5 Awesome applications for real-time data

Nov 11th, 2015

Analytics & a/b testing

For those sites that get a lot of traffic, real-time analytics would be a must have technology. Consider a basic a/b test, we change the color of a button from red to green. Then we let 50% of our users have the green page & the other 50% see the red page.

Which does better, Red or Green?

If this is a sales page for a product or service we want to know what changes give the most sales as quickly as possible. Using a real-time analytics platform solves this problem & could give more insights into a potential behavior pattern.

Reputation management

Combine sentiment analysis and a connection to social media accounts to create a real-time reports on how a brand is performing. Let's do an example though;

I have accounts for Google Plus and Twitter . If a client submits a bug, service complaint, or even speaks positively -- I want to respond quickly & accurately. Because it gives me a way to show that I care & maintain a reputation as an expert in real-time web applications.
On a larger scale -- crisis management could happen quickly attaching this same principle to target keywords & sentiment scores for social media, search engine results and any other automated source.

Upselling

Yes, upselling. Ever see those little chat boxes in the corners of a website? That is what I am referencing. This gives your sales reps a way to build relationships, answer questions & upsell a visitor. Highly recommended & easy to implement, a real-time chat system can turn visitors into customers.

Bugs & issues

The ease of the sale is directly proportional to how well a product or service works. So taking the time to implement a quick feedback loop for bugs or issues can be time well spent. A real-time issue tracker can make the difference between a happy or upset customer. It will either end with a quickly resolved issue or a problem that lingers & leaves customers upset.

I've implemented real-time notification systems for tickets in the past & have discovered a complete turn around in customer satisfaction. It may not seem obvious, but the sooner a ticket is closed -- the happier ticket reporter is.

Collaboration Board

I'm sure everyone has used this by now. With so many technologies out there like Google Drive, Zoho, Microsoft Office Online and many, many more... Online collaboration is a phenomenal use of real-time data. It creates documents that can be edited by multiple people at the same time & automatically backs up changes. I have built projects in the past for companies that needed more specific documents than word or powerpoint, but if you can deal with the basics, I highly recommend using this tech.