How to Effectively Monitor the Impact of Implementing Next Best Action Solutions

Every salesperson should live by one motto: let your customers know you care. Relationships, after all, need attention and effort to grow. In today’s world of widespread automation, nurturing these connections has become both more challenging and easier. It’s tougher because automation drives productivity, meaning salespeople often manage more customers than ever. But it’s also easier, thanks to powerful IT tools that offer support in making timely, impactful choices. Deciding what to do — and when — to strengthen a relationship has never been more crucial. Should you offer a discount, schedule a meeting, or just send a friendly birthday message? All these actions fall under the umbrella of Next Best Action (NBA). Here, the question isn’t simply what’s next — it’s what’s best.

Implementing Next Best Actions (NBA) into an information system calls for a structured, strategic approach to ensure smooth integration and impactful results. NBA systems harness data, analytics, and machine learning to deliver real-time, tailored recommendations to customers or employees.

But are these solutions truly delivering measurable financial value? To answer that, you need to assess how the system performs in real-time. Monitoring the impact of NBA implementation is essential to confirm that recommendations are driving the intended business outcomes. Even the fastest NBA rollout won’t be effective if its results can’t be validated—making it essential to put key measures in place before implementation begins.

Define Your Goals: What Do You Want Your NBA Solution to Achieve?

The essential question is: what do you hope to accomplish with an NBA solution? Are you aiming to increase the number of customers, rebuild relationships that may have weakened, enhance customer loyalty, or improve key financial metrics such as revenue, ROE, or EBITDA?

Establishing clear objectives is foundational to a successful NBA implementation.

Set Clear Goals and KPIs

Next, create a list of business goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs will be crucial for tracking progress and gauging the impact of NBA on your business. Think of them as benchmarks that ensure you’re on the right path toward achieving your goals.

There are numerous KPIs to consider across financial, sales, and marketing dimensions. Before focusing on financial metrics, it’s essential to assess how well you’re managing customer relationships. Some commonly used customer-focused KPIs include:

• Sales Conversion Rate (SCR): the percentage of customers who make a purchase after receiving a recommendation.
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): the cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV): the estimated net profit over the entire duration of a customer relationship.
• Customer Retention Rate: the percentage of customers who continue to engage with your company over a given period.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): a measure of customer loyalty, indicating how likely customers are to recommend your business.
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): a direct measure of customer satisfaction regarding a specific product, service, or interaction.
• Churn Rate: the rate at which customers discontinue using your product or service over a set period.
• Cross-sell and Up-sell Rates: the percentage of customers who purchase additional products or upgrade to higher-value offerings.
• Engagement Metrics: indicators like email open rates, click-through rates, and time spent on an app or website.

To track these metrics effectively, your NBA solution will need to be connected to your company’s CRM system, as it’s the primary source for collecting and managing customer data.

Ultimately, these customer relationship KPIs will help you work towards broader financial objectives, from revenue growth to EBITDA and profit margin.

Specify Data Sources

Once you’ve defined your business goals and identified the metrics critical to success, it’s essential to ensure that your CRM system or other customer management platforms are capable of collecting the required data. The customer database design should encompass data fields for both behavioral insights (like email click-through rates) and financial data (such as customer acquisition costs and individual spending). Ultimately, this information feeds into your broader financial metrics, enabling a clear view of your NBA impact on overall performance.

Define Models and Algorithms Aligned with Your Goals

With your data sources identified and data collection mechanisms in place, the next step is to establish the predictive models and algorithms that will power your NBA system. This step typically involves selecting algorithms that align with your goals—whether that’s customer retention, upselling, or reducing churn, and tailoring them to your organizational needs. Companies like C&F specialize in implementing these custom models to ensure they align with your specific objectives.

Keep in mind that failing to define and plan for these algorithms upfront can complicate adjustments later, especially since they need to integrate smoothly with your CRM, ERP, or other systems already in place.

Monitoring and tracking

A well-implemented NBA solution — one that ensures access to essential information based on your collected data — enables you to assess whether your actions are aligning with your strategic plan. The system, driven by data analysis, should recommend optimal actions tailored to each customer, suggesting engagements that should be most impactful. It’s vital to stay actively involved by continuously monitoring key indicators that matter most to your business.

However the success of a software implementation is not only measured by whether it meets its business objectives. Users also have to actively utilize it. After all, if for some reason they neglect its capabilities, it is difficult to improve the results.

Monitoring adoption

To effectively monitor internal software adoption, it is essential to consider both quantitative metrics (e.g., usage frequency, engagement levels) and qualitative feedback (e.g., user satisfaction, training insights). This comprehensive approach provides a more thorough understanding of patterns, user behaviors, potential challenges, and areas for optimization.

There is a very wide range of quantitative metrics that provide insights into user behavior, from those measuring user activity to the ones related to engagement. The most common are:

• number of active users in specific period of time,
• frequency of logging in,
• key feature utilization,
• number of users who started and finished the tutorial (if there is any),
• time spent using software (e.g. per session),
• retention rate – number of employees who use the software after initial period
• adoption speed – how quickly users adopt the software

On top of that there are also qualitive measures. These insights are crucial for understanding “why” something is happening. This is mainly helped by surveys and research. Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys are often used to assess how users feel about the software. Users feedback could also be obtained in one-on-one interviews, which can help capture sentiment and identify blockers to adoption.

Monitoring how users utilize new software should be done within a certain framework. We have already mentioned that business goals are defined by classic KPIs. Similarly, it makes sense to set target thresholds for software user engagement and strive to achieve them. Virtually all of the aforementioned quantitative and qualitative indicators can be used for this purpose.

Monitor Core Business Indicators

Tracking foundational indicators helps evaluate customer responses to NBA actions. Keep an eye on business outcomes such as revenue, profits, CLV, and churn rate to ensure alignment with your goals. This ongoing assessment allows for timely course corrections if results stray from targets. However, it’s often wiser to focus on medium- to long-term trends rather than reacting to short-term fluctuations, as quick adjustments based on temporary changes may lead to hasty decisions.

Test Customer Segments with A/B Testing

A/B testing is a valuable method for determining the effectiveness of NBA actions. By assigning one customer group a particular NBA recommendation and another group a different action (or none at all), you can compare performance outcomes to see which strategy produces the best results.

Key metrics to track during these tests include:

• Engagement rates
• Purchase frequency
• Customer satisfaction
• Order value

Ensure that you use statistically significant sample sizes and test over a reasonable time period to avoid skewed results. It’s essential to allow enough time for the recommendations to take effect and produce measurable outcomes.

On the other hand, control groups are crucial for monitoring customer behavior without the influence of NBA. By comparing the performance of customers who received NBA recommendations to those who didn’t, you can isolate the effect of these actions.

The extent of the software use is also important  for assessing its effectiveness. Therefore, you should also consider the level of adoption. Comparing the activities of employees who barely used the NBA software functions with those who used them frequently allows to assess the effectiveness of the implemented solution.

Control groups help provide a clear understanding of the net impact of NBA on business performance, ensuring that the results you observe are truly driven by the NBA system rather than other variables.

Track Sentiment and satisfaction analysis

In addition to quantitative metrics, it’s important to monitor qualitative feedback to gauge customer perceptions. Customer satisfaction surveys, reviews, and social listening tools provide valuable insights into how customers feel about NBA recommendations — whether they are seen as helpful, relevant, or intrusive. A variety of measures can be tracked, from sentiment scores derived from customer feedback to NPS and CSAT trends over time. These insights help refine and improve NBA strategies, ensuring they meet customer expectations.

Handling errors and learning from mistakes

Handling errors and learning from mistakes is a critical part of effective business management. While errors are inevitable, how you respond to them often determines the long-term success of a project.

The first step is to analyze the error thoroughly and focus on finding a solution. While mistakes can’t always be undone, swift and effective action can often minimize their impact. Proactively addressing the issue demonstrates your commitment to resolving the problem.

Stay informed about best practices and emerging technologies to help prevent common errors in NBA implementation. Once the incident is resolved, it’s essential to conduct a post-mortem analysis to understand the root cause and improve response protocols for the future, ensuring smoother operations moving forward.

Continuous Optimization and Improvement of Your NBA Solution

Globalization and digitalization mean a world of constant change. Market conditions, customer preferences, legal frameworks, and even governance structures are in flux — sometimes leaning towards market-driven approaches, and at other times adopting more interventionist stances. This ever-shifting environment demands continuous optimization of data sources and algorithms. A business that fails to evolve loses its competitive edge, and the same applies to Next Best Actions (NBA) systems. What was once valuable advice for a sales representative a few years ago may no longer be relevant. As the business landscape evolves, so too must the objectives that drive successful NBA operations. To avoid falling behind, several actions must be taken.

Tracking Model Accuracy

Many NBA systems rely on machine learning models that predict customer needs based on historical data. To ensure these models continue to deliver relevant insights, it’s critical to monitor and refine them regularly. The first step in this process is to define clear evaluation metrics. Focus on key performance indicators like:

• Precision – The proportion of true positives out of all predicted positives.
• Accuracy – The percentage of correct predictions out of all predictions.

To track model performance, implement a robust validation strategy and monitor these metrics over time. This ensures that your NBA system remains aligned with your objectives and adapts to changing conditions.

Retraining and Feeding Models

If accuracy drops below an acceptable threshold or if signs of data drift emerge, it’s time to retrain your model. This process can be scheduled regularly or triggered by specific events, such as a significant decline in key metrics. Models must evolve alongside shifts in customer behavior, market conditions, and product updates.

Additionally, continually feed both successful and unsuccessful actions into the model to enhance future predictions. This practice not only improves model accuracy but also ensures that the system adapts to new insights and real-world outcomes.

Evaluating Performance

To maintain optimal performance, conduct regular performance reviews to assess the impact of NBA over time. It’s essential to monitor performance at different intervals—whether weekly, monthly, or quarterly — to identify trends or seasonal variations. Look for long-term shifts in behavior following NBA implementation and sustained changes in KPIs, rather than focusing solely on short-term results.

This review process will help determine whether NBA is driving operational efficiency, such as reducing customer service inquiries, improving agent productivity, or saving time through automation.

Summarizing the NBA Journey

The most crucial step in implementing NBA is clearly defining your goals and desired outcomes. Using a data-driven mindset, coupled with qualitative feedback, enables you to fine-tune the strategy for optimal customer engagement and business growth. However, achieving this requires a comprehensive approach, which includes real-time tracking, A/B testing, sentiment analysis, business outcome measurement, feedback loops, and continuous model optimization.

By maintaining a focus on these elements, your NBA implementation will remain relevant, efficient, and aligned with your business goals. But remember, no matter how sophisticated the NBA system is, its true value lies in how it aligns with and supports the overall company strategy. Success should be measured not just by the availability of information, but by the ability to make data-driven decisions that move the business forward.