Inaccurate digital locations could lose businesses money

According to a recent sample of digital location information on South African retail, restaurant, fuel and hospitality sites (totalling 2,500 locations), the indications were that a high percentage were not accurate.

Business Positioning Systems (BPS) used a sample of 20 top local businesses identifying its address through either the brand's website, or its Google maps location or a top hospitality directory, such as TripAdvisor. It found that:

• Google Maps - 25% of data incorrect

Today, given the almost seamless transition from digital interaction to physical transaction, any business with physical locations needs to replicate its physical footprint across all relevant digital platforms.

Image via FreeDigitalPhotos

Gabriella Eidelman, partner at BPS, comments, "We were left questioning what kind of business impact these results may have, so we built a model. We used an average number of 10,000 store visits because our blue chip clients are currently driving that many consumers in store through our local search service.

"At a loss of 15% of 10,000 visits to a brand's store locator per month, this would equal 1,500 lost customers per month. If each customer is worth just R50 spend to your business this equates to R75,000 in lost revenue. Extrapolating further, based on 25% of 10,000 visits to a brand's Google locations per month equals 2,500 lost customers per month or R125,000 in lost revenue. Using the TripAdvisor figures, this could equal R175,000 in lost revenue.

"However, we must remember the data is randomly incorrect and users won't encounter an incorrect listing all of the time so let's assume they will only encounter an incorrect listing 30% of the time and apply this to the total lost revenue potential of R375,000, this would still add up to R112,500 per month - high potential loss."

Lost opportunities

Buster Pitt, BPS Head of Sales adds, "It's also important to remember that these searches occur when the potential customer is already in buy mode - if they can't find you the chances are they'll turn to the closest competitor (the closest competitor with an accurate digital footprint, as the consumer will probably do further research on their mobile). So not only are customers potentially losing over R100,000 per month - they are increasing competitor revenue.

For more information, go to www.bpsystems.co.za.