What are CRM reports?
A CRM report is an analytics tool built into a customer relationship management (CRM) system that provides users with data and insights into their customers, activities, sales, and performance. It often uses visual elements such as charts and graphs to convert CRM data into digestible and actionable insights.
A customer relationship management report summarizes a business or organization’s performance during a specified time. They also highlight opportunities that you can leverage to drive growth and sales.
How does CRM reporting work?
CRM reports allow you to drill down and filter CRM data in various ways to derive actionable insights needed to make data-driven decisions. You can analyze several business key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics, including individual rep and team performance, deal status, revenue forecasts, and progress toward sales goals.
Business managers and executives can make pivotal decisions based on information derived from CRM reports. For example, a report shows low agent productivity across the whole team. They can address this issue by investing in a sales automation tool that can help boost their productivity.
Marketing teams can also revise the direction of their email and online advertising campaigns based on conversions and clicks shown in the reports.
Benefits of CRM reporting
CRM reporting can pave the way for several business advantages.
Data-driven decisions
CRM reports provide actionable insights derived from consolidated customer and sales data. Businesses can make intelligent decisions that drive sales growth based on this information.
For example, a lead source analysis report tells you that your most lead generation channel is email, while social media ranks the lowest. Based on this information, you can focus more on your email campaigns and work on improving your social media presence.
Benchmarked performance
Using CRM reports, you can evaluate your overall business performance and set standards to determine your success or opportunities for improvement.
A sales pipeline report, for example, can tell you how your team is performing against their target revenue. If the cutoff date is approaching and the team still has a long way to go before hitting their quota, you can double down on efforts to generate more sales.
Efficient operations
CRM reports are stored in a central and easily accessible location, saving time and helping your sales, marketing, and service teams work more efficiently.
A sales funnel report, for instance, points you in the right direction when you need to address bottlenecks in your CRM cycle. If you see only a few deals at the top of the funnel, you can focus your efforts there to ensure that enough deals push through the funnel later.
Increased customer satisfaction
Customer service teams can provide relevant and personalized service based on reports on client behavior and trends over time. Surveys after a customer interaction can help you gauge how satisfied customers are with your service.
For instance, you deploy chatbots after reading customer feedback that access to a live agent takes too long. Doing this helps improve customer experience and satisfaction, ultimately leading to better retention and loyalty.
Accelerated innovation
Investors can use CRM reports to understand their return on investment and get insights into the business trends.
For example, reports indicate that the majority of your target audience expressed an interest in buying a gadget from your store if it were available in colors other than black. Investors can use this information to direct resources into creating the variations of the product your prospects are interested in.
What’s the difference between CRM reports and dashboards?
The terms “CRM report” and “CRM dashboard” are related and are often used interchangeably, but they are distinct from one another. Understanding the difference between the two can help you better leverage your CRM data for business growth.
A CRM report is a static document that contains data for a specific time that you can use to pinpoint trends and changes in patterns over time. You can customize a CRM report to only display specific data points within a period, sort functions, and even add graphics. Plus, you can leverage your CRM’s automation capabilities to run reports periodically and automatically send them to pre-determined recipients.
On the other hand, a CRM dashboard is a visual snapshot of specific data points that reflect your current standing, real-time metrics, and progress toward your goals — all in one window. They typically use charts, gauges, and graphs to make information easily digestible. Most CRM platforms allow you to drill down on granular data, include several reports in one dashboard, and share dashboards with relevant stakeholders.
5 essential CRM reports
CRM reporting involves a wide range of metrics and KPIs, and each business must tailor its metrics monitoring to its unique objectives for success. Here are seven common CRM reports that you can use as part of your business strategy.
Sales pipeline report
A sales pipeline report provides salespeople or managers with an overview of their pipeline health. Its key metrics include the total number of deals, average deal size, deal velocity, and deal status changes.
Sales activity report
The sales activity report helps managers and salespeople track activity goals to identify issues hindering reps from hitting their daily, weekly, or monthly quotas. It indicates quota progress, the number of contacts created, the number of follow-ups sent, and the close ratio.
Lead source analysis
The lead report shows sales and marketing leaders where their business leads come from and which sources generate the most qualified leads, conversion, and sales. Its key metrics include the number of deals, revenue, average conversion time, and incoming leads from each source.
Marketing campaign analysis
Sales and marketing teams use a marketing campaign analysis to measure how successful their past and ongoing marketing campaigns are. Its key metrics include conversion rate, cost per conversion (CPC), bounce rate, and click-through rate (CTR).
Customer service report
Customer support teams can use this report as a basis for improving overall customer experience. Sales teams can also refer to this report to learn how to increase revenue and cross-sales. It indicates churn rate, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and time to first response.
How to make a CRM report in 7 steps
Each CRM system is unique and has different tools for reporting and analytics. Regardless of which provider you use, here are general steps that you can follow to create a CRM report:
- Find and select the option to create a new report from the CRM’s report builder.
- Select an entity (opportunity, campaign, contacts, etc.) to display the relevant report columns and related metrics for that entity.
- Choose properties or columns (description, status, estimated close date, etc.) relating to your selected report entity.
- Add and apply filters relating to your selected entity to customize the view of the report for each group or individual.
- Configure the report columns to sort data or modify the format and properties of each column. For example, you can add or remove columns, or change the format of the data.
- Save the report and rename it as necessary.
- Share the report with other CRM users and relevant stakeholders.
You can also add the saved report to a relevant CRM dashboard that is visible not only to you but also to your team. That way, everyone has access to the same information.
SEE: How to Use CRM: A Beginner’s Guide
What makes a great CRM report?
A CRM report is not just a client, lead, and sales data repository. Its real value comes from your company’s decisions to drive growth based on the information it reflects. That said, here are a few characteristics of a great CRM report:
- It provides actionable insights, presents data pointing to improvement areas, and includes specific recommendations for the team’s next steps.
- It’s intuitive and easy to understand because it uses charts and graphs to organize information clearly and logically, making it easy to navigate and interpret.
- It complements marketing data to help build better sales funnels, measure metrics, improve lead capture, and identify efforts that yield the best ROI.
What are the key features of a great CRM report?
CRM reporting tools help business leaders and stakeholders access needed information and analyze it to produce actionable insights. Five key CRM features enable you to build a great report.
- Custom filters: Allow users to filter data based on specific segments to analyze targeted insights.
- Drill-down capability: Robust options for drilling down on specific data points for a deeper analysis.
- Real-time updates: Assists users in making decisions based on the latest customer data.
- Download and sharing: Ability to easily save, share, download, and export reports.
- CRM integrations: Connect with third-party apps like Google Analytics to pull in data from various sources for more comprehensive reporting.
Strategies for managing CRM reports
The following strategies and best practices can help you manage and get the most out of your CRM reports:
- Establish standardized data collection.
Train all your personnel to follow the same format when collecting and recording data. For example, instruct your teams to use the MM/DD/YYYY format instead of the DD/MM/YYYY format when typing the data to avoid errors.
- Segment data.
Create data segments using various criteria, such as sales territory or customer type, demographics, and purchase history. This allows you to analyze and target different audience groups with tailored content and extract deeper insights for your business.
- Regularly clean and validate your data.
Data hygiene is essential in producing accurate and updated business insights. Ensure that all users undergo proper training on how to add and update information and check for duplicate data within the CRM.
- Leverage visualization tools.
Use interactive charts, graphs, and maps to break down data into more digestible elements. Visual data representation also makes it easy to spot trends and patterns.
- Keep an eye on data anomalies.
Train all CRM users to spot data anomalies that could indicate issues that warrant further investigation. These could include unusually high churn rates, sudden spikes in sales, and missing or inconsistent customer data. Then, investigate the root cause of these anomalies, clean the data, and correct the inconsistent or erroneous data.
- Be flexible.
Adapt to changes in your reporting techniques as your business evolves. If new goals, sales strategies, and market trends emerge, incorporate them into your reports without significantly changing the underlying CRM system.
SEE: How to Create Effective CRM Strategy in 8 Steps
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
How do CRM reports help in sales?
CRM reports provide sales teams with actionable insights that can help them monitor their performance, pinpoint issues in their sales process, and sell smarter.
What makes a CRM report effective?
A CRM report must be clear, accurate, concise, coherent, and relevant to be effective and to facilitate data-based decision-making.
Why are CRM reports important?
CRM reports are important because they help businesses gain insights into their operations, including their sales performance, marketing campaigns, customer interactions, and customer service.
How often should CRM reports be reviewed?
CRM reports can be reviewed every week, month, quarter, or year to allow you to compare past and present performance. Breaking down reports into months can also help you see how your business performs during certain seasons and anticipate changes in your strategies.
