Actions and Insights

Last week I was purchasing a course on Coursera with a debit card. Somehow the transaction was declined. I tried using different debit card with another bank and once again the payment did not go through. While I was wondering about the reason why the transaction was not going through, received two SMSs from respective banks. Both of them saying “Your debit card is not enabled for International Transactions. Please visit back_website.com to enable International transactions.” I looked at the messages and somehow decided not to take the next action at that moment in time.

Within next five minutes received a call from Bank A

Bank Rep: “Sir, Good Afternoon, this is ABC calling from A Bank. You have recently attempted an online transaction to pay Coursera and the transaction is declined since your card is not enabled for International transactions. Do you want me to enable your card for International transactions? This will not incur any charges.”

Me: “Sure”

Bank Rep: “I am enabling your card for International Transactions. You can attempt the payment in next five minutes. Thank you.”

Within next five minutes I attempted the transaction and it went through !!

Both the banks received same data, both of them got the actionable insight and the one which won the Gold Medal (business from customer) is the one which connected with the customer with swift action. Notice that the window of opportunity was less than five minutes in this case.

In today’s business scenarios, the insights which are available with real-time data analytics need to be translated into actions which touch end customer in near real-time to gain competitive advantage in order to achieve Returns on Investments made in the data strategy.