Digital behavior analytics in 2017: Why no business should be without them

According to a study by Deloitte, “the UK public has never been more addicted to smartphones”. The 2016 study showed that 81% of UK adults own a smartphone, with the numbers rising to nine out of ten 18-24 year olds. With mobile usage now representing at least 65 percent of digital media time, tracking the behavior of consumers on mobile platforms and applications has become the key to digital customer optimization.

Given that the average person swipes, taps, and pinches their phone screen about a million times per year, following the mobile journey has become a real challenge. Traditional digital analytics tools (E.g. Google Analytics) have given us good insights into traffic acquisition, but it doesn’t tell us how consumers are acting and why they are not carrying out a transaction. In other words, it doesn’t help us in understanding customers’ engagement with our digital channels. Digital behavior analytics go beyond page views and conversion to give you a visual picture of what the person actually sees and does on their phone or computer screen and their true intent.

The business benefits of digital behavior analytics

1. Reproducing errors
   In the past, IT departments had to replicate and reproduce errors following customer complaints or failures. Having access to real-time sessions allows you to follow digital customer journeys, and pinpoint errors, bottlenecks, and problems in completing a transaction.
2. Testing capabilities
   Rather than just blindly installing app updates, microsites, and website re-designs, IT departments can test changes before there is a mass rollout. Tracking mouse and finger movements to in-page elements can prevent disasters before they cause damage to your profitability.
3. Site Usability monitoring
   The mobile user has little patience, with 40% of consumers abandoning a website if a page takes more than three seconds to appear. Fine-tuning website or app performance can make the difference between conversion or abandonment of the shopping cart.
4. Spotting long-term trends
   Digital behavioral analytics that provides an insight into how customers are behaving right now helps in being able to predict how consumers might behave in the future. Predictive analysis can reveal long term behavioral trends, allowing digital risk management to assess business threats and business opportunities.
5. Data protection
   A “true” customer analytics record may be required if a consumer demands access to his Personally Identifiable Information (PII). After May 2018, the consumer can exercise his right to be forgotten or all online private information stored.
6. Response to technology changes
   The mobile explosion caught many brands and industries by surprise. Machine learning is likely to speed up digital change, so customer experience analytics software must be one step ahead, revealing the nature of the relationship between technology and customer behavior.

Digital behavioral analytics provides rich consumer data so enterprises can improve the performance of their digital channels and sort out any digital performance issues. The Glassbox session replay and recording platform provides information at the micro level (individual consumer) and at the macro level (market behavior).

Digital disruptions

In 2017, digital disruption is likely to intensify as we reach an era of connected homes, connected cars and digital assistants. This will make the digital experience the main point of differentiating between products and industries. In the future, the difference between the companies that succeed and those that don’t will be based on how well the organization has adapted to the changes, and how well they have overcome these new and previously nonexistent hurdles.

By applying behavioral analytics at the introduction of the new technology, you can speed up the indication of these troubles and how they will affect future program development. They can also provide insight into customer usage and how to make improvements on the current platform. Digital behavioral analytics aren’t just about finding the bad; they’re also about determining what is working well. If you have a good foundation, what you need to do now is improve upon it, and these analytics can point the way.

Tracking and getting results

Many big data solutions for digital behavioral analytics allow you to store data for long periods of time. Because we live in a digital world where everything changes in an instant, this stored data is going to be helpful for tracking how every little change you make or have made impacts future developments on your platform. The data has to do the talking, and with the right program, you will have the tools to make the most optimal changes which will yield to you the most positive results. If you’re not keeping track of the behavior, you are losing precious time and valuable data that could ultimately put your company in a better position for a more profitable future. Glassbox offers a top-of-the-line suite of tools that will help you understand your users and your website better. Implementing this technology will allow you to teach all your employees what’s working, what’s not, and how can you provide a better product or system for your customers.