Three essential CRM reports for sales managers’ dashboards

As a sales manager you are likely to find many CRM reports competing for space on your dashboard but when it comes to prioritizing, which are the three that you should focus on more urgently?

Bearing in mind that knowledge is key and that possession of data that boosts business intelligence is paramount to the success of any business, then it makes sense to use the facilities provided by your CRM to provide vital reports. By focusing on the right reports, you will act smarter and be able to identify problems and progress towards end goals much more efficiently. Choose from pre-configured reports or generate your own generic versions.

We are going to look at three CRM reports that you cannot afford to omit from your dashboard:

1. Profitability

Essential because it shows where your money is coming from in terms of customers (not sales and marketing campaigns). It takes the data from the purchase history, looking at the buying habits of customers. You will be able to see which customers make the largest contribution to your income, which are the most loyal and which are most likely to buy from you repeatedly. This provides great ammunition as you can see which customers your sales force should focus on and those accounts that are not so profitable.

2. Sales forecast

Assuming that you already have your Sales pipeline reports set aside, the sales forecast report provides you with a map of current leads and possible opportunities. It will not only show historic sales trends but also those for the future. You can use these to set accurate sales targets, keeping your sales team on their toes and motivated. Data for this report is taken from the sales pipeline so it will be accurate and will not include any figures that may have been discussed manually. If you don’t use your pipeline to create this report and instead do it by hand, you could be wasting many hours of valuable time.

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3. Sales conversion

Now you are getting down to the real nitty-gritty; what percentage of leads have been converted and turned into sales within a set period? Your CRM system will answer this for you, breaking down the data according to lead source. As an example, it could show percentages of leads converted from emails and the percentage from paid advertising. This data can help a great deal as you will be able to allocate financial sums to specific marketing campaigns. By using this report going forward and concentrating on the marketing tactics that generate the most revenue, a positive impact will be made upon your business.

As sales manager you rely on key data such as this to keep ahead in what is always a very competitive market. By working in a ‘data-driven’ way, you don’t need expensive analytics platforms or teams of analysts when you have the power of your CRM system at your fingertips. Reports such as these provide priceless business intelligence data and can be used by companies of any size, even the smaller ones. Created to be easy to interpret, reports such as these will definitely make your role an easier one.