Is it challenging for you to stay on top of the CRM metrics your company needs in order to improve?
Trust me, I understand. With how advanced CRM software is today, knowing which data points you actually need to keep track of can seem impossible.
Fortunately, when you understand which metrics are a top priority, it’s easy to improve business processes!
Hi, I’m AJ! I’ve used CRM software for several years. As a result, I grew, scaled, and sold my business for multiple seven figures. After selling my company, I built Small Business Bonfire (SBB) to help entrepreneurs expand their companies!
What CRM metrics help streamline your sales cycle and improve retention rates? Don’t worry! I’ll cover all that and more!
Key Takeaways
- CRM metrics are the primary data points a business tracks and follows.
- Creating SMART goals around the right metrics leads to higher CRM success rates.
- CRM metrics ensure your team makes data-driven decisions to improve the sales process.
- Businesses use CRM metrics to track sales, marketing, and customer support-related data.
Related Reading: Best CRM for Small Businesses
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What are CRM Metrics?
You’re probably excited to see which CRM metrics your business needs to track. However, before diving into that information, it’s essential to understand what metrics are defined as.
Customer relationship management metrics are the critical data points you and your team want to identify and follow.
Further, key CRM metrics help your teams keep business goals at the forefront of their mind.
Some companies only have a few key metrics, while others have ten!
Either way, these goals aim to motivate your team and explain what your company is working toward.
Identifying and tracking key CRM metrics can result in the following things:
- Sales growth
- Higher customer satisfaction levels
- Shorter sales cycle
- Longer average customer lifespan
- More effective marketing campaigns
Customer relationship management (CRM) software provides companies with a better understanding of their target audience by collecting and organizing data.
CRM analytics offers insights into customer preferences and habits.
And when teams know what their customers want and need, they can create personalized sales and marketing strategies that lead to more sales.
Defining CRM metrics helps you and your team determine what strategies are working and what ideas you must change to serve your customers better.
What are SMART Goals?
SMART goals define goals or target objectives that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
Defining these parameters while setting business goals ensures your company’s objectives are attainable and constricted to specific time frames.
What is the point of SMART goals?
- When businesses set goals that don’t have a clear timeline, it can result in guesswork and a lack of motivation.
- With SMART goals, tracking your progress and identifying incomplete milestones is easier.
What is an example of a bad “SMART” goal: We want to close more sales.
What is an example of a good SMART goal: Our goal is to close five deals by the end of the month. Key sales team members will accomplish this goal by utilizing CRM software, pushing our new product, and working with our marketing team. Accomplishing this goal will result in a 5% pay raise for each sales rep.
How to Create CRM SMART Goals
Now that you understand SMART goals, it’s time to learn how to set targets around the right CRM metrics.
Step 1: You must ensure your CRM has accurate and reliable data
Using outdated customer information results in companies losing valuable time and money. Additionally, bad data leads to poorer customer relationships.
So, before setting goals, you must ensure the information in your CRM system is updated and accurate.
While reviewing and cleaning your company’s data initially may take considerable time, it is worth the effort in the long run.
Step 2: Identify your company’s key performance indicators
Key performance indicators help you set goals to impact your business operations positively.
Look for areas of your company that are struggling. Setting objectives around these weak points improves all aspects of your business.
Talk with your marketing and sales reps and learn the areas they want to focus on and improve.
Step 3: Create SMART Goals
Using the SMART acronym, try and create achievable goals with your sales team.
It’s always disheartening to have a manager create goals that a sales team can never hit.
These goals could include something like:
- Increase next month’s sales by 5%
- Convert two additional leads over the previous month
- Bring in five additional leads via outbound methods this month
The most important thing to do while setting goals around your CRM metrics is to make the objectives as specific as possible!
Vague goals are hard to focus on, and teams are less motivated to pursue them.
On the other hand, SMART goals motivate teams because they have a deadline, specific targets to work toward, and an incentive when they reach the goal!
Types of CRM Metrics (With Examples You Should Be Tracking)
What CRM metrics should your company track?
Below I break down the top objectives every small business owner should consider.
Let’s take a look!
CRM Business Performance Metrics
Business performance metrics track various data types, including the following:
- Sales pipeline
- Sales performance
- Average sales cycle
- Customer retention cost
These important CRM metrics track a company’s overall performance and progress toward its goals.
As you will see, most of these metrics are sales-based.
Business Performance Metric Examples You Should Be Tracking
Below I’ve compiled four critical business performance metrics your small business must track.
Observing these metrics helps measure CRM success and encourages higher sales.
Still trying to figure out how vital CRM metrics are? Let’s dive in!
1. Sales Close Rate
The sales close rate is the percentage of sales leads and outreach efforts that result in customer conversions and sales.
Further, this rate measures the ratio of closed deals to sales contracts.
Sales close rates are critical to analyze because they indicate the value of sales methods and marketing strategies.
Put simply, this important sales metric ensures your company isn’t spending too much on acquiring new customers!
2. Length of Sales Cycle
The length of the sales cycle measures how long it takes to close a deal.
Additionally, this metric helps explain the time necessary for lead nurturing and customer engagement.
When observing your company’s sales cycle length, you want to strive for a shorter cycle as they indicate more efficient processes.
This metric is among the most important sales metrics because it ensures your team identifies and pursues the right leads!
3. Customer Retention Costs
Customer retention cost (CRC) is how much your company spends on maintaining existing customers during a specific period.
In simpler terms, the customer retention rate tells you how much your team spends on marketing costs or investments to improve customer loyalty.
Why are customer retention efforts significant?
It is cheaper for a business to sell its products and services to repeat customers rather than acquire new customers.
Therefore, aiming for a higher customer retention rate is essential to save money!
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total amount of money customers spend on your company’s products or services during their time as a customer.
Further, this metric helps measure customer loyalty and indicates how much revenue your company can expect from existing customers over time.
What do I mean by customer lifetime value? Let’s look at an example:
A customer spends $100 monthly on products or services for 12 months. In this instance, their total customer lifetime value equals $1,200.
Sales metrics like customer lifetime value indicate why your business MUST build strong customer relationships.
When customers enjoy their shopping experience with a business, they’re likelier to return to buy more products and recommend the brand to a friend!
CRM User Adoption Metrics
CRM user adoption metrics focus on how a company utilizes its CRM software.
Some user adoption metrics include the following:
- How employees use the technology
- The number of employees actively using a CRM system
- Aspects of a CRM that employees don’t use
One of the leading reasons companies abandon their CRM is the lack of use. While this is a significant hurdle to overcome, it results in productivity, more sales, and higher customer satisfaction rates.
Therefore, focusing on high user adoption rates is critical for long-term CRM success!
User Adoption Metric Examples You Should Be Tracking
How can you measure CRM effectiveness and user adoption?
Below I’ve listed four simple yet revealing metrics that observe how employees utilize CRMs. Let’s look closer!
1. Users Logged in the Last Seven Days
One metric you should track is the number of users logged into their CRM accounts within the past seven days.
This metric shows how many people on your team actively use the CRM technology and do the bare minimum (logging in)!
Reach out to the employees who need to log into their accounts and see why they aren’t using the technology.
Many employees hesitate to use new technology because they believe it will slow them down.
Explain why CRMs are integral and how the software saves your employees time once they get accustomed to the technology.
2. Users Never Logged In
Regarding the first metric I mentioned, it’s critical to analyze the employees who never log in to your CRM system.
There are several reasons people don’t use CRMs initially, including the following reasons:
- Hesitant to use new technology
- Afraid of change
- Unsure how to use the software
- Lack of training
Schedule meetings with the employees who refuse to log in to their accounts and see why they aren’t using the software.
Work with these team members and find ways to get them to implement the technology into their daily work routine.
Some employees need extra training time to get accustomed to the software. Therefore, you may need to dial back some employees’ workloads if they need more training.
3. Accounts Created by Role Owner
This user adoption metric measures how many accounts the CRM’s owner creates.
A company’s owners or leaders should spearhead CRM implementation and use it to create an example for other team members to follow.
For instance, if your sales managers aren’t using CRMs for their daily tasks, neither will your sales reps!
Therefore, observe how many accounts your CRM’s role-owner has created and ensure they actively use the software.
Remember, marketing and sales success is contingent upon whether your team actually uses the software!
4. Activities Completed
The final metric on our list is activities completed by your employees.
This metric highlights if the CRM’s role-owner (the person responsible for creating and managing accounts) actually uses their account.
Additionally, this metric shows how many tasks your employees complete in a specific time.
Following up on how often a user logs into their account can be difficult, but you can measure the number of activities they complete.
For example, how many emails do your employees send, and how many deals do they close?
You can track numerous activities, and your CRM system can send reminders for specific tasks.
Ensuring your employees use the software to check off the tasks they complete in the CRM system is essential.
When you initially implement CRM technology, employees often forget to check off the tasks they complete (that’s why reminders are so helpful!).
CRM Marketing Metrics
CRM marketing metrics track your company’s effectiveness at attracting new customers to your brand.
Marketing and sales efforts work hand in hand, with marketing acting as the first step. CRMs help you understand new customers that fit into your target audience.
Still, it’s essential your marketing team isn’t spending too much money trying to acquire new customers!
CRM Marketing Metric Examples You Should Be Tracking
A common mistake small business owners make is spending too much money on marketing efforts.
While spending money on advertisements, email campaigns, etc., is critical, overspending takes money out of your profits.
Below, I’ve compiled a list of four essential marketing metrics your small business must track!
1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) by Channel
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is how much your company spends to get a new customer.
Further, this metric helps your team understand the return on investment of their efforts to expand your customer base.
You measure customer acquisition cost by adding costs associated with converting prospects (marketing, sales reps, advertising, etc.) and dividing it by customers acquired.
Customer acquisition efforts are critical to business operations. However, you must ensure your business doesn’t overspend on these efforts!
2. Time to Recoup Customer Acquisition Cost
Time to recoup customer acquisition cost is another metric that measures the efficiency of your efforts.
This metric evaluates how long businesses take to make back the money they spend on customer acquisition costs.
Therefore, the shorter your time to return on investment, the more efficient your marketing and sales team is!
It’s important to understand that some marketing efforts result in an almost immediate return on investment, while others take a few days (or weeks) to connect with customers.
Analyzing these performances and utilizing the data for future decisions ensures you continually improve your company’s marketing campaigns.
3. Percentage of Marketing Originated Customers (By Channel)
The percentage of marketing-originated customers indicates how many new customers reach your business due to your marketing efforts.
You can take this metric further by analyzing which channels attract new customers.
For example, your CRM may point out that 25% of customers visited your website after viewing a Facebook ad, while 5% of customers came from a print ad campaign.
This metric indicates the most effective marketing efforts, ensuring your team only pursues successful outlets.
Pursuing marketing campaigns with low conversion wastes time and money.
Instead, ensure your marketing team focuses on outlets that lead to more sales and repeat customers!
4. Revenue Generated Per Campaign
The revenue generated per campaign metric tells you how much money each marketing campaign brings in.
This metric is especially important when evaluating the success of specific campaigns and understanding which channels lead to more customers.
For instance, if your email campaign has a 20% success rate but generates double the revenue compared to other campaigns, it’s likely worth pursuing!
Using the revenue generated per campaign metric, you can decide which marketing campaigns are worth your time and money.
Additionally, this metric lets you understand which channels generate more income, ensuring future marketing efforts focus on successful outlets.
Without this metric, it’s likelier your company continually pursues marketing avenues that don’t reach your target audience.
Fortunately, with CRM data, you can quickly see whether your target market prefers email campaigns over Instagram ads and more!
Utilizing this information is vital to personalized marketing campaigns and high investment returns!
CRM Customer Service Metrics
Customer service metrics indicate how your customers interact with your business, their perceptions of your brand, and how happy they are when they have questions.
Providing excellent customer service is one of the most critical aspects you can focus on. Consumers value an excellent customer experience.
Most customers continue purchasing products or services from a company after having a pleasant experience.
So, if you thought customer support wasn’t essential to success, think again!
Customer Service Metric Examples You Should Be Tracking
How many customer service metrics should your team track? And how do these metrics impact the average purchase value per customer?
Below I’ve compiled four CRM metrics related to customer service that your team must analyze.
Still unsure about the value of customer satisfaction? Keep reading to see why these metrics are so critical to success!
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A net promoter score (NPS) measures consumer experience and loyalty.
Companies measure net promotor scores with a single-question survey and are reported on a range of -100 to +100.
The higher the net promoter score, the better, with 70% being the start of a reasonable consumer experience rate.
High net promoter scores mean your company is efficient at converting new leads and generating revenue from these leads.
NPS is a quick method to see how many customers enjoy shopping with your company. However, it does rely on customers completing a survey, which some don’t do.
2. Average Time to Resolution
The average time to resolution measures how long it typically takes your customer support team to resolve a customer’s issue.
You measure this CRM metric by adding the total time it takes to resolve all customer request and dividing it by the number of requests.
Why does the average time to resolution matter?
Measuring the average time to resolution helps your business identify areas where your team can improve their customer support processes.
Reducing wait times and resolving issues quickly leads to higher customer satisfaction rates, meaning more positive reviews for your brand.
One mistake I’ve made is underestimating how much value consumers place on support experiences.
The average customer takes this metric seriously and uses their experiences to determine future shopping decisions.
Therefore, ensuring your company measures customer satisfaction is crucial!
3. Rate of Renewal
The rate of renewal tells you how many customers decided to continue using your service.
Renewal rates apply to subscription-based businesses and companies that rely on contracts.
This metric is especially useful when measuring customer loyalty and understanding why some customers decide to remain loyal while others don’t.
It’s also helpful in determining whether discounts increase the renewal rate.
Utilizing this information allows businesses to better target and retain customers.
Additionally, tracking the renewal rate can help your business understand which marketing campaigns successfully retain customers.
For instance, if a customer segment received an email about a sale but didn’t renew their subscriptions, this campaign wasn’t effective.
4. Customer Churn Rate
Customer churn rate measures the number of customers who stop using your services and products during a particular period.
The customer churn rate is especially useful in subscription-based companies, showing how successfully you keep customers engaged over time.
The higher the customer churn rate, the more money you’re losing on potential revenue from subscriptions and repeat purchases.
Fortunately, with CRM data, you can identify why churned customers are leaving and take steps to prevent them from canceling their subscriptions or returning to your company.
You can calculate churn rate by taking the total number of lost customers and dividing it by total customers at a specific period.
The industry average churn rate ranges between 3 and 7% for most companies. However, this number can change depending on several factors.
Benefits of Tracking CRM Metrics Over Time
There are several benefits of tracking CRM metrics.
Not only do metrics offer a clearer picture of business operations, but they also identify weak points your team must focus on.
Below are some advantages of tracking CRM metrics within your company!
Improve Customer Relations
Tracking CRM metrics improves consumer relations over time.
With a CRM platform, your team can see how effectively they deal with the average customer and solve their problems.
Some metrics that improve customer relations include the following:
- Number of customers who contact the support staff
- Churn rate
- Average customer lifespan
Remember, analyzing consumer satisfaction metrics is vital to long-term success!
Better Marketing and Sales Efforts
CRM metrics also help businesses evaluate their marketing and sales efforts.
Companies can track marketing campaigns to understand which efforts drive conversions and each campaign’s ROI, helping you make smarter decisions about future strategies.
The same applies to sales teams.
Metrics like new opportunities created and closed deals show how successful your team is at finding and converting new customers.
Ultimately, tracking CRM metrics allows your team to focus on the most successful strategies while discarding those that aren’t effective.
Make Data-Driven Decisions
Without a CRM, you’re in the dark regarding how effective your sales process is, what your target market likes, and average revenue per single customer account.
Tracking metrics ensures you make data-driven decisions, eliminating the guesswork of choosing how your company operates.
Also, marketing and sales performance metrics help streamline the sales process, saving valuable time and money.
CRM metrics can identify areas where your business struggles. And while it may be frustrating seeing these weak points initially, being aware of them ultimately helps you improve!
Improve Employee Productivity
Another benefit of tracking CRM metrics is improved employee productivity.
Metrics highlight effective marketing and sales efforts, ensuring they use the best data to make decisions.
For example, with metrics, your marketing team gains insights into which campaigns resulted in the most sales.
However, if the marketing reps don’t have access to integral metrics, they may use outdated information, eventually targeting the incorrect segment or using the wrong platform.
CRM Metrics Final Thoughts
CRM metrics are essential for any business.
In-depth metrics provide insights into customer relations, marketing strategies, and more.
By tracking CRM metrics over time, you can focus on areas that need improvement within your company and make data-driven decisions to increase revenue.
How does your company use CRM metrics to improve? Let us know in the comments section below!
And best of luck identifying the metrics your company needs to track!