--- title: "Chat With Your Data: ask your business a question, get an answer" description: Ask your CRM questions in plain language instead of waiting for reports. How Chat With Your Data works for SMEs, what it needs, and where to start. image: https://www.vidalico.com/hubfs/Blog_Featured_Chat-With-Your-Data.png --- [Skip to content](https://www.vidalico.com/blog/the-power-of-conversations#main-content) Close - [What we do](https://www.vidalico.com/marketing-as-a-service) - [Digitalization Audit](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-and-digitalization-for-swiss-smes) - [CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™](https://www.vidalico.com/chat-with-your-data) - [Platforms](https://www.vidalico.com/hubspot) - [Growth as a Service](https://www.vidalico.com/marketing-as-a-service) - [Free AI-Readiness Check](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-readiness-check) - [About](https://www.vidalico.com/about-us) - [About us](https://www.vidalico.com/about-us) - [Success Stories](https://www.vidalico.com/success-stories) - [Blog](https://vidalico.com/blog) - [Contact us](https://www.vidalico.com/contact) SEARCH Contact us [![Vidalico\_Logo\_Horizontal\_color-1](https://www.vidalico.com/hubfs/Vidalico_Logo_Horizontal_color-1.svg)![Vidalico\_Logo\_Horizontal\_white](https://www.vidalico.com/hubfs/Vidalico_Logo_Horizontal_white.svg)](https://www.vidalico.com) - [What we do](https://www.vidalico.com/marketing-as-a-service) - [Digitalization Audit](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-and-digitalization-for-swiss-smes) - [CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™](https://www.vidalico.com/chat-with-your-data) - [Platforms](https://www.vidalico.com/hubspot) - [Growth as a Service](https://www.vidalico.com/marketing-as-a-service) - [Free AI-Readiness Check](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-readiness-check) - [About](https://www.vidalico.com/about-us) - [About us](https://www.vidalico.com/about-us) - [Success Stories](https://www.vidalico.com/success-stories) - [Blog](https://vidalico.com/blog) - [Contact us](https://www.vidalico.com/contact) Contact us Quick results for "{search\_term}" [Peter Tasala](https://www.vidalico.com/blog/author/peter-tasala)Jun 2, 2023, 8:08:57 AM3 min read # Chat With Your Data: ask your business a question, get an answer [Previous](https://www.vidalico.com/blog/why-smes-should-ditch-spreadsheets-and-move-to-hubspot) [Next](https://www.vidalico.com/blog/unleashing-the-power-of-hubspot-contacts-features-and-benefits) *Why waiting for a report is the slowest way to find out what's going on in your business* Most SMEs have more answers in their systems than they think. The CRM knows which customers haven't ordered since spring. The ERP knows which product line is shrinking. The offers folder knows which quotes are still open. The problem isn't the data. It's getting a straight answer out of it. Today that usually means asking someone to build a report, waiting a few days, and then realising you should have asked a slightly different question. ## The report queue problem In many companies, one or two people know how to pull numbers from the systems. Everybody else sends them questions. The questions pile up, the important ones get answered late, and the small ones never get asked at all. That's expensive in a quiet way. A sales manager who can't quickly see which accounts are slipping doesn't call them. A managing director who has to wait for the monthly report makes decisions on last month's picture. And the people who build the reports spend their time on exports instead of analysis. ## What "chatting with your data" means Chat With Your Data™ lets your team ask questions in plain language and get answers from your own business data. Questions like: - Which customers haven't ordered since spring? - Which offers over CHF 20'000 are still open, and who owns them? - What did our top 20 customers buy last year, compared with the year before? - Which deals have had no activity for 30 days? You type the question and get the answer, with the underlying records so you can check it. If the answer raises a new question, you ask that one too. No report request, no waiting. ## What it is not It isn't a chatbot on your website, and it doesn't replace your CRM or ERP. It works on top of the systems you already have. It also isn't magic. An AI that answers from messy data gives messy answers, only faster and with more confidence. If the same customer exists three times, "what did this customer buy" has three answers. That's why every Chat With Your Data project starts with the foundation. ## How we set it up **1. Check the foundation.** Where does the data live, how clean is it, and who should see what? If customer data is scattered or full of duplicates, we fix that first. Read [clean your data before you move it](https://www.vidalico.com/blog/clean-your-data-before-you-move-it) for what that looks like. **2. Pick the questions that matter.** We start from the ten or twenty questions your team asks most often, or would ask if it were easy. That keeps the project focused on real decisions, not on connecting everything. **3. Connect the sources and set the rules.** We connect the systems those questions need and define access, so people only see what they're allowed to see. Data protection under the revised Swiss law is part of the setup, not an afterthought. **4. Test with the people who'll use it.** The team asks their real questions and checks the answers against what they know. Where answers are wrong, it usually points to a data problem worth fixing anyway. **5. Roll out and keep it honest.** Once people trust the answers, the report queue gets shorter. A short review every few months keeps the data and the answers in line. ## Who it's for Chat With Your Data works best for companies that already use a CRM, or are about to, and where more than a handful of people need numbers to do their job: sales, service, management. If the business still runs mostly on spreadsheets, the first step is getting the data into one place. That's where our audit starts. Not sure your data is ready for questions like these? Take our free [AI-Readiness Check](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-readiness-check): twelve questions, about three minutes, and you see your score in five areas straight away. ## Where to start See how it works on the [Chat With Your Data page](https://www.vidalico.com/chat-with-your-data). If you're not sure your data is ready, start with the [Digitalization Audit](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-and-digitalization-for-swiss-smes): it shows where your data stands and what to fix before you build anything on top of it. **[See Chat With Your Data →](https://www.vidalico.com/chat-with-your-data)** ![avatar](https://www.vidalico.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Peter%20Tasala%20Data%20Analytics%20Advisory.png?width=290&name=Peter%20Tasala%20Data%20Analytics%20Advisory.png) [Peter Tasala](https://www.vidalico.com/blog/author/peter-tasala)Project Manager | Fintech & Financial Services Transformation | Data, Analytics & AI Strategy. With over 10 years of experience, I lead complex, client-facing technology and transformation initiatives within the banking, financial services, and fintech sectors. I specialize in bridging the gap between high-level business strategy and technical execution to deliver scalable, high-impact solutions. ## RELATED ARTICLES [![Vidalico\_Logo\_Horizontal\_white-1](https://2977752.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/2977752/hubfs/Vidalico_Logo_Horizontal_white-1.png?width=300&name=Vidalico_Logo_Horizontal_white-1.png)](https://www.vidalico.com) - [What we do](https://www.vidalico.com/marketing-as-a-service) - [Digitalization Audit](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-and-digitalization-for-swiss-smes) - [CHAT WITH YOUR DATA™](https://www.vidalico.com/chat-with-your-data) - [Platforms](https://www.vidalico.com/hubspot) - [Growth as a Service](https://www.vidalico.com/marketing-as-a-service) - [Free AI-Readiness Check](https://www.vidalico.com/ai-readiness-check) - [About](https://www.vidalico.com/about-us) - [About us](https://www.vidalico.com/about-us) - [Success Stories](https://www.vidalico.com/success-stories) - [Blog](https://vidalico.com/blog) - [Contact us](https://www.vidalico.com/contact) SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER Vidalico Digital 2022 © All rights reserved Helsinki, Finland - [Datenschutzerklärung](https://www.vidalico.com/de/datenschutz) - [Impressum](https://www.vidalico.com/de/impressum) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "Organization", "address" : { "@type" : "PostalAddress", "addressCountry" : "Switzerland", "addressLocality" : "Oberegg", "addressRegion" : "", "postalCode" : "9413", "streetAddress" : "Ruppenstrasse 3" }, "knowsLanguage" : "en", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://2977752.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/2977752/Vidalico_Logo_Horizontal_color.svg" }, "name" : "Vidalico Digital", "url" : "https://www.vidalico.com/blog/the-power-of-conversations" } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "abstract" : "Ask your CRM questions in plain language instead of waiting for reports. How Chat With Your Data works for SMEs, what it needs, and where to start.", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Peter Tasala" }, "dateModified" : "", "datePublished" : "", "headline" : "Chat With Your Data: ask your business a question, get an answer", "image" : "https://2977752.fs1.hubspotusercontent-eu1.net/hubfs/2977752/Blog_Featured_Chat-With-Your-Data.png", "inLanguage" : "en", "keywords" : "[]", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@type" : "WebPage" }, "name" : "Chat With Your Data: ask your business a question, get an answer", "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://2977752.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/2977752/Vidalico_Logo_Horizontal_color.svg" }, "name" : "Vidalico Digital" }, "text" : "Why waiting for a report is the slowest way to find out what's going on in your business Most SMEs have more answers in their systems than they think. The CRM knows which customers haven't ordered since spring. The ERP knows which product line is shrinking. The offers folder knows which quotes are still open. The problem isn't the data. It's getting a straight answer out of it. Today that usually means asking someone to build a report, waiting a few days, and then realising you should have asked a slightly different question. The report queue problem In many companies, one or two people know how to pull numbers from the systems. Everybody else sends them questions. The questions pile up, the important ones get answered late, and the small ones never get asked at all. That's expensive in a quiet way. A sales manager who can't quickly see which accounts are slipping doesn't call them. A managing director who has to wait for the monthly report makes decisions on last month's picture. And the people who build the reports spend their time on exports instead of analysis. What \"chatting with your data\" means Chat With Your Data™ lets your team ask questions in plain language and get answers from your own business data. Questions like: Which customers haven't ordered since spring? Which offers over CHF 20'000 are still open, and who owns them? What did our top 20 customers buy last year, compared with the year before? Which deals have had no activity for 30 days? You type the question and get the answer, with the underlying records so you can check it. If the answer raises a new question, you ask that one too. No report request, no waiting. What it is not It isn't a chatbot on your website, and it doesn't replace your CRM or ERP. It works on top of the systems you already have. It also isn't magic. An AI that answers from messy data gives messy answers, only faster and with more confidence. If the same customer exists three times, \"what did this customer buy\" has three answers. That's why every Chat With Your Data project starts with the foundation. How we set it up 1. Check the foundation. Where does the data live, how clean is it, and who should see what? If customer data is scattered or full of duplicates, we fix that first. Read clean your data before you move it for what that looks like. 2. Pick the questions that matter. We start from the ten or twenty questions your team asks most often, or would ask if it were easy. That keeps the project focused on real decisions, not on connecting everything. 3. Connect the sources and set the rules. We connect the systems those questions need and define access, so people only see what they're allowed to see. Data protection under the revised Swiss law is part of the setup, not an afterthought. 4. Test with the people who'll use it. The team asks their real questions and checks the answers against what they know. Where answers are wrong, it usually points to a data problem worth fixing anyway. 5. Roll out and keep it honest. Once people trust the answers, the report queue gets shorter. A short review every few months keeps the data and the answers in line. Who it's for Chat With Your Data works best for companies that already use a CRM, or are about to, and where more than a handful of people need numbers to do their job: sales, service, management. If the business still runs mostly on spreadsheets, the first step is getting the data into one place. That's where our audit starts. Not sure your data is ready for questions like these? Take our free AI-Readiness Check: twelve questions, about three minutes, and you see your score in five areas straight away. Where to start See how it works on the Chat With Your Data page. If you're not sure your data is ready, start with the Digitalization Audit: it shows where your data stands and what to fix before you build anything on top of it. 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