Exceptions notwithstanding, businesses have increasingly begun to realize the significance of CRM reports. According to LLC Buddy, CRM software plays a critical role for achieving revenue goals in the case of 92% of businesses.
Whether you’re B2B or B2C, you depend on CRM reports not just for decision-making but for post-implementation validation, instruction, and rectification.
The problem lies elsewhere, and it’s two-fold, broadly speaking: One, failing to prioritize the right CRM metrics; two, lack of good, useful data.
Let’s reshuffle, shall we? You can have all kinds of CRM reports and metrics, and yet it might make not a cent of a difference. Better to re-prioritize.
In this post, we’ll focus on the 10 most fundamental CRM reports (not dashboards, mind you!) you should be using at your organization. Let’s get started!
- Sales funnel report
- Conversion analysis report
- Sales projection report
- Sales activity report
- Lead acquisition report
- Profitability analysis report
- Contacts report
- Best-performing products/services report
- Customer service report
- Campaign performance report
1. Sales funnel report
The sales funnel report is one of the most basic CRM reports, providing you with a comprehensive overview of the potential of the sales pipeline.
The sales funnel report consists, but is not limited to, the following variables:
- Total number of deals
- Deal status at each stage
- Deal success-failure ratio
- Conversion rates at each stage
- Average deal size
- Total revenue in the funnel
2. Conversion analysis report
Next up, the conversion analysis report or sales conversion report. You can also call it a win/loss report.
This CRM report shows not just the rate of conversions but why leads converted or didn’t, as well. The conversion analysis report is an excellent source of information related to your performance across multiple niches and in comparison to your competitors as well.
The sales conversion report typically consists of the following variables:
- Lead source
- Lead quality
- Company size
- Industry/niche
- Competitor(s)*
- Sales cycle length
- Sales channel
*This variable measures competitor involvement.
3. Sales projection report
The sales projection report lines up potential customers based on their probability to convert.
This enables the sales team to determine the potential revenue that will be generated over a given period of time. That number functions like a standard against which you’ll measure your sales efforts. The report generally consists of the following variables:
- Sales revenue
- Sales volume
- Market growth data
- Historical sales data
- Sales pipeline
- Average deal size
- Lead generation rate
- Economic indicators
- Sales conversion rate
- Forecasts by product/service
The average sales projection accuracy is around 50%. So you want to ensure that your sales projection report is exhaustive and based on verified, updated data.
4. Sales activity report
The sales activity report summarizes the actions taken by the sales team members over a period of time.
This may include the number of calls taken, emails sent, appointments set up, etc. Below are some other variables that make up this CRM report:
- No. of leads generated
- No. of follow-ups (by channel)
- No. of opportunities created
- No. of presentations delivered
- No. of deals closed
- Conversion rate (by sales rep)
A sales activity report helps you identify, evaluate, and discover how each sales rep is performing. You can find out the strong and weak points of each salesperson, and assign tasks accordingly in order to better utilize their individual skill sets.
5. Lead acquisition report
The lead acquisition/attribution report tracks the origin of all your leads.
Which of your marketing channels is driving the most and the best leads? How are your campaigns performing across those channels? Which channels should you be prioritizing over others? — these are the questions that the lead acquisition report answers.
This CRM report consists of the following variables:
- Lead source
- No. of leads
- Conversion rate by source
- Cost per lead
- Lead quality
- Time to conversion
The focus of any business is not just leads, but qualified leads. The lead acquisition report can help you concentrate on those channels that are driving qualified leads.
6. Profitability analysis report
The goal of a profitability analysis is to distinguish your most loyal customers from the rest. This CRM report shows you who your most profitable customers are.
Accordingly, the profitability analysis report would have the following variables:
- Customer lifetime value
- Total revenue generated per customer
- Cost to serve
- Profit margin
- Average order value
- Frequency of purchases
The profitability analysis report isolates your most committed customers. These form your ‘tribe,’ these are the people that identify with your vision.
7. Contacts report
The contacts report provides details on how many times potential customers have been contacted and via which channel, among other things.
The common variables for this report include the following:
- Contact date
- Contact method
- No. of contacts
- Response status
- No. of follow-ups
- Lead status
8. Best-performing products/services report
The best-performing products/services report identifies your best-selling products and services. It includes:
- Product/service name
- Total sales volume
- Revenue generated
- Profit margin
- Sales growth rate
- Customer feedback/ratings
9. Customer service report
You can have different types of customer service reports, but the focus of each report is and should be on how you can improve the overall customer experience.
These reports should include:
- Churn rate
- Resolution rate/first contact resolution rate
- Response time
- Net promoter score
- Ticket volume
- Customer effort score*
- Customer satisfaction score
*The customer effort score measures how easy or hard it is for your customers to get in touch with your service personnel in order to get their issues resolved.
10. Campaign performance report(s)
The campaign performance report provides engagement and conversion data for each marketing campaign.
The CRM report helps marketers identify, and the salespersons appreciate, which channels, strategies, and tactics are most effective for drawing new customers.
The campaign performance report includes the following essential variables:
- Total reach*
- Engagement rate
- Conversion rate
- Click-through rate
- Cost per acquisition
- Return on investment
*Total reach shows the total number of unique prospects/leads who have seen the campaign. It’s focused on campaign visibility, not the depth of prospect interaction with the campaign content. That’s what the engagement rate is for.
CRM reports: Best practices
If you’re yet to implement a CRM system at your organization, consider these expert-recommended best practices before initiating the process:
- Identify a leader: First things first, identify a capable leader, advisedly from the marketing or business development team, who shall be responsible for assembling and representing the stakeholders to the executive leaders, and propel (and sustain) the overall implementation process.
- Obtain executive consent: Make sure to obtain informed consent of the executive team to implement a CRM system. Communicate what’s in it for them in simple language. Make them see why and how investing in a CRM system is valuable, not just in terms of money, but in relation to strategizing, perspective, and decisioning.
- Define your goals: If you had a pretty good theoretical understanding of your goals before, it’s time to document it now. List your pain points, identify the type of data analysis you want applied to the CRM, and pick the CRM users.
- Analyze your business process: From lead generation to affiliation to conversion, analyze the business process of your organization and determine whether or not it is as effective as it ought to be. This will help you identify existing friction points and find out where you need the CRM system to be integrated in order to streamline the process.
- Lay out the implementation process: A phased approach is best. Let the upper management see some results quickly so that they’re reassured of having taken the right decision. This will encourage them to wait for long-term results and also give you the time needed to roll out the more complex aspects of your CRM.
- Cleanse your data: Your CRM system is only as good as the data you have. Schedule sufficient time and resources to cleanse your data regularly. Make sure to identify which data sets you need to clean up first. Prioritize, as always.
- Convert more users to CRM: Once your CRM system is up and going, reach out to more potential users. Encourage more people to adopt the system. By now, you would also have the data (in-house as well as external) to support your business case.
Quit the raffle, embrace data!
Here’s something interesting: One out of four people in Great Britain thinks that, given the right resources and time, they could qualify for the 2028 Olympics!
But, what’s the relationship between the Olympics and CRM?
Well, just this: Absurdity in the absence of accountability. If someone said that they could manage an organization without CRM, that’s them wishing to be let off the hook. This is what having a CRM system prevents. It promotes and creates a culture of accountability and ownership. And this is what every business needs, small or large.
Once you’ve built a CRM system, what next? Learn How to Leverage the Full Potential of Your CRM with Cost-Effective API Integrations.
Susmit Panda
A realist at heart and an idealist at head, Susmit is a content writer at Mavlers. He has been in the digital marketing industry for half a decade. When not writing, he can be seen squinting at his Kindle, awestruck.
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