Are you writing a happy story?

I remember reading books in grade school where I could choose my own adventure.  The book began by introducing characters, a setting, and some trouble. As I read along, I made decisions at forks in the story.  Should they turn left or turn right?  Should they enter the castle or continue through the forest? Should they follow the trail of candy to the witch’s house or turn and run? I knew the beginning of the story but my decisions would change the ending.

You are writing that type of story every day in your service business. You have your cast of characters, the setting, and maybe an evil villain or two. But can you predict how the story will end? QuickSight reporting will help you make better decisions in the midst of writing the story of your business that lead to a better ending.

As we were deciding on the reports we wanted to show during the QuickSight webinar we hosted this week, I realized we were examining plot twists: Which sales rep is the most successful with their quotes? Which technicians are and are not recording deficiencies that represent new revenue opportunities? What does the labor demand curve look like for planned contract work in the next six months?

Here’s how you can approach setting up your QuickSight data analysis to uncover insights that will help you make good decisions:

1. Define what you care about. What are the key performance indicators for your business? There will probably be a lot of them and that’s good.
2. Choose your cast of characters. ServiceTrade data can be analyzed in six major datasets:
   • Deficiencies
   • Jobs
   • Recurring services
   • Invoices
   • Quotes
   • Technician productivity
3. Ask some questions. Parameters around your reporting generally fall into two buckets: Time and money — or both. Craft a one-sentence question that data analysis can answer for you like:  
   • How many of our quotes for deficiencies are being approved?  
   • Which sales rep in the Durham office has the highest quote approval rate?  
   • Which technicians record the most deficiencies?
   • What service lines generate the most revenue throughout the year?
4. Collaborate. Create a team that’s responsible for generating reports and finding the best ways to discover what it is that you want to learn. Once you’ve built a few reports and are familiar with the app, you’ll think of new ways to uncover new insights.

While you’re discovering new insights from your ServiceTrade data there’s one more thing to do:

5.  Take action. Insights require action, whether that’s doing more of what’s working or making changes where needed.

QuickSight reports tell you the whole story of your business – the comedies, adventures, dramas, and the horrors. Use this reporting tool to measure the health of your business and learn where you should make changes for better growth, profitability, and efficiency.