Most companies have a customer support department which is dedicated to addressing issues customers have with the product. Issues and resolutions are logged, and over time, a historical record is created. This is a valuable knowledge base, which allows support representatives to quickly find appropriate solutions for customers who seek help using chat or phone.

Web sites and application can gather a detailed log of each user session. The preceding image shows a typical screen of Google Analytics--a popular tool.

Web analytics is a dedicated specialization that helps stakeholders develop meaningful insights from the data. These insights correspond to key measures that businesses use to track the progress of their business, from the number of visitors to a website, the average time visitors spend on various pages, sections that are more popular than others, and much more.

For example, During the release phase of a new product, a company can track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns by following the increase of traffic to relevant destinations on its website. The number of visitors to such pages is then compared with the actual number of people who purchased the product. A big gap between visitors and purchasers might indicate a problem.