end processes and data flows to ensure clarity and accountability. By writing down every step of the customer journey and explicitly defining which data is needed at each stage, companies can avoid accumulating irrelevant fields and ensure that data remains relevant and actionable. The ultimate takeaway is a call for critical thinking regarding one's own data sources, urging businesses to ask four fundamental questions about their data strategy: what they aim to achieve, why specific data is chosen, how it will be utilized, and who holds responsibility for its accuracy, thereby laying a solid foundation for future AI initiatives.
Read the full video transcript
Welcome to Impactmakers, the
SuperOffice podcast about all topics
related to, uh, CRM, that flow
and everything. And today, two very
interesting guests. In this case
Raymond Pietersen eh from Kompas and
Wouter Schram from SuperOffice. My name
is Harry van Ek. I am a sales philosopher,
and we are going through a
half-hour customer journey in which we are going to call everything about... uh... up
for discussion. NPS is coming by
. We are going to talk about, uh, the
data quality
that we have or don't have. We are going to
look at how you can actually optimize the
synchronization between data and the CRM
system, and what the role
of humans is in this. My name is
Harry van Hek. I am a sales philosopher.
Remon, I would like to start with three
statements. That is something we, uh,
do as standard. And after that, I would like to
invite you to briefly introduce yourself and tell me
exactly what you do. The
first question. The
first question I have for you is to measure
and know. One of those
slogans used everywhere.
Is that really the overused cliché
in the business-to-business market?
Uh, the cliché hasn't been misused. Uh, but
the definition is even being misused. Um,
so uh, that's a no. A
no. And for you?
Um, for me it's a no too.
Also a no.
You already agree on a nice
conversation. Of course
. Systems that do not communicate with each other
demotivate your employees. Yes or
no?
Absolute.
Absolute. Yes.
Absolute. You really agree
with each other. Sound strategic advice
is impossible without watertight
data analysis.
Not true. I
find that one, uh, difficult. Um,
I don't see that as true either.
Nice. I'll get back to you on that in a moment. Raymon,
can you briefly tell me what you do? Yes.
Uh, director of uh, of Compas RM. Uh,
we focus on uh on
data flows, optimizing
data flows across the board,
integrations, migrations, data cleansing,
keeping data sources uh clean across the
board. Absolutely beautiful.
Good. I think it would be nice to briefly return
to one of those things. That sound
strategic advice is impossible without
watertight data analysis.
What made you say no?
Um, data is an important part
of your business process. Absolute.
But it is not the only thing. It is
about knowledge and expertise, and that comes
partly from data. That is the
hard side of this story. But of
course, it's about market knowledge, which ca
n't always be captured in that. Okay
.
So I think it is, for me
it is too sharp. Um, it is absolutely
part of the strategic advice,
but it is not the only twist. Yes.
You were there too, uh... Well
, I often see the data as
evidence of certain... well, you can actually...
you can use it at the beginning
to go in certain directions,
and then combine it... indeed, I agree
with you, with certain knowledge that
exists, but also, for example, a team that
you have as a company. So where do
my competencies or
people's competencies lie? Um, then
choices are made, and you can
subsequently prove those with new data
. Um, the waterproof part,
I agree 100,000% with that.
Because, well, what we often see is
that it is used to prove certain choices
, but the data is not always
accurate. Hmm hmm.
Uh, but it is made correct. And
uh, and that is of course a very big
risk. A kind of window
dressing. Uh
yes,
that that there is another
nice word a nice word for it. Yes. Yes yes yes
. You see this happening more often at companies:
people say, "
Yes, the Excel, the Excel, the data isn't correct."
No, exactly. Yes.
Yes, but that is uh exactly where
that measuring is sweating or uh knowing uh
naturally plays a role. Well, what if
we tackled that subject,
right? That we all want to manage based on
numbers, don't we? We see that in
football. All data analyses, and yet
still making choices.
Uh, but on the other hand, those sources
often contradict each other, right? Because, but
how exactly do you deal with that? How, how, how does
that confusion actually arise in
those organizations?
I think that what you naturally see
in the conversations we have with supervisors
is that you have domains and
data. And for me, data is an end-to-
end process, from the beginning of your journey with
a client to the delivery of
services and the follow-up of services. Um,
and everyone talks way too much about those
subdomains, right? Whether you are
talking to sales, servers, or
finance. No one has the end-
to-end data process in the EH in order,
or even keeps track of it.
Yes,
that is an important one in our
conversations, you know, that is; I
very often use the metaphor of the
table. The data is here on the table, and you
extract what you need for
your role and your position. Hmm hmm.
Well, what exactly do you mean by that?
Um,
just making the link with CRM, okay? CRM
is a very broad definition to me. Uh,
but the definition of a customer is
different for a salesperson than for
a finance manager. Says no, my
client isn't paying. So for a salesperson,
a customer can have a different definition,
a different content, or even a
different value than for a
finance manager. So, so
what you are actually saying is that is also
a personal interpretation that has to do
with absolutely
the role of data in the
customer relationship.
But that is exactly what it could be about
. It is not your personal
interpretation. It is the value you assign to it
in your chain. Yes.
Huh, that's like when sales, uh, considers a
valuable customer, uh, something a
valuable customer with potential,
but he doesn't want to pay. Um, what is
the definition, uh, of his perception then? Yes.
Um,
ultimately that is again the determining factor within
a company. You would say management,
but how do you see that in your experience? Um,
we have practical examples
where sales thought they were in charge
of customers and customer information. Uh,
but the numbers proved otherwise. Yes.
Is it that, or is that also because sales is
good at making things look nicer or more
positive, after all? Um,
that is a qualification. I think that
they have a different perception of their
added value. Sales is, of course,
the basis of everything. Marketing before that
. But that is naturally the
precursor to that. And sales sometimes lives
in its own world of "I have to,
uh, sell my product, my products." Um,
we are actually looking at it from the other
side: does the product actually fit into the
chain of solutions at companies? Hmm hmm.
So we actually always look end-to-
end from the process to data to
applications, and rarely, uh, from data to
just an application. Yes.
Yes, that seems very complex, doesn't it,
when you, uh, describe that. Um, if you have to
explain that very simply, uh,
what is data then?
Um, well, I sometimes make the
comparison with when you go grocery shopping,
uh, at Albert Heijn or
another store. Um, you take you have
a recipe in mind, uh, and the
ingredients are the data you need
to come up with a recipe. What you
do with it and whether you are a good cook is
not stated in the recipe. Um, but you
need at least the basic data to
come home with the, uh, with the right
stuff to do something with. Yes.
So data are the building blocks of
processes, the building blocks of
applications, uh, the building blocks of
reports. Hmm hmm.
But how do you determine those
building blocks, then? I find that "that that" an
interesting phenomenon, don't you know, because everyone
has their own idea about the data
they want to capture. But how do
you determine what the truly most important
data is, right? Suppose you let go of the idea
that everyone considers their own data the most
important.
But you were going to look at standardizations
. Then, how much information about a
customer do you want to store?
Are those five fields or are those 500
fields? There are not 500 of them, and not
five either. Um, so increasingly, if you've been
around in this world a bit longer, we see that there are standards
around customer data, standards around
product data, and
standards around supplier data. And
we really try to bring the client
back to the standards, because
applications are also moving in that direction. Yes.
And uh, can you give a few
examples of standards?
Um, a
very simple practical example is:
how many addresses do you record for a
customer? Okay
. Uh, a salesperson who says: "I want to
know the visiting address of the head office and I want to know the visiting address
of the branches." Um, if you are
delivering products, uh, it depends
on the market, then you also want to
know the service locations. Sales has
nothing to do with that, but your
service department does. Where should the
invoice go? Um, so the source of the data
is naturally derived from what
I use it for. Precisely.
And in the example of CRM
systems, I very often see that we have
one address or five addresses, but
actually you want to be able to record an infinite number of addresses
depending on your
business model.
Yes, also depends on how the client is
organized
and what the client is like. Absolute.
Yes,
but that argues in favor of possibly
defining that data centrally after all. Yes. Um, that explains
my table model. Uh, all
Tava is here on the table in one model, or
in multiple models if you would like to use it otherwise
.
Uh, but
realizing where your data lives in
your system is incredibly
important. Um, and that you're going to manage that from the
central
location is evident. Yes.
Uh, but of course we often have
discussions about where the real
data lives? Who is responsible for
customer data? Who is responsible for
financial data? Who is responsible
for a customer's service address?
Is that sales or is that service?
What is your experience with how
well companies can understand this?
Um, do it
like I do... I'm not going to give a grade for that
, but the average company is
relatively bad at this. Yes. Hmm hmm. Back again to the
one before the previous
section. Um, people think in
columns; uh, sales needs x information,
and that is his world. That is what
he focuses on, that is what he looks at, that is what
he collects. Um, but if I
ask the average salesperson, do you
mind
putting the service contact person's email address in there as well? Tell
me, why would I do that? Yes. Hmm hmm.
Is it perceived as a burden at that
moment, then?
At that moment, it is perceived as a burden
because it is not relevant to
your job. Relevant for the
central data packet and relevant for
your business processes.
Yes, in the past I have been heavily
involved in, let's say, making
uh CLM systems operational. Yes.
Um, so I'm happy to leave the technical side
to other people, but with the use
of CRM systems, you see that salespeople,
but also marketers, sometimes struggle
to determine which fields to create on
the one hand,
and on the other hand, once you've
created them, there is, let's say, no
motivation to fill those fields. Yes.
Uh, but how do you manage that
? Well, look, there are of course
a number of them, and the thing is that we normally start
with the process flow. Just
simply explain, uh, what are the
actions you take. Take the
customer journey, what actions are involved in the
customer journey, and what data do you
need for your customer journey, your
company, and your products? Uh, make
it, make it visible. Um, then there wo
n't be any weird, uh, weird fields in it. Um,
that is one side of the story. So you are
going to look at the data you are storing per role and per system
, but you
also look at which data is permanently recorded at which moment
, but also reused
in other systems.
So, on the one hand, we speak very
clearly from the perspective of the CRM strategy:
what do you need to be able to do CRM?
But again, what is the definition? But
how can you reuse that data as cleanly as possible
on the other side of the
chain? Are
you laying that, um, or what is your vision?
Because I have that on myself too. But are
you placing a certain
responsibility there? Is it right to
place that with a sales team?
No.
So, for example, regarding that
service address—if it has to be in CRM anyway—
is that useful?
Um no, the sales team must
be responsible for the sales
part of CRM. Uh, but you see that
very often, of course, and you see that in a
lot of conversations. CRM is by
definition translated as being, well, a
sales system. Uh, CRM is a sales system.
While I think of CRM as a system
that you use to create your customer overview
. That applies to sales, that applies
to service, that applies to finance.
Um, so your CRM data is much broader than just
your sales data. Yes. Is that where
the biggest misunderstanding lies,
that people really, truly think CRM is a
matter for sales? I, I, I had
a conversation yesterday with a client about, uh, a
sales system, uh, a sales system, and the
burden sales had on
entering the data. Yes.
And my simple question right away: what
exactly do you have to fill in? Yes, I have a
list here with 30 fields that I need to
fill in to get the results.
If you then ask the question: "Why are
you doing that?" Yes, IT wants that. Yes. Yes. Uh,
why does IT want that? Because they initially
need those fields to be
able to start a process. Yes.
But it is not stated that she has to
fill it out.
No, but that essentially means
that ownership is not well-
defined for the different
domains you are talking about.
Um, not for the domains, but also not
for the transfer between domains.
Oh, I find that an interesting one.
Customer a a customer address um is uh is
often is often lies in the domain of the
sales side. Um, but if service
needs to pay a visit, who is
responsible for that? Is sales actually
responsible? He is
responsible for that initial
sale. But if they move afterwards,
then it even matters whether they move.
Because it really matters to that service man
. Yes.
And then you come to the second
element. If you want to safeguard that properly,
it means you really
need to make good agreements about roles. Yes. Yes.
About ownership. Um, but also about uh,
how do we ensure that that data stays up to date
? And then you come to that famous
friction that always exists within companies
, where you have so many systems together
that they all contradict each other
.
Yes, but there is actually one very
simple solution for that. After all, if you
start writing out the process,
anyone can create a customer journey. Uh it
is the uh the most um describe the
steps you need to take to uh uh
create a process step, but also which ones that
you need. And then suddenly it becomes
tangible and visible. Yes.
Um, and then we also handle
the translation between okay,
which data needs to be in which system
? Because
the sales side looks very closely at, uh,
CRM, uh, sales systems. Uh, but the
service data could be in a completely different
system. So you are
essentially creating a layered timeline from the process step
to the data step. Which data goes to which
process that is connected to this in which
application?
I would also like to
chime in on that, if that's possible, because this is
very recognizable and this is something we
see a lot as well. Um,
the moment you
start an implementation, for example with
CRM, time is allocated,
attention is given, money is spent on it, and resources are made
available for it. So then it is good.
However, what we also know—and I
believe this is happening at an increasingly rapid pace—is that
processes change. And these change
because your customer changes, your market,
your environment, but also
management, for example. Um, and what happens then is
that after a certain time—and that can
be after as little as 3 months, but also after 3 years—your
process changes along with it, and then you see
contamination forming. And I think that
in practice, a great deal of risk lies there, or will
come to lie there. Um, so at a
certain point it gets done well, but then
taking ownership to keep
maintaining it—that’s where I think it
often starts to rub.
Yes, you're already talking about two phases. I
think it's hard enough to get it
right the first time, isn't it? So what
is your optimal model in a
landscape? Yes.
Um, change management is very often
done on an application. Yes. Yes.
And you do uh uh at your
super office a change is being
implemented. Does
the logistics department know that that
change has taken place? Uh
no, because it is a sales adjustment.
No, if it is relevant to the
chain, your process chain, and your
data. Um, so we always strive for
a sort of impact analysis. If you are going to
change, no matter how small,
yes,
conduct an impact analysis of the
change. What does that impact?
And that rarely happens.
Who takes that ownership, or who should
take it if you aren't there? Um,
from your perspective.
That is an incredibly complex
question. Um, because we say, uh, at
companies of a certain size, you have
something like a business analyst who is supposed to
do that. An architect, an
entrepreneur architect, a data architect.
Um, but it is very often blamed on the
business side. It is either
placed on the IT side
or the business side. Because you want
a change in your sales process
or you want a change in your
service process. Well, then we are going to look at the
service, uh, uh, the service application
. Yes.
Um, and the simplest example in
this chain is, uh, a service agent
comes to a customer who knows there
is a new contact person for service.
How is he going to fill that in? Is he going to
call sales then and say, "Hey, you're
supposedly sales data?" These are where things
almost always go wrong. Yes. So, the
consistency in process data.
So people are
often capable of thinking end-to-end
in terms of processes. Not everyone, but that is getting
better and better. But there are
very few people who
sign the data streams. Yes. Yes.
But the data stream is
actually something that is hardly ever discussed
in an organization, isn't it?
No. Uh, uh,
how come? Um,
because data is very often
made complex. Yes. Yes,
because if you are going to process data
across the full breadth of the
organization, then there are an enormous number of
data points, an enormous number of data elements.
People either start on the process side—
which they are good at, because they
learned to be analytical at school—or they
look at the implementation of an
application, but the data tag is rarely
touched. Yes.
And what do you mean by that layer?
Which data do
you need to fill a screen or
fill an Excel spreadsheet? Because that could be anything
. Which data, uh, do you use on the
screen, and what is the process of the
process of that data, and what should your
output be? Hmm hmm.
And people are indeed able to
refer to the output, because I want this
report. Uh, but rarely able to
see the impact of that data in the chain. There
are simply too few of those people. Yes.
But that also means that the
input is often not clear enough to
arrive at the correct output.
Absolute. Yes.
Rubbish in, rubbish out, huh. That which
will be shouting for years that uh
and to make it even more complex uh but
I don't want that at all is because that it's
not about data. It is about input and
output. It is about information. Yes.
You want to fill something in to
arrive at something. Um, and you want to get the most out of it
. But that must be information,
not data. And
that mistake is always made. Yes.
Now it's getting very interesting, isn't it,
because that is of course CRM systems.
The mistake you often see is with CRM
systems where everything is measured, but
people don't actually know what they
want to do with those measurements, right? That will
be no different in the organization within the large data stream. Yes.
Um,
KPIs is of course the most uh
used filler word that makes everyone itch
. The
real cliché. uh, which is really becoming a
cliché.
Uh,
is KPI data then, or is that information?
Um, for me it is it is it
information. Um, but I'm also looking at
you for a moment: when I talk to countries
about KPIs—sales KPIs or
service KPIs—they rarely come up with
a very mature answer. They are
really looking. Yes.
Uh, the difference between reporting
and KPIs isn't very clear. Hmm hmm. Yes.
I think indeed KPIs,
or just objectives and targets, are indeed
asked for quite a lot.
Those are indeed not very often very
clear at companies. Uh, for me it's
actually more like a KPI is
just a thermometer, basically.
For me, it is nothing more than, well, we... we
have a way of thinking, I'll be
back, my way of thinking. We've talked about that
often in previous podcasts
. Um, and with that, you want to
strive for something to see if you can actually
put that thermometer in there, like, are
we on the path we think we are going to
achieve? And that is actually
a KPI for me.
Yes, but that is really funny, isn't it?
Because you often talk when I visit companies
; I see that they have KPIs,
but they are always end-level KPIs,
never in process measurements. Yes.
Right, so... and... and I think that's where it goes
wrong too. Yes.
Uh,
we actually use that one a
lot now, by the way, and it really does work.
So actually there are a number of end
KPIs, but the important ones are
actually the KPIs that feed the end KPIs, so to speak
. Because then you really know, hey,
we achieved this. Um, our ultimate goal, you know,
that is often revenue-related or
profit-related. However, there are a
number of
targets, KPIs, and objectives that
influence that. Hmm hmm.
You can often get the crutch out of that, so to speak
. So if you see that you are
n't reaching your certain revenue, you can
say: "Well, we're not reaching the revenue,
because we think X isn't going well."
But with those sub-KPIs, you can actually
very easily see where the
problem lies and what we need to focus on
. And that, uh, that does provide really
valuable information, because those are
often your KPs that, uh, come out of the operation
. So basically from the people in
the field. Yes.
But is it a misunderstanding that
you are talking about the customer journey, right?
I always think that is also becoming one of those terms
that everyone
uses inappropriately. Uh, uh,
a customer is taken through a
certain process, or the customer allows themselves to,
uh, uh, force an
organization, as it were, to follow that process. Yes.
But do we also have an organizational journey
when it comes to
data?
I think that the um, but that applies in
general to the implementation
of systems. Um,
technology and data are very often discussed as
being a technical aspect. And
actually, it is a transformation of
everything, isn't it? You are getting a new system.
Your people must be able to
work with it easily. Um, they need to be able to easily, uh, uh,
enter their data and
get it back out. Um, and that is
partly the transformation of your company.
Who is responsible for these
items? Um, how do you ensure that if things don't
go well, who is going to pick it up? Uh,
but where does that itch come from then
? By all the people
I speak to who then say: "Yeah, KPI, it gives me the
creeps." Uh, why is that? Does
that have to do with people
starting to link KPIs to salary or
bonuses or things like that? Or is there
another catch?
Um, I think that in
SE, defining KPIs is a profession. Yes. Uh, something
you can't
put on just anyone. There is a rationale behind that that
aligns with your business strategy.
Um, getting to the data to
properly populate that KPI is a whole other
journey. Yes.
Um,
because that's where you naturally get
those discussions every single time. That is that
KPI that was formulated completely out of
nowhere.
Yes,
that is not feasible. Which puts my
bonus under pressure, uh, or
whatever. Um, if you look back
at the segmentation of companies again, so
service and uh and finance, then
you very often see that uh um um that people
look at this, at this process, purely from the perspective of sex, from their role. While they do not
understand that they are dependent on the
predecessor or the successor of this piece.
What do you mean by leading, following? Well
, that sales information needs to go
to service, right? So the
quality of your sales data
needs to be such that servicing
can easily pick it up and doesn't have to go back
to sales. What do you mean by
this field? What do you mean by that field? Yes.
Um, with too many fields, then the
definition is unclear.
Unclear definition. Ah. And if
that definition is unclear, what
happens then?
Um, then you end up with a massive
search within your company for
the translation of the information—which in
this case a salesperson has—into a
system. Very simple question. Um, was the
customer satisfied? Always. The customer is
always satisfied, unless you keep
asking. Um, because he benefits from
the customer being satisfied. Uh, but
what questions do you ask then? So I think
that your data can help you
get from subjective to objective. Yes.
So,
and I think there is huge gain to be made there
. Um, if you're talking about
pipeline management, um uh, what is the
real value of your pipeline? Yes.
Was it weighed or not weighed? And by
which methodology? Um, yes
. Of
course.
And is that often done, but essentially based
on standard patterns
instead of really looking at your own
organization?
Well, I think everyone brings something
from the organization where they
worked before. Because things went better at this company
than at that company. So this model
is more convenient. This is, of course, about
the essence of your own business. Who are you
? What do you want to be? How fast do
you want to grow? And based on which parameters? Hmm hmm.
And what is the correct flow
to arrive at the right
data fields? Um,
by simply writing it out.
It really is a matter of unsubscribing. Uh, it
really is um really writing out.
Grab a sheet of paper. sign whether that refers to
the customer journey or the product journey,
or uh—we do like those journeys
by the way, because that
clarifies a lot.
Um, but write that out, write the
steps in it, and also just write out
what you need per step. And
simply put, that is truly a remedy for
many companies. Um, write it out,
make it clear, then the
whole company understands what is written,
and if there is a change, you go
back to the drawing board: "Why did I
include it back then, or why didn't I?" Yes. Do
you get the impression that they share those
customer journeys from the different
disciplines well with the
other departments?
Um, and my clients do, of course. Uh
no, I think that
is one of the hardest parts of this series on this journey. Uh, make sure you get that data
clearly available in the right place
. Yes.
And just to show what matters
, right? what the importance of data is.
The reason I am asking is
because I sometimes see that sales doesn't realize how much
data marketing needs to do their job
. Yes.
And conversely, that people also do not
understand what data sales actually
needs to effectively
carry out their sales process. And in that
regard, I think that often—and I do
n't know if you have this experience too—when
you set up a CRM, a lot of
irrelevant fields are
created.
Certainly.
Uh, those that are interesting but completely
irrelevant to, uh,
daily work. Well, we certainly see that a
lot, and we always try
to prevent that too, because that can
be a burden, so to speak, for... actually,
the question is simply, and I think Raymond said
that at the beginning... he said that correctly too,
that you... you have to look at which
data you want to reuse, and that is
actually crucial. So if you are going to
enter data that you don't reuse or
perhaps only need once every two years
, well, don't do it just yet, or don't do it
. Hmm hmm.
Um, something I
find quite interesting—and something
I run into myself quite often, both
internally and externally—is what I see. Um, in
CRM we set up quite a lot of data that
is also pretty important for that customer queue or custom journey, right? So for
example, uh, there is a certain
sales opportunity, then you, uh, the salesperson
eventually fill in, for example, a reason
why leads are lost. And
that is quite an important thing to base
strategic choices on, isn't it?
So we always lose on price. So
our price needs to come down. Or we
always lose out on, uh, I don't know, no uh
functionalities that we don't
offer. So we need to expand our product
.
But the data entered there, well,
is that always correct, because that is
interpretation data, so to speak. Data
generated by customer behavior requires
less interpretation. But data
generated by the behavior of your own
people is open to quite a bit of interpretation.
Because suppose I do a sales pitch and, um,
I lose that process, then I can very
easily say: "Yeah, no, we were too
expensive."
Yes,
but either I was unable to
demonstrate our added value. And those are
also things that, uh, and that brings us back
to that statement
about how, how important is that data? I
think you always just
need deeper conversations to arrive at certain
choices, so to speak. And that, uh, and
I always find that a very difficult
topic, like, yeah, you're going to store a lot of data
. Uh, but how strictly can you
really base your choices on that? Because it just depends on
what that person enters into
that data.
But there is a very, very, very
interesting aspect behind that: the
validation of that data, right? So at the
moment, just take a look at the sales
role. Um, you fill in your pipeline and you
fill in and uh, the customer just doesn't like you,
uh, but you write "price too expensive"
or "price too high." Um,
nobody checks that. No,
so hardly any evaluation, let alone
feedback from the customer to figure out, "
Hey, what did we actually do right or
wrong here?" Is our product simply
not good enough? Are
we missing any functionalities? Uh, are we
too expensive? Yes.
Um, in the data journey, we look very
closely at the validation at a specific point in time
. How do you know if that is
doable? That is kind of the big
question, then.
Because ultimately, you need to
set up people or systems there to be able to do that
. Um, we aren't making the
transition to AI just yet, but uh, it
naturally goes from, to some extent, you can
uh, score a bit on NPS, that sort of
thing. At multiple points in
your chain, you can consider asking your customer
or potential customer
how well you are actually doing. Yes.
Um, and then you can either get an honest
answer or not. Uh,
eventually, you can
make a big mess of things. But I think many
people forget that. You no
longer look at the results that you have had
.
No. Well,
NPS is actually a good example.
We do that ourselves as well. But
we do call them back anyway. Yes.
Because even if that
data went back into your system
as well. Of course
. Certainly. So suppose that we, uh, well,
let me just assume the positive scenario
. We're getting a, uh, an 89 or a
10, right? So the promoter, as it is
called in NPStaal. Then, uh, suppose it
is that nine, then we want to know,
okay, but how can we make that a 10
? And this sounds very nice, and it
might seem just like we really would
n't do that, but we really want to
know. Because there is always something; even if
someone is fundamentally very happy, there is
simply always something you can
improve. And
we really do capture that output.
But that is great, because the fact that you are now saying that it serves as
a trigger for action for us to
do something with it if we
get a response to it. Yes.
Uh, but a lot of companies measure
NPS and do nothing with it. You're just looking at that, right,
that is uh, a
topic for a future
podcast, I would say now. But but what
you say is true. And
then it's also interesting again as if the
source of an NPS is actually correct, isn't it? Because
there really are discussions about the value
of an NPS, uh, that there is. So there
you come back to what the essence of the
data is? The source of the data. Well, I think
we could
talk about this for days.
Uh, just about continuing. What I
find interesting is to also look at
what behavioral data you could
bring to the table. So really more my
background in the psychology behind the
behavior of salespeople, but also customers.
How can you capture these, and how can you
use them in your datasets to
ensure you get a better picture of your
customers? Um,
time is up. That means we
must reach a conclusion. Well, always
fun. The best conclusions are always: do
you have one tip that
you can really use to make an impact when it comes
to data
in the phase we are currently in regarding
data? And we are also looking at the
bridge to the fact that if you want to do AI,
you need good data. Make your data, uh,
visible, really visual, uh, make them take
a board and write out what the
data flow is. If you do not know that, do
not see it, and do not recognize it. Yes.
Um, then you're missing a whole part of the
follow-up process. Yes.
And if I replace data stream with
data stream, is that exactly
that is absolutely uh the that is for for
the for the sale is that uh yeah
for the listener it is easy because
data has a very very broad
if I have to ask you, what is the
best impact tip you can give when
it comes to data?
Yeah, well that has actually been a lesson
for me too, but uh, stay
critical of your data. So the data that
you actually present yourself is
the real data that, uh, actually
tells the story of what you want to
show.
Beautiful. Good discussion. You'll never finish
in half an hour. But in any
case, the essence for me is
that it actually comes down to four
questions again. First, what do we want to achieve with
the data? Uh, why is it important to
use specifically this data for our
analyses? How are we going to use the data?
And who is responsible
for which data we actually
capture and will use? This
was the Impactmakers podcast about
data, together with Raymond Pietersen and
Wouter Scham. My name is Harry van
Hek. I am a sales philosopher.