It’s Amazing What Your CRM Can Tell You!

I spend a lot of time writing about different types of CRMs and what they do. If you're using your CRM correctly, it should not only support your team's customer engagement but also automate much of it, enabling personalised outreach at scale. But that’s just the beginning. Your CRM holds a treasure trove of insights that can transform your approach to customers, sales, and business growth.

The next level of value comes in using your CRM to give you important insights into your customers and how you work with them. This is where many of my clients get stuck. They tell me, “I have invested a lot in my CRM, not only buying the thing, also in the time our teams invest in inputting information. Surely there is more that I can do with that information?”.

And they are right. Your CRM should be able to give you answers to valuable questions about your teams, your customers and your business. The key is knowing how to turn that data into actionable insights, which can ultimately transform your approach and results.

What are some insights I should be seeking?

The insights you should be able to get from a CRM that is set up and used properly are amazing, but they will depend on how you use your CRM, and what type of CRM you have.

I’ll break this down into the different types of CRM and then also talk about what happens when you get the benefits of integrated CRM capability. These are only examples; there is an endless variety of information you can get once you start looking!

Marketing CRM:

• Which lead sources are most effective? Track not just conversions but also sales and customer lifetime value from each source. Tie leads back to specific campaigns to see which drive the best results. Outcome: Focus future marketing efforts and budgets on high-performing sources, boosting ROI.
• How long does it take to convert a lead? Analyse time to conversion across different lead types and identify engagement patterns that deliver better results. Outcome: Speed up lead conversion by optimising engagement and improving efficiency.

Sales CRM:

• Where are deals getting stuck? Pinpoint specific stages where deals slow down and compare performance across team members to identify best practices. Outcome: Improve your sales process by focusing on clearing roadblocks, and increasing the win rate.
• What have we sold to this customer before? Track past purchases and the corresponding sales process to understand how the relationship evolved. Outcome: Strengthen customer relationships through personalised cross-selling and upselling based on past behaviours.

Service CRM:

• What are the most common customer issues? Identify recurring issues across customers and measure your resolution times to understand service performance. Outcome: Proactively address common problems and improve resolution times, boosting customer satisfaction.
• Are there customer types or products that need extra support? Analyse which customers or products consistently require more service intervention. Outcome: Adjust service approaches or improve products to reduce service costs and enhance efficiency.

E-commerce CRM:

• Which products are frequently sold together? Uncover product combinations often purchased together and explore opportunities to promote these more effectively. Outcome: Increase revenue through targeted upsell and cross-sell campaigns.
• Who buys with discounts or offers most often? Track customers who respond most to promotions and understand the behaviour of price-sensitive buyers. Outcome: Optimise discount strategies to balance promotional appeal with profitability.

Integrated CRM:

• Which customer sources need the most support? Analyse if customers from certain sources require more service intervention than others. Outcome: Optimise acquisition strategies by focusing on higher-quality leads that require less post-sale support.
• How many interactions are needed to close a sale? Measure the number of touchpoints across all channels before a customer converts, and identify which interactions drive the most value. Outcome: Streamline customer journeys by investing in touchpoints that boost conversion rates.

In all these cases, the answer to the question can guide you to drive a profitable change in your business – more effective targeting, more effort and money on the sales and marketing approaches that bring in the best customers, making changes to your products or services to reduce the number of customer issues.

These are all examples where I have seen CRMs make money for clients. Your customer engagement model might mean that not all are relevant to you. Do you have a particular problem that you see in your business or even your industry generally? Let me know, and I’ll write an article especially for you!

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