Why Data Silos Are Killing Your Online Reputation

Adam Dorfman

The success of your online reputation management program depends on the quality of your data. If you don’t know what’s working and where you’re falling short, your business is going to have a hard time optimizing the customer experience.

How big is this problem?

According to IBM, poor data quality costs the U.S. economy approximately $3.1 trillion each year.

If you use multiple platforms or vendors, it’s all too easy to capture an incomplete or distorted view of your customers’ wants and needs. At best, you won’t get the real-time information you need, and, at worst, you may not get the data at all. The more platforms you use to gather and analyze your data, the more likely your organization is to encounter data silos that can hamper your online reputation management efforts.

That’s why an integrated, comprehensive online reputation management system is a better choice.

(Download the Top Trends for Online Reputation and CX Management Report to learn more about customer experience trends today.)

Woman standing outside looking at her phone.

Data silos create operational inefficiencies and can result in a lack of insights.

Data Silos: Murder on Your Online Reputation

To optimize the customer experience, businesses need as much data as possible about the customer journey and any potential potholes in that journey. When data comes from multiple sources, getting complete and timely insights can be challenging.

A recent Forrester study predicted that today’s 100,000 software vendors will explode to one million specialized vendors by 2027, an indicator that the problem of siloed data will only continue to grow. That’s bad news for brands because data silos result in operational inefficiencies and a lack of insights, which ultimately damage the brand.

Related: Why Online Reputation Management Matters to the Mortgage Lending Industry

Fragmented Data and Operational Inefficiencies

What types of operational inefficiencies result from having data silos? Here are some of the common operational issues organizations face arising from fragmented data:

  • Time-Consuming Process: According to one study, 60% of an analyst’s time is spent preparing data for analysis. Imagine doing this with multiple data sources.
  • Inability to Scale: The more vendors you have, the more complex your system is going to be, making it challenging to scale each piece as you grow.
  • Difficulty Sharing Data: Some data isn’t meaningful on its own but can reveal a fundamental customer experience issue when pooled with other insights. When data is stored in different buckets, analyzing it as a whole is impossible.
  • Excessive Costs: Multiple vendors not only require more purchasing and subscription costs, but more people to manage and prepare the siloed data.

Beyond operational concerns, data silos inhibit an organization’s insight into its available data. When data resides in disconnected silos, a clear picture cannot emerge.  A segmented approach to collecting and analyzing data is going to give your business an incomplete and varied picture of its customers and their experiences. And when you have data silos, it’s difficult to identify which customer experience issues should take top priority.

Woman sitting at her desk writing on a paper while looking at her laptop screen.

A comprehensive online reputation management system eliminates data silos.

Choosing a Complete Online Reputation and CX Management Solution

With the host of potential issues that data silos can cause, it makes sense to move away from using multiple vendors and instead focus on a single, comprehensive online reputation and CX management solution. Some of the benefits of this approach include:

Related: How to Improve Your Online Reputation (& Examples from Transform)

  • Efficient, Streamlined Processes: Instead of having to navigate multiple systems to learn about customer sentiment, you can obtain that information in a single platform. Whether data comes from customer reviews, survey results or social media posts,  you can analyze it together to gain a 360-degree view of CX.
  • Lower Operational Costs: Now that you aren’t running and supporting multiple systems, you can take some of your cost savings and apply those resources to address customer needs and business growth.
  • A Scalable System: When you’re using multiple vendors and systems, changes and scaling can be challenging. Working with a single system gives you much more flexibility to make changes on the fly and grow as your needs and capacity changes.
  • Deeper Insights: Want to know the second or third thing that people search for on your business listings? What about the one issue that keeps coming up in customer reviews? Analyzing all the data within a single platform enables robust insights across all customer touchpoints.

Reputation.com offers a comprehensive ORM solution that eliminates data silos and gives clients access to the tools and services they need to maximize their reputation management efforts in one place. Download the Complete Guide to Reputation Score and Online Reputation Management to learn more.

Keep Reading: Why B2B Brands Need Reputation Experience Management

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