Helen Birch

Helen's bio

Helen Birch is an experienced analytics consultant who has been working in the industry for 5 years. Helen helps clients to design and implement bespoke analytics solutions and has worked consulting with organisations such as Bourne Leisure, Cancer Research, More Th>n, Reed Exhibitions, RBS and UKTV. Helen is a Google Analytics Certified professional and manages the Foviance relationship with Google.

Google Analytics came out shouting “We are coming to get you” at the big 3 vendors (Oct 22nd) with the announcement of its new enterprise class features due to be released in the next coming weeks. Advanced Segmentation, custom reporting, a data export API and the long awaited integration with AdSense all feature on the list to really add some serious weight to the GA offering.

After IndexTools was acquired by Yahoo! and they announced that they would join Google in the “free tool” market space, we have been watching with eager eyes to see how Google would raise their game and from what we have seen so far it is a big improvement. The big win for most analysts will be the new Advanced Segmentation feature, which enables you to create your own dynamic custom segments based on multiple dimensions and/or metrics so you can properly slice and dice your data as you want it. Say goodbye to fixed dimensions and multiple profile settings and filters. If you want to find out more, Avinash Kaushik has written a great post teaching you how to become a segmentation ninja. Google Analytics Releases Advanced Segmentation: Now Be A Ninja!

Custom reporting is also another big benefit with a drag and drop interface similar to that of IndexTools allowing you to choose the dimensions and metrics which you want to see in your report. Concerns over data privacy will also be put to rest with the introduction of a data export API, giving users more transparency over the data which Google holds. There is also some new eye candy for all you marketers out there with a funky motion chart to give a new twist to data visualisation.

Some of the features such as AdSense integration are still in private beta for the moment, but I can’t wait to get stuck in. Mamma’s got a brand new toy to play with!

The internet is often seen as the cheapest channel to serve, more cost effective than telephone or face to face customer service. Some websites hide their contact information, in the hope that it will force people to persevere with a bad user experience on the website. It’s a false economy. When companies cut too many corners, their service costs rise unnecessarily.

For example, I booked train tickets online recently. When they arrived, they were missing my seat reservation. I knew I’d entered my preference into the website, so I called the company to be told that I had to go to the station to reserve my seat, even though I’d already bought my ticket online. There was no hint about this on the website, and the company ended up paying for its website, call centre and station staff to sell me one measly ticket.

I had a similar experience with an airline too: I selected my seats on the UK site of a well-known US airline. When it came to the final confirmation, my order wouldn’t go through. The site threw out error messages but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. When I phoned them up, it turned out those tickets weren’t available to UK customers. Again, the company paid for bandwidth and operator time, only this time they didn’t even sell a ticket.

In both cases, I would have preferred to resolve my problems myself by logging into my account but I couldn’t find out how to do that. Nor was there a support number I could call to resolve website questions within minutes.

Many people will end up negotiating their entire transaction by phone or in person because they can’t resolve minor issues with a website, or at least because they do not have faith they will be able to if they arise. Publicising a phone number can reassure customers. By supporting them as they use your website, you can cut the number that are forced to switch to a more expensive service channel and also cut the number that defect to rival websites that offer a better user experience.

By Helen Birch

Chiltern Railways has become the first to pilot tickets based on 2D barcodes sent to mobile phones. Customers received a multimedia message on their phone including a barcode which was scanned at the ticket entry gates. 2D barcodes, which often look like frozen television interference, have enough redundancy to cope with scratched or dirty screens. Chiltern Railways sold 6000 tickets online during its three month trial period.

Although this technology is new to the UK, Japan Airlines has been using it for domestic flights for two years.

As use of this ticketing technology expands, operators can learn much more about their customers than they could before. They could potentially couple information about customers’ travel patterns (using phone-based pay as you go or season tickets) with metrics on how they use the website. Users could buy and receive tickets using their phones and without having to use a computer at all, in which case tracking the online part of the transaction could be tricky. Many phone browsers have poor support for Javascript and cookies, which hampers attempts to measure webpage use. But the real world ticket use is relatively easy to track, and each transaction will conclude with customers registering information including their address.

Camera phones have been used in a promotion by McDonalds in Portugal, where scanning a barcode in an advert takes the user to an offer website. That’s reminiscent of the Cue Cat barcode reader that was given out for use with desktop computers during the first dotcom boom, and which was supposed to be able to scan any domestic product to take you to the manufacturer’s website. The strength of a mobile phone is that it requires no additional equipment, and it can be used on the move.

With these two techniques, mobile phones can be used to extend an understanding of web analytics into printed advert response and the use of tickets. Customers might be wary of companies gathering so much data on them, but if it can be used to drive improved services and smoother transactions, they will likely agree.