Market research is crucial for every business; you have probably heard this a million times until now. And yes, it is a vital part of every business strategy - no matter whether the business is B2B or B2C, new or old. But do you know spending on market research is on the rise? And with it, the pressure on researchers is rising too.  

In this fast-paced business world, most researchers are under tremendous pressure to deliver fast and accurate results to their stakeholders. And to deliver accurate results, researchers are trying to combine all their consumer research datasets from FGD to qualitative interviews - to gain conclusive insights quickly, but it is tough.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some system or solution that could help us amalgamate all this data in a single place? This is where a single source of truth comes to save the day.  

To generate fast and reliable consumer insights, move away from data sprawl, and focus on creating a single source of truth. By bringing all user research and consumer conversations under one roof you can gain real-time insights from this data.

Read on to see how a single source of truth benefits your market research and improves your bottom line. But before we jump into how a single source of truth can help you - let us first discuss what is a single source of truth to make sure we are on the same page.

What Is a Single Source of Truth (SSOT)?

A single source of truth (SSOT) is the practice of aggregating all your consumer conversation, FGD, and qualitative interviews across all platforms in one single dashboard to make it an easy-to-access repository.  

The idea behind curating all your user research and customer conversations across platforms under one dashboard is to give you the complete truth or the closest perception of your consumer than ever before.

In other words, a single source of truth guarantees that everyone in the organization, from marketing to sales, has access to the same information and uses the same data to make decisions.

Why Having a Single Source of Truth Is Crucial?  

The problem with having your research and customer conversations data in various locations or saved on different platforms is that it is tough to find and scan the conversations. Also, these platforms do not communicate with each other making it tough to get a complete picture of your customer. This disjointed view of the customer often leads to poor decision-making.

Without a single source of truth, it is tough for marketing teams to understand what their consumers want, and they end up going in the wrong direction by focusing on the wrong activities that fail to capture their target customer's interest and generate the most appropriate ROI (Return on Investment).  

Creating a single source of truth or a single version of the truth is critical as it ensures that you understand your consumers in greater detail so that you can better serve them. Also, this way, marketers can be sure that the data they are using to make decisions is reliable and accurate.  

In short, a single source of truth is crucial as data misalignments caused by multiple systems that capture data can create an echo chamber where mistakes happen, and opportunities can be missed.

Why Your Research Data Needs a Single Source of Truth?  

We live in a world where consumer expectations are changing fast. Carrying out market research helps us understand our customers' needs so that we can meet them effectively.

By understanding what your consumers want and need, you can then take steps to meet those needs and mitigate the customer experience gap – which is what your audience expects you to deliver versus what you actually deliver.

And yes, understanding consumer expectations is crucial as it affects every aspect of the business – from brand to product to customer service to marketing and sales. For example, marketers can know how their customers feel about the products and services, brand, and communication by identifying and gathering feedback from target customers. And can react accordingly, helping them improve things – giving them a higher chance of success in the short and long term.

But this feedback data is only useful when it is effectively managed. Scattered, out-of-date, or inconsistent data only causes chaos and confusion. And that is why a single source of truth is the holy grail for market research, as it provides businesses with the foundation, they need to make informed decisions.

The Benefits of a Single Source of Truth

If you are still on the fence about creating a single source of truth for your customer conversations, here are a few benefits that you can leverage by implementing SSOT in your organization - we hope these will help you jump the fence.

1. Reliable and Accurate Data

Market research has always been necessary for businesses to know what consumers like, what they dislike, what they value, what they need, etc. But many brands found the data collection process daunting, time-consuming, and expensive.

With the emergence of simple, easy-to-use tools that let you conduct market research virtually, there are no excuses for brands not to do it. In fact, these days, the most successful brands rely on customer feedback data to inform and gauge their strategy and decision-making.

Virtual research tools have made it easier and inexpensive for brands to conduct market research. These tools also have increased the speed at which brands can generate insights from this data. But often, this data exists in various systems across an organization. When these systems exist in silos, this data is inaccurate and less reliable. And that is why every business should move toward a single source of truth model to overcome this challenge.

2. Better Customer Experience

We all know delivering a great customer experience is crucial for every business. It was vital to thrive a few years back, but it is essential to survive nowadays. In fact, these days, the greatest need for every marketer is to understand the customer experience deeply. Without that, all other decisions, from marketing strategy to product development, are just guesswork.  

In this customer-driven era, brands need to focus on the engine that drives brand success – the customer. And that is the reason every brand is investing a lot in market research. But if all this data is not in a centralized place, it is tough to leverage it; that's where a single source of truth can help brands.

A single source of truth enables a better customer experience. By having a full context of your consumers, from what they need to what they want in one place, you can better meet your consumers' needs and deliver them the experience they want.

3. Makes Data Easily Discoverable

With a centralised repository, all your user research and customer conversation data and information are aggregated in a single place, making data easily discoverable. This, in turn, ensures that your team does not lose any data or does not have to waste time when collecting relevant information because they have to go to multiple sources. Also, this empowers the decision-makers in your company as they have accurate information in their hands and can make informed decisions.

4. Increase Agility

We live in a digitally charged world where consumer expectations are at an all-time high. Needless to say, understanding customers' needs and exceeding their expectations have become crucial for businesses to compete.

Consumer insight can allow businesses to better personalize their products to their customers' needs, wants, and demands, and leveraging these insights has become crucial for companies to succeed. According to one research by Watermark Consulting, brands that leverage consumer insights outperform the S&P 500 index. And as a result, brands' demands for faster insights are increasing.

One of the most compelling advantages of an SSOT is it helps you generate consumer insights faster. How? Well, a centralized repository of all your customer conversations makes it easier for marketers and other stakeholders to process and analyze them anytime.

5. Powerful Insights

In this data-driven era, to succeed, every brand needs to base its decisions on consumer feedback, not on past consumer behavior and, at worst, on gut feeling. But as consumer data has become more fragmented, it becomes tough to leverage this data. And that is where a single source of truth can help. With all consumer feedback data stored in one source of truth, brands can generate accurate insights and make smarter decisions.

Now that you know the benefits of creating a single source of truth you must be wondering how to do that – here is how:

How to Create a Single Source of Truth?

For a business to create a single source of truth, they need to pull all their consumer conversations across platforms to a single centralized location. To do this, integration is required and an interface/platform that will let organizations host and upload this conversation data.

With Decode, you can collate all your consumer conversations across platforms like Zoom, Team, Webex, etc., under a single platform - with the help of our built-in API connectors. You can also create collections and group conversations logically to drive aggregated insights.

Accuracy is Critical

Businesses rely on market research to know their consumers, so data accuracy and reliability are indispensable for market research. By creating a single source of truth for all your research conversations, you will be able to tell your stakeholder with confidence that your data quality is watertight.  

Now collecting and managing all your user research conversations under one roof is crucial, but it is just the first step.  

So, before we sign off, our last tip is this: analyze these conversations to gain real-time human insights from them.  

Wondering how? Use a conversation intelligence platform that lets you bring all your user research and consumer conversation under one roof. And allow you to gain real-time live consumable insights from them so that your research team can make a real impact on the business bottom line.

Related Read: Conversational Intelligence: What, Why, How & Top Benefits of CI for Business.

How Decode Can Help Your Market Research Team?

Wondering how you can create a single source of truth for your business? Decode enables users to bring all their customer conversations under a centralized repository. With the help of built-in API connectors, we let you integrate all your conversations across platforms like Zoom, Teams, Webex, and more to help brands create their single source of truth.  

By combining all your user research and customer conversation data in one, we bring you closer to the truth you have been looking for.

Want to create a single source of truth for your brand? Or want to find out how a single source of truth can help your research team generate fast and reliable insights? Get in touch today.

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