The benefits of big data have been well documented. Implementation of big data analytics can have a massively positive effect on how a company operates. However, this infographic from Colourfast, outlines the potential stumbling blocks companies can run in to when implementing big data initiatives. Companies often do not have the necessary skills to make big data initiatives work.

Of course, an important area within big data is that of data privacy and having staff with adequate analytical know how is vital. Failure to use big data effectively is often simply because the employees aren’t skilled enough or haven’t been trained enough. One of the main benefits of big data is that it aids better strategic decisions but this is only if big data initiatives are implemented effectively.

In 61% of companies, where big data initiatives are a part of integrated business processes, senior management is the primary driver. It seems that for big data initiatives to work the push needs to come from the top down. Depending on the size of the company, you will need people in charge in every area of the company. If your current staff aren’t up to it, you will have to train them or bring in people with the required skillset to implement the changes.

Some companies may not be able to afford the costs associated with big data initiatives and this has been identified as a big issue. 38% of the companies surveyed have identified costs as a big stumbling block.

Big data initiatives are particularly prevalent in retail with 27% including big data initiatives as part of business processes. It’s important to remember that mistakes will be made during implementation, try to learn from these mistakes and work towards a solution that works for your company. Find out more information in the infographic.

Cyber criminals these days are putting in as much efforts as the security experts, perhaps even more. Be it a small or a big organization, all are equally vulnerable.

More and more businesses have reported instances of cyber crimes in the recent times. Even though they are putting aside a substantial budget for online security however they still cannot define their systems as foolproof.

What's even critical is the fact that some of the organizations are not at all prepared and wary of the assault.

Cyber criminals are resorting to almost all the techniques. Every instance of a data breach, especially the one that happens to a big organization and at a huge level, brings in a new dimension to hacking and online crime technique.

Web and mobile presence for a business is must these days. To save on time and money, generating customers or to expand business, one can't rely on offline means.

Enhanced security is the need of the hour. Solutions like a VPN connection can help. Online sharing of information safely from a remote area or for keeping your data secured and encrypted, it is essentially required.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest cyber crimes in the recent times:

Have you ever wondered why more and more talk about how social media is good for business? And it is a fact they are really important, but it is even more important to understand how exactly!

With platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram you can get generate tremendous online exposure for your brand, allowing you to showcase your products and services. Social media channels helps you listen to what people are saying about a business, including your customers, peers, prospects and competitors.

You can generate leads through all the major social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook marketing channels are very effective for this, particularly in B2B). These social media channels will help you to attract more visitors as well as customers, who you can dazzle by providing a personal touch, building relationships and driving loyalty.

All of this can be achieved for a low cost without sacrificing quality of your business work.

New year 2017 is here and we all know that there are so many trends, rising patterns and forecast that we all are going to see in social media marketing channels like Facebook, Twitter etc. And we understand that as an entrepreneur you probably want to spend on social marketing to improve the visibility, customer services, sales as well as revenue. But before you invest in marketing do you know ”what are the trends in social media in 2017?” because this question is very important to you as it will play very important role in your business growth.

To this end Go4prep have created the below visual that have all the information, figures, facts and tips related to social media marketing trends in 2017 and you can spend on the social marketing according to the same.

I don’t know about you, but one of the worst things that can happen when shopping online is spending way more time browsing than you originally intended. Having to spend forever looking for the right information is one of the main culprits why online shopping sometimes ends up becoming even more stressful than store shopping.

Customers want their online shopping experience to mimic that of in-store buying in terms of customer service. The same way a shop assistant is physically present when you are shopping in stores and ready to answer all your questions, so does online customer service need to be personal, engaging and efficient.

If a website is too confusing to navigate through, or has a slow and unresponsive customer service, not only are the shoppers more likely to become frustrated and abandon their carts, but they are also much less likely to return to that same website.

Solving Problems with Live Chat

When you are shopping online, you often need just one simple piece of information before you finalize your purchase, and yet you can’t find it anywhere. This is especially the case with online stores that do not have a fast and efficient customer service like live chat.

Live chat is becoming a popular medium for online businesses to increase conversion rates, build long-term customer loyalty, and maintain a strong relationship with buyers.

Chat usage has been on the steady rise over the previous years. In 2009, 38% of online stores had an integrated live chat service. In 2013, 43% of companies used live chat, and in 2014, that percentage grew to 58%.

Companies everywhere are realizing that their customers prefer live chat to other communication channels due to its convenience and speed. Today, live chat is already being used by over one third of Older Baby Boomers (ages 57 to 67), as well as the Golden Generation (68 and over) of online business owners.

The Growing Popularity of Live Chat

Due to its convenience and the ability to solve all types of customer issues, live chat has become a must-have feature of e-commerce businesses across different industries. Since it takes no longer than 42 seconds on average for live chat to answer a customer’s question or resolve an issue, it’s no wonder both customers and business owners are singing its praises.

Live chat comes with a host of benefits for both customers and online business owners. Customers prefer live chat to other channels because it is the fastest way for them to get pointed in the right direction and receive straightforward answers without wasting precious time.

Business owners are becoming more enthusiastic about the prospect of using live chat to increase customer satisfaction and turn casual viewers into regular customers.

How Can Live Chat Help Your Business

Every online business wants to give their customers a reason to keep coming back to the website and become regular shoppers. This is precisely what live chat service does: it raises customer satisfaction rate and encourages customers who use it to return to the site. In fact, 63% of customers who use live chat report being more likely to return to the same website.

Live chat is also a great way to foster solid personal relationships with your customers. Customers are satisfied when they get the sense they are being listened to and that their questions are being approached individually. A satisfied customer becomes a loyal customer. Reports on live chat usage show that almost half of online shoppers who use live chat are more likely to make regular online purchases at least once a week than 22% of shoppers who never chat.

Did You Know?

• It takes 48 seconds for an average company to answer a live chat query.
• A company deals with an average of 1,143 chats per month.
• The average number of chats an operator handles in a month is 274.
• The most popular time to live chat is between 10am and 3pm local time.
• E-commerce industry has the longest wait time at 1 minute 13 seconds.
• In 2015, the customer satisfaction rate of e-commerce industry was 87.50%.
• Global customer satisfaction rate in the first quarter of 2015 was 95%.

Where Is Live Chat Used the Most?

Live chat is used by businesses around the world and across different industries. The most successful country when it comes to live chat is Mexico. Agents in Mexico who use live chat have the most chat conversations out of any other country, managing the highest volume of chats.

As a proof that customer satisfaction is directly correlated with live chat use, Mexico has also received the highest customer satisfaction rate in the world. According to Mexican live chat leader, the customer satisfaction rate in the country is an impressive 94.11%!

The second place in terms of live chat usage goes to Australia, where customer satisfaction rate is at a close 93.59%, while Canada takes third place with a rate of 88.36%.

While Mexico, Australia, and Canada might handle the highest number of chats, the fastest repliers are operators in Denmark. Owing to the renowned Scandinavian simplicity of efficiency, agents in Denmark deliver the quickest and most concise replies.

Wait Time vs. Customer Satisfaction

For wait time and customer satisfaction, you might be led to believe faster is always better, but that is not the case when it comes to live chat. Customers who use live chat want to have their problems solved quickly, but also want to receive high-quality relevant information, which can often take a little longer.

If a customer waits between 0 and 50 second to get their question answered, the customer satisfaction rate will be at 86%. If however, it takes an operator between 50 and 100 seconds to get back to the customer, the satisfaction rate drops to 84%. And yet, the optimum wait time is between 150 and 200 seconds when customer satisfaction rate reaches 90%. When it comes to live chat, customers do not mind waiting a little longer if it means they will get a right answer.

Chat Duration vs. Customer Satisfaction

In terms of chat duration, live chats have to hit the right balance between being long enough to consider the problem and provide in-depth answers to being short and concise enough to not waste customers’ time.

Chats that receive the highest customer satisfaction rate (88%) are those that last around 15 minutes. Any shorter or longer than that and customer satisfaction rate drops to 83% at 10 minutes, and 85% and 86% for chats that last 20 and 25 minutes, respectively. Half an hour long chats have a customer satisfaction is 80%. If a chat lasts just 5 minutes longer than that, the rate drops by almost 10%.

Chats per Month vs. Customer Satisfaction

A company that handles an average of 1,000 chats per month receives the highest customer satisfaction rate of 87%, followed by companies that handle 4,000 chats (84% rate), 6,000 chats (83%), and 7,000 (81%).

Companies that try to handle as many queries as they can do not always receive the highest customer satisfaction rate. An operator who has to deal with an unrealistic number of requests can not approach each question with equal attention and give precise answers to every customer. So if a company handles an average of 8,000 chats per month, it receives a not-so-great customer satisfaction rate of 68%

Communication Channels Comparison

According to customer ratings of communication channels, live chat receives the highest satisfaction rate of 92%. As opposed to other channels where customers provide their ratings through an email survey submitted to the client, live chat ratings are given immediately after the chat finishes.

Voice customer service is the second most popular channel with a satisfaction rate of 88%, followed by Web Form service and E-mail with rates of 85%, Facebook with 84%, and Twitter which has a customer satisfaction rate of 77%.

Top Companies That Use Live Chat

Between 2013 and 2014, live chat-using online travel agent Orbitz reported a 40% increase in US consumer brands chat traffic, of which 7% originated from mobile device. All the while, Orbitz maintained its high customer satisfaction rates.

According to technology giant Dell, 30% of their website visitors engage with customer service through live chat, which generates as much as 40% of revenue. Dell has also reported an increase of 30% in chat usage over the previous years. At the moment, a third of Dell’s sales in the US are made through live chat alone.

American retailer Sears saw a 20% increase in revenue after using predictive chat service. Sears has an enviable customer satisfaction rate of 90%.

Training equipment manufacturer Total Gym is another success story of live chat. During the fourth quarter of 2014, almost 40% of Total Gym’s online orders came from buyers who had interacted with customer support through live chat.

25 Reasons to Use Live Chat: the Infographic

For more on live chat, do not miss this beautifully visualized data-driven infographic from Skilled.co with 25 reasons on why you should introduce live chat to your business.

You might also like:

• 5 Ways to Keep the Chat Feature on Your Website Helpful for Customers
• Make Your eCommerce Venture Successful with Proactive Chats and Effective Customer Care

Marketers have spent years trying to come up with a winning formula that ensures a highly effective digital strategy. From where to place the call to action, to where to position the navigation buttons, every approach has been tried and tested to come up with a set of principles that every website developer / owner can follow to build a great website.

This infographic, titled ‘25 features every online business must have in 2017’ provides some useful insight into how to get the most out of your website by using careful positioning of content. It also lists everything that you need to have on your website, so you can use it as a checklist to ensure that you have added everything to make your website work well.

Online retail has steadily grown over the last 10-15 and it has really shaken up the whole retail industry. Brick and mortar retailers are now in constant competitor mode with their eCommerce counterparts and every angle is examined to see where it can be improved in terms of a positive retail experience for the consumer.

Deliveries can become a bone of contention for the consumer especially for example if the consumer requires something urgently. With offline retail, the purchaser can simply walk into an outlet, make their purchase and they walk out with their purchase; once payment is made, the item is in their hands. With a purchase on an eCommerce website, the wait often varies wildly especially depending on the location (of the warehouse or distribution centre) of the website. If a consumer urgently requires the product they like to have the option to receive it as soon as possible so many eCommerce sites do give this additional option. However the consumer of today sometimes wants instant gratification and some would prefer to have a same-day delivery option. While it is possible, it can have its challenges. For any online shop, finding the right logisitics partner is paramount to the success of the business. Consumers simply won’t be happy if they have a poor delivery experience and they may consider not re-purchasing from your again if it is bad enough.

Delivery companies need to be experienced at what they do and have proper and reliable procedures in place in order to fulfil their deliveries. It’s a system that needs to be monitored closely by an eCommerce website in order to maintain high levels of customer service. The people at logistics company 2Flow have put together this visual asset which examines the whole area of the rise of faster deliveries from digital commerce sites; it looks at some interesting statistics behind the whole area; it examines the rise of the same-day delivery concept; it looks at a few online stores that are currently successfully operating a same-day option; it looks at the related challenges of same-day and finally it shows some insight from industry experts on the matter. Check it out below.

Ranking highly on search engines is important for all websites, but especially when it comes to e-commerce sites. Without visitors, e-commerce sites will almost certainly fail, and with the fact that the top 5 results on a search engine will get 75% of the page visits, this is where companies want to be. SEO Jury provides information and tips of some of the very best SEO techniques for a business, many of which can be applied to online stores. Despite the fact that SEO has now been around for years, many people still find the concept confusing.

If you are missing out on website clicks, then chances are you are also missing out on website sales. In today’s society, ranking highly may not be enough, people want to be number one. Before you start with any SEO strategies, you must first do your research, both to do with keywords and any competitors sites. Targeting the wrong keywords can have some devastating effects, generating low-quality traffic that is likely to result in very few sales as you have the wrong target audience.

On page optimization is also important when it comes to an e-commerce website ranking highly. This includes all the work that you do internally to help your site rank better on a search engine. There are several key things that a business will need to target which include keyword optimization, site structure, internal linking, usability, mobile websites, customer reviews, rich snippets and social media integration.

Getting good rankings will not happen overnight. Usually, it is a long term effort. With a bit of work and consistency, results should start to be seen somewhere between 2 to 6 months, and in some cases even as long as 12 months. It is definitely a concept that all e-commerce sites need to take into consideration when it comes to building or improving their website. A factor that will make a huge difference is making sure that you have a fully functional mobile site, as more and more people are now shopping on their mobile devices. As Google takes factors like this into consideration when it ranks sites, it is extremely important.

The infographic below was created by Seojury. It explains some SEO concepts every online vendor should know

About 2.5 million people in the world use emails and it was predicted that this number will increase by at least 10 percent in the next few years. Yep, that’s a lot. For online marketers and businesses, it means a vast pool of potential customers. And all of them can be reached by emails! They are an attractive and powerful way to connect with people, with a minimum spending. Moreover, online shoppers prefer to receive emails. Why? Because they can be opened at any time and on any device.

Another reason of popularity of emails is their level of personalization. Indeed, it is a very personal way of reaching the target audience. For example, if an email contains a selection of products similar to those a person bought previously, it can be interesting for them. By tailoring the message to the actions performed by the customer on the site, it becomes possible to make communication relevant to their interests. That’s exactly what the customers prefer.

Are you thinking about maximizing the benefits of emails for your business? Then the information on the following infographic created by guys from AssignmentHelper can serve you as a guide to a great start in email marketing. It presents 7 types of emails that your business should send out on an automated basis. For example, messages called abandoned cart reminders offer discounts and other incentives to return to the store and complete the purchase.

Each of these emails can greatly enhance your marketing effort by targeting customers in a very personalized and timely way. They do not depend on where your leads and customers are situated in the buying lifecycle and they are very adaptable to the evolving marketplace.

Browse this helpful infographic that will equip you with the knowledge to become an email marketing rock star.

Lucy Benton is a marketing specialist, business consultant who finds her passion in expressing own thoughts as a blogger, and currently works at Awriter.org. She is constantly looking for the ways to improve her skills and expertise. If you’re interested in working with Lucy, you can find her on FaceBook and Twitter.

Communication has always been a vital part of society’s development and with the new iPhone 8 due to be unveiled on September 12, society’s way of communication is set to evolve even more. Humans have been using various communication techniques to aid in work, war, and personal exchanges for millennia. We now have more convenient options available, and the future is promising even better ways of staying in touch. So what new features of the iPhone 8 will lead our communication into the future?

Recent reports say the iPhone 8 will have a rear dual camera that will aid augmented reality and increase our interactions with digital images. In addition, Apple is removing the Touch ID feature in the iPhone 8 to go solely with ‘Face ID’ facial recognition security. Due to the development of these new features, humans can now communicate faster and interact with their devices more effectively.

Recent studies show that 24 million augmented reality and virtual reality devices are expected to be sold in 2018. As time progresses, holographic displays may even be used for anything from interactive advertisements to conference calls and academic lectures.

To learn more about the technology advancements and future inventions that will create diverse forms of communicating, check out the infographic below created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Masters in Electrical Engineering program:

Source: NJIT Online MSCS

Like any new trend, sometimes you have to be a little cautious. In truth, people are far too willing to utilize the very latest and greatest thing in their marketing campaigns without doing much in the way of research.

Not every single trend in the marketing industry is going to be something that you want to utilize in a game plan for your business, but this isn't the case with the Progressive Web App. It'll have a massive impact on the mobile marketing industry, seriously.

Progressive Web App?

Announced a while back in 2015 by Google and it’s set to become the new standard for how information is displayed and digested by consumers. The Progressive Web App (PWA) is a mixture of HTML5 and CSS3. It draws its inspiration from the native mobile app, to deliver what most are calling the app-like experience in your mobile web browser. Think about it like a mobile app that lives in your browser, so there is no need to navigate to the App Store or Google play!

Since the announcement of the Progressive Web App, there have been many developments that should be thanked, as they brought it into the mainstream. Let’s face it, Google has been pushing heavily for a mobile-friendly world for some time now, and they aren’t tip toeing around the issue, that became quite apparent when websites were devalued if they didn’t create a great experience for users utilising a mobile device.

At the end of the day, the PWA is faster, frictionless, and smaller when compared to its native app cousin, and the even more distant relative, the responsive website.

Is it worth looking into for your business?

Here are a few facts that showcase some of the early findings based on case studies from Google:

• 68% increase in mobile traffic
• 52% average increase in conversions
• Engagement is often increased by 137%
• 25X less device storage required
• 15X faster to load and install
• The average load time for a page is 2.75 seconds
• Sessions are on average increased by 78.25%
• Compared to mobile website’s, bounce rate is reduced by whopping 42.86%

Obviously, the technology is still relatively new, but ignore the facts for a second and think about what an app-like experience can do for your business.

With time, consumers have grown to expect a certain level of content, no, experience from their mobile devices. The large majority of users would use mobile apps that spoil their users with great design, refined funnels, and generally a UX that is hard to beat. Take those same consumers to a mobile website that isn't particularly quick to load, alongside a poor UX and you can see why most people spend the large majority of their time in apps.

But the Progressive Web App fixes all of those problems that exist with the mobile website and removes a huge one from the equation. With a native app, there is a long list of benefits, but much like Clark Kent, they do have one weakness.

The most deterring factor in using native apps is the hoops that users have to jump through to get that app installed in the first place. Which can lead to a relatively large amount of users dropping off before they even touch your native app!

On the other hand, the PWA doesn’t suffer any of these issues but can fall slightly short on functionality when complex functionality is involved, but for the most part it is easy to see why there is a tremendously reduced bounce rate and generally increased engagement across the board. The ultimate mobile experience without the friction.

If you are due for a marketing review - this is definitely something to consider as a stepping stone for building the foundations upon which your business sits.

Source: AppInstitute

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to revolutionise retail but there still remains security issues. In a perfect world, the IoT will create better, more profitable stores and happier customers but we still have some work to do before arriving at this utopia. This infographic from the CUBE looks in depth at the issues that need to be solved before full adoption in retail. The problem with security is that it often ends up being an afterthought on many systems. By the time issues with security are discovered, it may already have been exploited and by then of course it is too late.

Because IoT is growing at such a ferocious rate, some manufacturers are anxious to make quick money and rather than working on making a perfect product; they often rush them to market. The privacy of customers information still remains an issue. 75% of consumers remain unsure as to whether their personal information is protected. Vendors sometimes are primarily interested in collecting data about their users and essentially monetizing them. In this situation, the user becomes the product.

Retailers must seek an EIoT technology partner who will protect the privacy of you and your customers – on a consistent basis. Find out more in the infographic about the impact EIoT is making on retail and the work that needs to be done to make sure it has a big impact on our future.

Of the total population of the world, 4.3 billion – or 58.7% - has been recorded as the estimated number of mobile phone users back in 2016, and this number has only continued to rise. It is, however, expected that the growth rate of mobile phone users across the globe is slowing down, but it is still expected to rise up to 4.78 billion by 2020.

Most people would not pay extra attention to these statistics, mainly because it seems so obvious and so inevitable of a phenomenon that has been brought about by the rapid evolution of technology. But for business owners whose success or failure may hinge upon the latest technological advancements available at their disposal, the immense usage of mobile technology in the society can only equate to massive impacts on their sales and industry trends as well.

And it’s not just the number of mobile phone users that they are concerned about. Even the way people use mobile phones, why they buy them, and the full extent of their usage contributes a lot to the overall impact that mobile technology has on trends, developments, and other factors.

Such is seen in the case of eCommerce and sales. Business.com reports that 84% of shoppers in physical stores opt to use their smartphones before committing to a purchase, as they’d like to get more information about the items and services they are getting beforehand. They are more inclined to doing research to make sure they are making the necessary purchases both quality and cost-wise. Because of this, many businesses are now investing in tools and techniques to deliver to the customers the information they are looking for effectively.

Not only that, but business have turned to eCommerce platforms to further their sales. People can now avail of their favorite products or services at the comfort of their own homes or anywhere else in the world through online shopping applications or online stores, which has enabled businesses to capitalize on the needs of their market far beyond their physical reach.

This is just one of the ways that mobile technology has shifted the tides in the sales of businesses in many industries. To learn more about this phenomena and what your business can develop more in the future, check out the infographic by Healthy Business Builder on the subject now.

Startup Unicorns have increasingly become a subject of envy and inspiration for entrepreneurs throughout the last several years. It seems incredible for such young companies to blow up into corporations worth billions of dollars. Although it may seem unfeasible to attain this kind of success in only 10 years, the number of companies achieving unicorn status rises each year. These companies have been a subject of study among the technological and marketing communities when attempting to analyze software-as-a-service market trends.

Startup Background

Startup Unicorns are no myth — it’s possible to execute billion dollar ideas in a relatively short amount of time. Unicorns are often misrepresented as becoming successful within only a few months, rather than as companies that took several years to grow and develop. They see the breakthrough of the iceberg without the enormity of work that it’s taken to get there, just under the surface. The truth is, there’s tons of work that goes into these companies that a lot of people don’t notice when their popularity rises so quickly. It’s a formula consisting of a good idea, smart business decisions and a little bit of luck.

According to an infographic by Ohio University, 1.28 percent of startups become unicorns. The year 2014 welcomed 34 new unicorns, an enormous increase from the previous three years that introduced only five unicorns each year. In 2015, the number of unicorns jumped to 47, the highest number of any year. Experts expect that more companies are arriving at unicorn status due to remaining private longer; an average of nine years before IPO instead of the average six years of the 2000s.

Business Organization

A lot of business planning and management, as well as tactful decision making goes into creating a successful business. Even in the software-as-a-service industry where advancements seem to come a mile a minute, strong business structure is not left behind. One of these unicorns, Intuit, parent company to quickbooks, fulfils the need for small business tools in the SaaS industry by providing the essential software for running and growing businesses.

First on their list emphasizes a product management tool for keeping track of projects, which they provide as part of their business management tools. This is followed by an accounting tool, an email marketing tool, and a content management tool, as these tools help reach the largest audience through one medium: the internet. Having these tools to help run your business will let your business idea shine through without the business errors that often prevent ideas from flourishing.

A lot of work goes into the success of becoming a unicorn, however it’s happening more often through precise and thoughtful management and decision making. By having the right tools to start a business and learning from success stories of businesses from the last several years, it’s possible to have a better chance at accessing your vision for a business. While SaaS startup unicorns are not overnight successes, they are indeed a reality.