In the world of certifying and credentialing organizations, making data-driven decisions is critical to ensuring the integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness of their programs. By leveraging data analytics, organizations can gain deep insights into candidate performance, identify trends and gaps in learning, and tailor their certification processes to better meet industry standards and demands.
This approach not only enhances the credibility and relevance of their certifications, but also allows for continuous improvement in their assessment methods. Data-based decision-making enables organizations to stay ahead of the curve, ensuring that their credentials remain valuable and respected in an ever-evolving professional landscape.
This strategic use of data ultimately contributes to the development of a more competent and qualified workforce, aligned with the specific needs of their respective industries.
What is Real-Time Reporting?
Real-time reporting refers to an innovative approach to data handling that prioritizes automation and scalability, and is enabled by purpose-built software (like ROC-P) that brings together various applications and databases into one dynamic platform. It involves the systems used to pass data back and forth, as well as those used to analyze and visualize that data so teams can mine them for insights.
Once the province of data-heavy industries like finance and health care, real-time reporting and data analysis is now within reach of most organizations, thanks to advances in technology and software development.
For companies that implement it, the results can be transformative. In a recent survey by KX and London’s Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) of 1,200 businesses using real-time reporting:
- 98% reported increased customer satisfaction
- 80% saw revenue increases
- 60% saw major efficiency and productivity gains
As the credentialing market grows more complex and competitive, real-time reporting can give organizations the advantage they need to stay ahead of the curve.
How Real-Time Reporting & Analysis Can Help Certifying Bodies
1. Improved Business Operations
Real-time reporting tools like ROC-P automate the process of data gathering and verification, saving credentialing and certification professionals massive amounts of time, while also providing an elevated customer service experience to an organization’s certified individuals.
One such example comes from the recertification process. By generating accurate, on-demand information about certified individuals nearing a lapse, teams can focus on building a strategy to reach those individuals and ensure they renew their certification. Without real-time reporting, those teams may waste days or even weeks contacting those who have already recertified, or miss those who might have otherwise maintained their certification.
Real-time reporting also helps ensure the stability and sustainability of an organization through increased transparency. Organizations are larger than any individual, and no single person should be the sole repository of vital data. By centralizing all data functions and making the information instantly available to a curated group of people, problems can be identified, checked, and balanced before they get out of control.
Real-time reporting can help teams answer questions like:
- Are individuals flowing through the credentialing pipeline efficiently, or are they dropping out at a certain point?
- Are individuals engaging with continuing education modules, low-stakes tests or other touchpoints from the organization?
- Is your messaging on critical information like requirements and deadlines resonating with users and driving action?
Real-time tools like ROC-P can help organizations keep a pulse on their certification pipeline, allowing certification teams to be proactive rather than reactive.
2. Clearer Growth Planning
The leaders of certifying organizations are often busy and distinguished professionals who meet a limited number of times each year. It is imperative that they have accurate and up-to-date information to enable the best decisions possible.
Real-time reporting and analysis reveal potentially hidden trends and insights in an organization’s data, so leaders can focus on truly big picture questions, such as:
- When it comes to registrations, is there more imagined interest in a new credential than actual interest?
- Is the organization investing at the right points within the credentialing pipeline?
- Where are opportunities for revenue growth within the certification pipeline?
This becomes a key benefit when leadership and staff at an organization transition out of roles, either planned or unexpectedly. Knowledge gaps are filled more easily when real-time reports based on centralized data are available.
Better data and analysis can also help your organization prepare adequately for future needs. For example, when planning an in-person certifying exam, booking too large of a space can waste money, but not having enough space can damage an organization’s reputation by creating a negative testing experience.
Real-time reporting from ROC-P provides a visual, accurate view of an organization’s needs for space, examiners, sessions and more, and can even create an automated wait list for candidates if there are a limited number of exam spots. These kinds of strategic decisions could not be made with a high degree of accuracy if multiple non-communicative systems have to be checked and re-checked for data validation.
3. Better Brand Reputation
As candidates and certified professionals’ demographics change, and professionals become more tech-savvy, there is an increasing expectation for organizations to offer more personalized and instantaneous customer service. Part of that means having a full command of their data, when and where it’s needed.
Real-time reporting instills confidence in your organization’s brand by allowing professionals to review their own information or history, or your team to serve them faster and more comprehensively. With ROC-P, team members can see an individual’s statuses, renewal dates, payment history and more in one central location, speeding research and confirmation tasks.
By understanding certificant preferences, behaviors, and patterns through data analytics, organizations can deliver products and services that align more closely with their needs. That, in turn, builds trust and loyalty in certification, which is key to its long-term growth and adoption.
ROC-P is a unified certification management system (CMS) that provides real-time reporting solutions developed specifically for the credentialing industry. Reach out today for a personalized demo and see how this advanced platform can boost credentialing speed, accuracy, and satisfaction.