The marketing landscape is changing and, with it, reporting rules. Companies in various industries are now looking at their CRM data as a predictive tool for growth. Marketers can be more effective by using the insights available through CRM to make intelligent decisions about future marketing strategies before running any ads or promotions. Customer relationship management (CRM) software is quite helpful. Despite this, many firms rely only on the most basic capabilities. You must go beyond collecting contact information and managing campaigns to get the most out of your CRM software. CRM reporting will propel your company to new heights. Organizations can improve the customer experience and increase retention rates by creating reports that delve deeply into consumer behavior and other critical business metrics. Are you ready to expand your CRM software’s capabilities? Let’s get started.
What is CRM Reporting, and How Does It Work?
CRM reports are helpful information that may help you enhance your sales process and make data-driven choices. Real-time data may be used to create unique reports by various departments and positions within a company. As a result, it’s hard to determine whether your procedure is successful without CRM reporting. In addition, reports assist firms in developing and implementing a successful CRM strategy and monitoring KPIs to assess the effectiveness of all activities.
3 CRM Reporting Enhancement Tools
If you use the correct software, CRM reporting becomes a lot simpler. These are some of my favorite CRM reporting tools.
1. Zoho CRM (Zoho Customer Relationship Management)
It should come as no surprise that Zoho CRM is ranked so high on this list, given over 150,000 enterprises trust it in over 180 countries. The platform is designed to assist organizations in various sectors in improving conversions, enhancing customer engagement, and increasing income. You may pick from more than 40 special reports that come standard with Zoho CRM. You may also create customized reports on marketing initiatives, sales trends, team performance, etc. In addition, it’s simple to create new words in minutes and share them with key stakeholders right away.
2. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a CRM and pipeline management tool that focuses on sales. However, businesses of all sizes may use the program to generate more quality leads and increase conversions. Pipedrive allows you to log calls, emails, and your database’s whole contact history while automating tedious operations so that your company may thrive. Pipedrive features interactive dashboards and configurable reports for every potential use case for CRM reporting. Deals, leads, activities, income, objectives, and more categories are included. Pipedrive’s CRM reporting features appeal to me since the software is so simple to use—try a free sample.
3. Salesforce
In the CRM software sector, Salesforce is a market leader. They offer a solution for any business size and industry in sales, customer service, marketing, and more. Customizable reports, dashboards, extensive reporting options, real-time sales insights, sales forecasting, and much more are all available in Salesforce. Salesforce’s powerful analytics capabilities are another notable feature. Salesforce bought Tableau, a worldwide leader in data visualization and real-time analytics, in 2019. These two platforms operate in tandem to assist decision-makers in making the best decisions possible. To begin your free trial, sign up for Salesforce.
CRM Reporting Fundamentals
There are many CRM reports that you may run depending on your program. We’ll look at some of the most common CRM report kinds and discuss how they might benefit your company.
Reports on the Sales Funnel
Sales funnel reporting provides a detailed picture of all transactions in the sales pipeline to sales teams and management. It will assist sales professionals in focusing their efforts on specific initiatives and ensuring that transactions do not slip through the cracks. KPIs should be tracked in your sales funnels to guarantee that a set proportion of leads progress to the next level. In addition, a sales funnel report will allow you to see possible problems in the funnel, such as a low number of tips going through specific phases. CRM Reports on the Sales Funnel are only designed to provide an overview of the process. It will take a bit of work on your end to determine what’s causing potential problems. For example, the reports won’t tell you if there’s a problem with your sales execution process or if the leads in your sales funnel are no good—that’s for you to figure out.
Reports on Wins and Losses
A win-loss report, also known as a win-loss analysis, shows whether a business is winning or losing sales agreements. These reports are precious for assessing the effectiveness of individual sales representatives on your team. They may also be used to determine the efficiency of individual departments. Some Reports on Wins and Losses will even display benchmarks against quarterly targets, total team performance, and industry benchmarks. This is a much better way to assess how your sales reps perform instead of just viewing their sales metrics without any reference.
Reports on Sales Forecasts
Forecasting sales is likely the most critical measure in CRM reporting. It isn’t easy to correct these figures, but CRM software may help. The data in a sales forecast influences every part of a company, not just sales and CRM. These reports assist CFOs and other corporate leaders in determining how much cash will be available in three, six, or twelve months. Is it possible for the company to expand? Are you in a position to make capital investments right now? Will your business be able to repay a loan? Sales estimates that are inaccurate might lead to a company’s demise. It’s hard to make sensible financial choices to develop the firm without the capacity to estimate short- and long-term cash flow. Forecasting sales in B2B companies or organizations that depend on high-ticket bills is even more difficult. When a substantial portion of your revenues is dependent on a small number of transactions, the ability to close becomes even more critical. To improve your Reports on Sales Forecasts’ accuracy, try to leverage a scenario analysis generator in your CRM software. This will help your team understand different potential outcomes so you can mitigate risks accordingly.
Reports on Contacts
As the name indicates, a contact report provides sales representatives and managers with a comprehensive overview of all sales contacts in your CRM database. You may categorize the contacts based on their engagement level, last contact date, job title, industry, and other essential criteria. Reports on Contacts help sales representatives find the best opportunities in the database. This is particularly beneficial if you have an extensive list of contacts; going through each individually isn’t feasible or time-efficient. The top CRM software systems will allow you to personalize these reports. Based on the characteristics you’re utilizing to determine the hottest leads, you may instantly re-categorize the contacts on your dashboard. A sales professional may use a contact report to locate contacts in the CRM that can assist in introducing them to a new firm or industry that the organization is attempting to target.
Reports on Revenue
A revenue report identifies the sources of various income streams for managers and executives. A revenue report, for example, may show you the proportion of revenue made through cold email vs. outbound sales calls. You may also monitor how LinkedIn leads and Facebook Ads lead to affect your income. These reports might assist you in determining the most successful lead-generating channels. You may then change your CRM approach to focus on the highest-earning income streams while reducing the inefficient ones. Some reports will display the income made by each sales agent or team, enabling you to evaluate performance on a bigger scale. Find out who your top closers are with this information.
Progress Reports on Objectives
The phrase “goal progress” is a bit of a misnomer, and the titles of the reports will differ significantly based on the CRM program you’re using. However, these reports are meant to look at a specific measure and assess how the organization is doing based on it. To run Progress Reports on Objectives effectively, you need to have clear goals, and KPIs established. That’s why it’s so important to start with a robust CRM strategy. For example, sales teams may create bespoke reports to determine the average customer lifetime value (LTV) for each contract (lifetime value). Reports may be seen by marketing teams to understand how various landing pages or campaigns affect the number of new email subscribers. Goals might be set based on average ticket response time or customer satisfaction ratings for support agents. NPS (net promoter score) might also be a metric in this area. Each company, team, and person will have various objectives. However, the overall purpose of a target progress report is the same for all. The purpose of these reports is to assess success. If your method for achieving specific objectives is lacking, progress reports may help you discover the core problem and make the required improvements.
Reports on Profitability
Reports on Profitability are unique because they aren’t centered on deals or conversions. Instead, these reports measure revenue by customer. In a nutshell, the words will assist you in identifying your most valuable consumers. As you may be aware, revenue and profitability are two distinct concepts. While one client may bring in a lot of money, the expense of supporting that customer may result in narrow profit margins. As a result, the expenditures connected with each client will be included in a profitability report. This will present your most acceptable accounts in a more accurate light. Reports on Profitability are crucial for account-based marketing teams. Specific business clients might be worth applying the extra effort because the profitability metrics are so high, even if the revenue seems to fall short compared to other accounts. A profitability report’s data may eventually influence strategic decision-making.
Three CRM Reporting Tips
If you’ve never done CRM reporting before, it might be intimidating. However, as a newbie, these three easy suggestions will make your life easier.
1. Use CRM Software That Is Easy to Use.
The CRM software you choose directly impacts the quality of your reports. When it comes to reporting, specific tools are superior to others. Standard CRM reporting is helpful since it provides primary data and dashboards to examine essential data. However, each company is unique. That’s why having a CRM system that allows bespoke reporting is critical. It would be best if you also empowered your salespeople, marketing staff, and customer care representatives. High-level executives aren’t the only ones that benefit from CRM reports. A salesperson could want to look at a custom report to identify which leads or clients they should focus on the most. Before creating a new campaign, marketing agents may wish to utilize words to assess the efficacy of the previous one. If you believe your existing CRM software limits your reporting possibilities, it may be time to consider a different solution. Please take a look at our roundup of the top CRM software available. Regardless of your level of expertise, all of the systems in this guide include outstanding CRM reporting options.
2. Know Your Roles When It Comes to Reports.
Any firm has a plethora of procedures going on behind the scenes. It’s a challenging endeavor to fit everything into a single report. Take a step back and restrict the emphasis of your accounts as they apply to specific responsibilities in the company, rather than looking at everything at once. Sales professionals may use CRM data to assess their sales pipeline and performance. CRM reports will be used by management to evaluate the overall success of their team and the performance of each agent. CRM reporting may assist your c-suite in determining whether or not your CRM strategy is functioning. These reports may also be used by executives to make other company-wide choices, such as whether or not to grow or invest in specific endeavors. There are also CRM reports for investors and stakeholders that may be created.
3. Separate Reports by Department.
It’s also in your best interest to split reports by department, in addition to the numerous end-users who may benefit from CRM reporting. Basic CRM reports will fall into three categories: sales, marketing, and customer data. Before you start customizing dashboards and generating custom reports at a higher level, be sure you understand these fundamental reports. It is much more manageable than attempting to combine everything into a single word.