Nowadays, more and more businesses are using customer relationship management (CRM) software. It plays an integral role in gathering and analyzing customer interactions with the business.
There is a growing demand for CRM in companies as it ensures that their objectives are backed with analyzed data, accurate and relevant statistics, and customer preferences and needs.
In fact, as per Fortune Business Insights, the CRM industry is expected to reach $145.79 billion in revenue by 2029.
CRM software is an important tool for delivering CRM analytics that offers business insights into customer services and overall sales operations.
The data derived through CRM analytics helps companies to make better-informed decisions and maximize their potential that fares against the competition.
In this article, we’ll discuss CRM analytics, the types of data that CRM analytics need to track, its key benefits, and its importance for businesses.
What is CRM analytics?
CRM analytics is a subset of CRM in which data the business generates about customer behavior is gathered.
Simply put, it is a process of gathering, collecting, tracking, and analyzing data within the CRM software to discover valuable insights to make smarter business moves.
Those customer interactions, behavior, or practices helps business to:
- identify patterns
- forecast trends
- look at leads and opportunities
- deliver profitable strategies to which the customers are likely to gravitate
Typically, companies leverage CRM software to automate data and reports and obtain CRM analytics.
What CRM analytics to track
CRM software platforms allow businesses to measure a wide range of metrics to help maximize sales efficiency. These metrics that CRM analytics track are divided into two classifications:
Pre-sale CRM analytics
Establishing new customer relationships is important. But this relationship is built before they purchase the product or service.
Below are the pre-sale CRM analytics that companies need to track:
New leads
Leads are the main source of the sales department, and the sales team will spend a lot of time sourcing new potential customers.
This can be done through various communication channels, such as phone calls or sending proposals. Tracking these activities will show how well the lead converts into new customers.
Prospects
The sales department is always on the lookout for new prospects. Analyzing the prospect identification process is important to determine what are the things that the sales team needs to improve.
Engagement
Monitoring all the customer interactions across all channels helps businesses to make data-driven decisions. On top of that, they can offer more personalized communications and optimize customer outreach.
Post-sale CRM analytics
A lot of companies have difficulty increasing customer retention rates. It can’t guarantee that customers will stay loyal to the brand. Thus, the sales team monitors the client’s overall experience and ensures that they will stay.
Below are the post-sale CRM analytics that is important to track:
Problem tracking
It is always important to note all the issues or problems raised by the customer when purchasing a product or dealing with the company. Clearly, the fewer issues customers have with a business, the more likely they are to purchase.
Additional sales
Some customers prefer to purchase other products from the brand. In such cases, this information will help the business identify the products they need to market.
Purchasing patterns
If the customers are on a subscription-based service, the sales team can investigate the reasons for consistent loyalty. They can also look for reasons why customers might stop purchasing from the business.
Key benefits of CRM analytics
By harnessing large volumes of data through CRM analytics, companies can generate information that will lead to actionable decisions relevant to business growth.
Other great benefits of CRM analytics include:
Better customer service evaluations
CRM analytics reports provide insights into how customers think about the sales team. This data will help businesses determine which areas need to improve within the team and the best practices to implement.
Accurate consumer data
CRM ensures that the sales team reaches the right individuals and delivers the marketing materials accurately.
Efficient lead generation
CRM reports will tell the percentage of leads the sales team is able to convert into sales, and this might be useful for predicting sales in the future.
With the help of CRM analytics, businesses enable to identify how effective their marketing efforts are that strongly correspond with the customer purchase.
Enables predicting modeling
CRM analytics help companies through predictive modeling.
The valuable findings generated from analytics help the sales team predict outcomes, whether a success or failure of an upcoming endeavor. Essentially, it offers the sales team an opportunity to know which actions should be taken in the future.
Shows clear customer journey
The CRM analytics will show all the areas of the customer journey at all touchpoints. The data points in the reports will let companies decide what they need to implement to improve their processes and enhance customer relationships.
Why CRM analytics is vital for your business
The increasing leverage of CRM software is equivalent to more data. Implementing the right CRM software in a company’s sales strategy helps businesses in many ways.
With the amount of data and intelligence, CRM analytics plays an important role in helping businesses use that information effectively and efficiently.
CRM analytics significantly benefit the business over time as it provides valuable insights that help meet the company’s goals, objectives, and growth success.
