The age of digital transformation has made speed and transparency more important than ever. This calls for optimized client reporting that delivers automated insights in real time.
Spreadsheets and Microsoft Excel have become common practice in traditional reporting, but these approaches can be time-consuming and inefficient.
Too often throughout the world of traditional reporting, Excel reports are created without a clear purpose or desired outcome, or feature superfluous information that detracts from any quality insights available.
This calls for a unified and streamlined approach that can help to take much of the strain away from client reporting and provide more actionable insights for clients.
From utilizing dashboards to accessing centralized data, let’s take a deeper look at how streamlined client reporting can help to highlight the right KPIs and pave the way for more successful insights long into the future:
1. Begin by Unifying Your Goals and Metrics
One key component of your streamlined client reporting should be focused on setting the right goals and metrics to observe.
Discuss these with your client so that you understand the key milestones that you’re seeking to reach. If your client’s goals don’t seem achievable, it’s important to explain your perception and to collaborate to set more objective goals.
Before your streamlining process can begin, it’s important to get the right foundations in place for your reporting strategy, and this specifically means aligning on your shared goals.
You will also need to apply a similar strategy when it comes to the metrics you track. We live in a world that’s rich in data, so it’s important that you utilize the right software development services to get to grips with the correct metrics.
Here, it may be worth sharing which specific KPIs can help them to measure goals and also how your report’s metrics can help to provide actionable insights. This will help to ensure that you’re on the same page and can deliver a more consistent and relevant report.
2. Utilize the Right Automation Tools
Automation tools can help to save time and prevent users from having to resort to spreadsheets and manual reporting methods in order to generate the right insights for clients.
These tools can not only help to create powerful visualizations surrounding client KPIs but also reduce instances of human error while delivering more consistency for presenting results on a regular basis.
One recent use case saw PetakSys generate client reporting wealth management solutions that drew on automation tools to offer a greater level of insight for their client.
In this wealth management case study, PetakSys sought to develop an application that would replace its client’s dependency on Microsoft Excel.
The project focused on gathering client requirements and generating wireframe mockups and a functional system design.
PetakSys then utilized automated data extraction by developing a system that extracts data from Intelliflo Office using their API. This process could be monitored in real-time through a dedicated user interface and data stored was made accessible through a cloud-based database.
This automated system helped to create reports that closely followed industry standards, and empowered PetakSys to deliver a customized application for data enrichment incorporating valuation and performance information.
Fundamentally, automation tools can improve data verification while eliminating the need for extensive data entry that can be prone to human error.
3. Visualizations are Key to Streamlined Insights
The beauty of automation tools is that they can free up the time needed to generate effective data visualizations so that clients won’t have to sift through data points to build an effective bar chart.
Through automation, it’s possible to create more visually appealing and digestible charts that can include storytelling elements that directly guide clients in understanding how they’re achieving their specified goals.
Depending on your specific client needs, it’s possible to customize your reports to suit different audiences. Be sure to take into consideration whether your client will expect more top-level or granular visualizations depending on where the report will go and make suitable decisions based on budget and insight expectations.
4. Go Cross-Channel with Your Reporting
Utilizing data points without unifying metrics across channels means that you may miss out on the wider context of the information you’re trying to communicate. With this in mind, it’s important to make sure your reports cover relevant channels in a value-adding way.
Consider bigger-picture information like effects that have marketing implications, how budgeting is being impacted based on KPIs, and overall revenue gained from individual campaigns.
Cross-campaign client reporting can help generate unified metrics that cover a vast array of relevant channels to different areas of your client’s business.
Through automated client reporting, it’s far easier to create reports that can be adapted to suit a variety of channels to provide actionable insights that can be shared throughout different areas of a company.
These tools help to secure meaningful strategies for clients without the risk of human error or losing relevant points across a sea of unfocused metrics.
By embracing automation tools, you can also help streamline your client reporting and optimize your services through rich data and high-quality insights that can help to secure sustainable growth long into the future.
