Why Mobile Data Collection by Itself is Not Enough

Much has been written lately about mobile data collection and how it is changing the way companies are doing business, especially when planning their marketing and promotional efforts. However, what any type of data collection leads to is normally just what its own name implies: a whole bunch of data.

Navigating though all the data obtained can be quite exhausting and unfruitful, and therefore any mobile data collection solution must, more than the data itself, extract actionable information.

This is why the way the information is presented in these systems is so important: Plot it in unfiltered spreadsheets and the user gets lost in a bunch of numbers and letters; aggregate it in excessively colorful graphs and visual tools and suddenly the looks cloud the user’s judgment, blocking his/her decision-making.

Actionable information extracted from mobile data collection seems to work best when presented in several ways:

1. On a real-time map, allowing the monitoring user (supervisor, manager, executive) to view mobile user’s geo and time-stamped information. This allows the monitoring user to make on-the-spot decisions and properly manage territories and routes. 
2. On a detailed user-level visit execution status window that contains all information pertaining to the data collection tasks. This window should also allow monitoring users to make last-minute changes such as assigning additional tasks for each visit (i.e. requesting POS manager input for unexpected out-of-stock). It also advises managers of excessive idle time or fraudulent check-ins among field reps.
3. By building reports with several filtering options in order to generate spreadsheets with useful and readable data that can be transformed into charts, forms, and other printable and presentable formats.

VisitBasis Retail Execution is a complete mobile data collection solution designed to build, schedule and monitor field team activities in real time. It provides tools for all types of field activities, including merchandising, field marketing, field sales, auditing, inspections, mystery shopping, surveying, POS asset management, training, sampling, and product demonstrations, among others.

See for yourself how VisitBasis can help with your organization obtain actionable information from its data collection efforts: sign up today!