How to make the most of your CRM data analytics features

CRM software has many features and benefits - analytics is just one of them. But if you know how to use CRM data analytics features the right way, it can become the biggest driving force for return on investment.

Here are a few ways to make the most out of your CRM data analytics features.

1. Segment your audience

CRM systems collect a wide variety of information about your sales prospects, such as:

• Social media behavior
• Instore visits
• Blog comments around the web
• Online purchase behavior

With data analytics features, you can easily use this information to gain behavioral and demographic insights about your audience, then create segments.  For example, you could create a segment of “highly engaged” social media users to target with special promotional offers.

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Some CRM systems will even take this information and create segments for you based on geography, business type, buyer preferences, and more.

2. Track customer satisfaction

CRM not only keeps tabs on your prospects, but also your customers. This makes it easy to identify potential problems in the purchase or use of your products. For example, say customers regularly call your customer service line after downloading your software. This could mean there’s a problem with the install process that’s creating poor user experience.

These kind of insights aren’t readily available unless you have CRM software with data analytics features. Use these insights to identify and solve problems to increase customer satisfaction and retention. In turn, this will increase customer lifetime value (another metric you can easily measure with CRM analytics).

3. Offer feedback on salesperson performance

CRM data analytics can help you improve salesperson performance like no regular sales manager could. Sales analytics keeps track of individual salespeople, including information like number of sales closed, number of lead opportunities, and revenue generated. It will also monitor price discounts, margins, cyclicality of sales, and more.

This information makes it easy for a sales manager to pinpoint representatives that need help. They can also redistribute opportunities to other sales representatives if someone is overloaded. Take a deeper look at sales opportunities and performance by territory, if your sales reps work in the field. This extra data can help you re-balance and distribute your team to optimum regions.

4. Monitor campaign effectiveness

CRM data analytics also make it possible to determine which marketing and sales strategies work, and which ones don’t.

Thanks to call reports, you can see how many calls your sales representatives have made during a certain time period. By monitoring the sales calls of your whole team, analytics can piece apart how much effort it takes, on average, to get the sale. It will also show which strategies speed up the sales process, and which rarely close the deal. Lastly, you can compare the effectiveness of different approaches, such as in-person vs phone.

CRM data analytics holds a wealth of information, if you know how to use it. Use these insights to create campaigns that maximize your ROI.