Happy Thanksgiving! I certainly have a lot to be thankful for: After a longer-than-usual dryspell, I have two new reports out in my new space. A case study on measuring engagement, and a data-driven report that looks at the differences between Customer Intelligence professionals who use dashboards (and scorecards) and those who don’t.

I’ve been getting a bunch of inquiries about the best metrics to include on a dashboard, which vendors make the best partners, and how to set up for dashboard success. These inquiries come from firms that have already made it past the first hurdle, firms that already know they need a better way to organize the masses of data and information they have that illustrate where they’re successful and where they could improve. But only about half of the Customer Intelligence professionals at the firms we surveyed use a dashboard or scorecard to communicate their successes across the enterprise. We also find that those firms that have implemented a dashboard are included in more elements of strategic planning than those who don’t.

Dashfig 

Because getting over the hurdle of launching a dashboard project can be such a challenge, we recommend that Customer Intelligence professionals start with very simple goals for their dashboard projects and begin with the data they have readily available.

If you have a successful marketing or customer intelligence dashboard, I’d love to hear about it. Alternately, if you’re struggling to build a dashboard, I’d love to better understand your challenges and help you get started.