Customer experience (CX) and satisfaction are some of the driving forces behind modern business success. To meet customer-centric goals, new CRM tools with greater precision are being developed.

Every year, new trends come up in the CRM space. Keeping track of these trends will help you plan ahead, meet changing business needs, and gain a competitive edge.

So, here are the top CRM trends for 2021.

IoT technologies

IoT stands for “the internet of things” and is used to describe a network of physical objects that are tied to the internet through sensors, scanners, software, and other technologies.

In 2019, it was estimated that 93% of enterprises had adopted IoT technologies and by the year 2025, there are expected to be over 64 billion IoT devices worldwide.

One of the main purposes of connecting the physical and digital worlds is the exchange of information. There has been an upward tick of CRM integrations with IoT tech to make life a little easier.

Enriched IoT data

IoT technology helps to monitor and service clients in proactive ways. Data generated from these solutions is used to increase customer satisfaction and retention.

CRMs are integrating with compact resources that have flexible offline/online capabilities, such as:

• Wearable monitors
• GPS systems
• Cybersecurity scanners
• Smart appliances
• Energy meters
• And more…

These advanced solutions lead to greater visibility and cost efficiencies. The more mobile people become, the more IoT integrations we will see.

Workflow automation

Automation-enabled self-service is another emerging trend in 2021. The concept of self-help in the CRM world is catching on.

New virtual assistants are designed to not only ask questions, but engage customers, sum up details, and provide productive and personalized answers. Artificial intelligence (AI) can then automatically guide users through sales and marketing pipelines.

This synergy has enabled chatbots to complete more contact management tasks without any human interference. They can quickly guide users through the right channels and provide actionable insights. Integrate that with a CRM, and you have an entire workflow that’s completely run by machine learning.

This extends to email communications as well. The concept of self-service CRMs means customers get quicker answers with little to no effort on the part of employees. Entire drip campaigns can be automated to nurture sales prospects down the funnel.

Workflow automation enables a business to offer high-quality customer service while optimizing operational costs. This is something that CRMs are supporting in new and innovative ways.

Flexible APIs

In CRM, APIs are the roadmap to customer intelligence. An API is what integrates platforms together. It is the glue that binds enterprise systems and helps to capture greater revenue growth.

Flexible APIs create a valuable record of customer preferences, while driving successful strategies. It’s one of the key technologies that enable cloud-based CRM applications to flex in response to sales and marketing needs. They’re fueling an unprecedented level of data-driven insights.

Additionally, CRMs with open API integration are enabling entirely new business models. As the development becomes increasingly customer-centric, APIs allow for greater versatility and  flexibility in designing custom:

• Workflows
• Graphical user interfaces (GUI)
• Screen designs
• Process steps

Over time, APIs will redefine the nature of how cloud-based CRMs operate. Today, nearly every CRM will offer API features (some more scalable and mature than others).

Cloud-based CRMs have enterprise-grade APIs that orchestrate a wide variety of databases. Cloud management is helping APIs become more customer-oriented by providing scalable integration frameworks and technologies. This allows for greater collaboration across departments, teams, divisions, and channels.

APIs are facilitating a new era of integrated CRM systems that are innovative and data-driven.

Dynamic user interface

One of the top CRM trends for 2021 also involves dynamic user interfaces. As CRMs evolve, the need to manage multiple functions in one spot becomes apparent. Rather than using separate systems for sales, marketing, service, and operations, new CRM dashboards are multifaceted.

A business can condense robust sales and marketing tech stacks into a single spot. Brands like Insightly provide several dashboards for universal insight. Toggle between opportunities, projects, and leads with a simple click. Colorful visuals that include charts, graphs, and gauges help a business assess important data at a glance.

Dynamic CRM dashboards display a quick overview of your most critical reports. It presents complex information that’s easy to digest and share with the team. As CRMs continue to evolve, the user interface will convey more and more data streams, in less amount of time.

Voice & conversational AI

As technology like Alexa and other voice-activated hardware hit the market, business software will soon follow. Customers are getting comfortable with conversational AI and this means, CRMs are following suit.

According to an Adobe report on voice technology, 94% of users consider voice technology not only easy to use, but state it also improves the quality of life.

That means that conversational apps are critical for the evolution of CRM tools. Voice technology is a key factor for accessibility and helps to increase user engagement.

Voice-assisted virtual assistants within CRM infrastructures are helping salespeople track, manage, message, update, and notify teams about customer data in real-time. This leads to faster decision-making and a quicker close.

In the near future, you should expect to see an increase in the usage of voice assistants and supporting hardware in CRM processes and interfaces.

One last thought

Most trends in CRM are influenced by brands that can quickly pivot to meet evolving customer needs. In order to stay relevant to tech-savvy consumers, top CRMs need to offer tools with advanced automation, IoT integrations, flexible APIs, a dynamic user interface, and conversational AI technology.

Does that seem like a big ask? 

Not really. The truth is, most of this technology is currently in place. More intelligent and contextually-aware CRM applications already incorporate machine learning, AI, and business intelligence.

The companies that are getting ahead use CRMs to build lasting customer relationships, drive sales, measure performance, and contribute to business growth; all while keeping customer satisfaction at an all-time high.

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, customer relationship management platforms will continue to outpace all other business software growth. This is because the technologies and strategies that CRM applications support contribute directly to new customer acquisition and retention, gross margin growth, and a healthy return on investment.

If you’re looking for a CRM that stays on top of trends, Insightly is a great place to start. You can try it for free, with zero commitment.

The post Top CRM trends for 2021 appeared first on Insightly.

If you’ve never asked this question, now is the time. In today’s competitive and uncertain economic landscape, you can no longer afford to look at your CRM as a glorified contact database. Either your CRM helps you grow faster, or it doesn’t.

Here are three possible reasons why your legacy CRM might be slowing down your business and tips for using technology to accelerate growth.

1. You don’t have a complete view of the customer journey

The customer journey is the sum of all interactions that your organization has with each customer. Phone calls, sales and marketing emails, online product demos, webinars, website visits, and support tickets are just a few of the ways that customers interact with your brand.

Each interaction can have dozens of related data points to collect and manage. For example, consider the amount of data that is generated from a single onboarding call with a new customer:

• Contact record additions and updates
• Emails between the meeting organizer and attendees
• Calendar invitations
• Email opens, clicks, and forwards
• Tasks that keep your team on track leading up to the call
• Slide decks and related documentation that is provided to the customer
• A call record that captures the time and date of the conversation
• Notes about the outcome of the call
• Additional calendar invites for future calls
• More tasks so your team makes good on their promises

Now, multiply this example across all of the interactions with all of your customers. That’s a lot of data.

Effective use of customer data is time-consuming (or impossible) when your CRM fails to offer the right mix of features and usability. As a result, users fall back into old habits and rely on data silos—instead of keeping your CRM as their primary source of truth. Data integrity issues worsen, leading to more data silos and a fragmented view of the customer.

Key takeaway: If you want a more complete view of the customer journey, start by selecting a CRM that makes it easy to securely collect, centralize, use, and manage your business data.

2. Users spend too much time on data entry & non-value added activities

In order to obtain a better understanding of the customer journey, some companies overcompensate and create new bottlenecks for users. This is especially true when your CRM lacks the necessary integrations and built-in functionality to simplify data collection.

Here are several common situations that divert users’ attention away from prospecting, outreach, and other higher impact activities.

Keying in data that’s already in users’ inboxes

Email is still the most common form of business communication and so many business professionals continue to spend a lot of time manually transferring data between their inboxes and CRM. CRMs that offer inbox integrations reduce manual data entry by enabling users to save email messages and link them to the appropriate contact records.

Juggling multiple usernames, passwords, & user interfaces

One system for your sales pipeline. Another for your email newsletters and drip sequences. Still another for managing contracts. Maintaining multiple systems requires users to (securely) keep track of multiple sets of login credentials. They also have to gain a certain level of expertise to use each system efficiently. By contrast, a more scalable approach harnesses the power of a unified CRM, which dramatically reduces learning curves and centralizes data, processes, and workflows under one roof.

Requesting & sharing only anecdotal feedback

Traditionally, CRMs and marketing automation systems were two separate (yet integrated) databases. Leads in your marketing automation system only made it into your CRM after crossing a predetermined lead score threshold—and not a moment sooner. Once converted to an opportunity in your CRM, your marketing team lost visibility and relied primarily on anecdotal feedback for insights into the customer journey.

Key takeaway: Identify a CRM that allows you to align sales and marketing with a proper lead disposition process and frees up users to focus on growth-oriented activities instead of keying in data, jumping between systems, or coming up with CRM workarounds.

3. Data-driven decision-making is not possible

Data collection is not the only piece of the puzzle. Without the tools to convert the data into actionable insights, a massive database of emails, records, files, and interactions offers minimal value to your business. Ideally, your CRM should deliver a suite of visualization and reporting features to help staff use data in their decision-making.

But making data-driven decisions is difficult, if you’re constantly dealing with:

Broken data integrations

Relying on overlapping systems for sales, marketing, projects, and other business processes can present challenging technical issues. Sometimes integrations do not work as intended. Other times they stop working altogether. Either way, you’re now dealing with bad data that must be resolved before any meaningful data analysis can occur.

Remote accessibility challenges

Now more than ever, users need secure and remote access to timely business insights. If you’re relying on a legacy, on-premises CRM, I’m sure that you can relate to this point.

Lack of built-in BI & flexible reporting

Even if your data is fresh, clean, and accessible, it’s still relatively meaningless without the right set of analytical tools. Sure, there are many third-party business intelligence (BI) tools on the market today, but connecting your CRM creates another integration point that will require ongoing maintenance and oversight. Look for a CRM that bakes data visualization into its user interface. Insightly’s dashboards are worth a look.

Key takeaway: Data is a key asset for your business. Look for a CRM that solves your data headaches—instead of creating new ones—and makes it easier to use data to inform your decision-making.

Accelerate growth with a better CRM

Thinking about switching to a CRM that’s optimized for growth? Request a demo with an Insightly rep to receive a free business and data needs assessment.

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The post 3 reasons your legacy CRM is slowing down growth appeared first on Insightly.

The proliferation of CRM software today illustrates this point. The value of the global CRM market grew from $15.4 billion (USD) in 2016 to $40.2 billion in 2019. That’s a dramatic 260% increase in three years. Experts predict that growth to continue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.2% between 2020 and 2027.(1)

We’re now seeing “unified CRM platforms” emerge as early CRM technology evolves. Unified CRMs incorporate additional business functions, such marketing automation, into a CRM platform without the need to manually sync sales and marketing data. This digitalization of previously-manual processes delivers extensive benefits to sales and marketing organizations. Plus, it’s forcing a shift in how B2B businesses conceptualize and approach sales.

However, the internal adoption of digital business technology remains a challenge for many businesses. In the case of B2B sales, managers, directors, and executives must champion digital tactics to support this transition. Below, we share five tips to streamline digital transformation in B2B sales.

5 Tips for B2B sales teams

Digital business models will inevitably dominate the near future of B2B sales, yet many businesses find the transformation difficult. Use the tips to minimize the challenges and successfully transition from analog to digital B2B sales processes.

1. Identify & adopt emerging technology

Spotting emerging technology and adopting it early on is key to a successful transformation. For example, the first companies that adopt unified CRMs almost certainly outpace their competition today.

It’s fairly simple to identify high-potential, emerging technology early enough to get a head start on the competition. But you need to understand existing technology and its gaps and be open to new ideas or ways of doing business in order to recognize it when you see it.

Adoption is the difficult part. You can invest in a software system and implement it in your company, but that’s not adoption. You achieve adoption across your company once your entire organization embraces and uses this new technology on a daily basis. And that takes some work.

Some employees push back because they’re happy with the way things are done and see no need to change. Some simply don’t use the new system and stick to their old ways. Others aren’t as technologically-savvy as you’d like them to be and challenged by learning new systems. All of this is true for senior management and executives as well as entry-level employees.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to surpass these hurdles, most of which are covered in the steps outlined below. And if you’re struggling with CRM adoption, there are plenty of tips to increase CRM adoption rates. Once employees see the benefits digital technology delivers and how it makes their lives easier, their concerns tend to disappear.

2. Prioritize internal training & onboarding

Because engaging in a digital transformation requires businesses to invest in new technologies, training is essential. The most powerful technology in the world is worthless unless users know how to leverage it properly. That’s why onboarding sales teams and investing in comprehensive training is essential. B2B companies shouldn’t undervalue the importance of having an effective success plan for CRMs or any other technology.

While initial training and onboarding of new users is critically important, user education shouldn’t stop there. Continued training on new features and capabilities ensures your initial investment maximizes your ROI. It also provides B2B sales teams with digital skills that will continue to benefit them throughout their careers. In Europe, the data from 2018 informs us that 90% of all jobs already require some level of digital skills.(2)

3. Educate users about the benefits

It’s hard to deny the efficiency and productivity gains that digital technology provides to businesses of all types. B2B companies and their sales teams are no exception. If B2B companies educate salespeople on the benefits digital technology can provide to them, they’re more likely to adopt it.

We can again use CRM software to illustrate this point. Because CRMs automate manual tasks, salespeople can spend more time on prospect interactions and building stronger relationships with customers. In a B2B setting, this equates to more new customer acquisitions and increased levels of cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Those, in turn, lead to more deals won and more commission earned by B2B salespeople.

4. Embrace data analysis & digital insights

Trusting data and its sources is a major roadblock on the journey to a successful digital transformation. However, the data and insights provided by digital technology are two of the key benefits of digital transformation.

First, B2B sales revolves around building trusted, long-term customer relationships. Building those relationships is easier when sales has access to digital insights around customer behavior, buying patterns, interests, challenges, etc.

Today’s CRM solutions capture extensive data that B2B salespeople can use to form rapport with customers. CRMs with marketing automation capabilities like customer journey mapping let sales reps maintain insight into where customers are in their decision-making and which resources they need at each stage of that journey.

Furthermore, B2B sales leaders and executives can leverage this data to make more informed, data-driven decisions. This is key because the right data gives decision makers insight into untapped opportunities for business growth. Indeed, 51% of companies that engage in digital transformations say identifying growth opportunities in new markets is the leading motivator behind their decision to start that transformation.(3)

5. Commit to & enforce digital sales processes

In order for a digital transformation to be successful, B2B sales managers must fully commit to supporting the effort. They also have to enforce new sales practices and consistent use of new technology when interacting with their teams. This may sound easy, but it can be a challenge.

There are tactics sales managers can use to smooth the transition to a digital business model. One of which is to clearly communicate to their teams that it is a priority for executive leadership. If sales reps realize that not adhering to new processes and consistently using new technology carries consequences, they’re more likely to fall in line.

Constant check-ins when first implementing new technology help sales managers ensure their teams are adhering to these changes. Plus, digital businesses have access to technology that can alert them when their reps don’t use the system. A unified CRM, where sales and marketing data are fully integrated, makes it easy to identify incomplete processes or data gaps.

Pulling it all together

Ultimately, B2B sales organizations have more than enough incentives to support digital transformation. Sales managers who are actively involved in a digitally-transformed business can attest to this. Survey data indicates that 32% of IT decision makers say that digital transformation has already helped them to achieve revenue growth. They go on to report that the growth they’ve experienced represents a 23% increase in annual company revenue, on average.(4)

Ready to start your digital transformation? Connect with Insightly for a free needs assessment and a unified CRM product demo.

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Sources:

1. Customer Relationship Management Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis, Grand View Research, 2020
2. The Impact of Technological Innovation on the Future of Work, European Commission, 2019
3. The State of Digital Transformation, Altimeter, 2019
4. State of Digital Business Transformation, IDG Communications, 2018

The post Tips for digital transformation in B2B sales appeared first on Insightly.

In this post, we’ll explore how to foster transparency with the right mix of processes, people, and systems.

The importance of transparency in business

Let’s start with some basic etymology. The word “transparency” traces its roots to the Latin word transparere (trans = ”through,” and parere = “appear”). The related medieval Latin equivalent, transparent, means “shining through.”

You might be asking how a “dead language” is remotely relevant to your business. Fair question. In this case, the Latin provides an excellent starting point for understanding the importance of transparency in business.

Stop and consider the attitudes, processes, data, and cultural norms that “shine through” your business. Are your people equipped with the information and tools they need to stay informed, do their jobs, and feel motivated to consistently elevate performance? Or, is something else shining through—things like bad data, confusion, and frustration?

Achieving true transparency across every facet of the company

To achieve transparency in business, leaders and staff must align around the free flow of open and honest communication. One-sided transparency is not true transparency. A sales leader, for example, who demands constant pipeline feedback from SDRs but fails to share macro-level data back to his team is not being transparent.

Organizations that achieve true transparency do so through proactive cultivation, which includes the following:

Company culture

A healthy company culture encourages each team member to think creatively, actively share his or her ideas, and look for new ways to help the company succeed. Smart companies identify ways to help their staff feel valued and essential to the customer journey.

Organizational structure

Transparency cannot begin and end at the departmental level. Departmental transparency is a good start, but its impact will never fully be realized when silos exist. A unified business approach, on the other hand, entails breaking down artificial walls between teams, including sales, marketing, and customer service. It also fosters a data-driven culture across the entire company. This is where choosing the right technology to help teams align and integrate key processes and improve collaboration becomes crucial to ensuring long-term success.

Business systems

Technology decisions are often made to fulfill a specific need. A marketing team needs a way to send out special offers, so they implement an email marketing system. An operations team needs a way to manage to-dos and due dates, so they begin using a project management tool. Over time, the net result is a myriad of overlapping systems that make transparency difficult. Transparency-minded organizations base technology decisions around solving user needs without creating new barriers to transparency.

Overcoming transparency roadblocks with a unified CRM

Zooming in on business systems for a moment, one of the most important platform-level decisions pertains to CRM technology. Companies switch CRMs for a variety of reasons—not the least of which includes increasing organizational transparency. Implementing a unified CRM (i.e., one that integrates sales, marketing, and operational data under one roof) can accelerate a company’s ability to overcome roadblocks to transparency. Here’s how.

One source of truth for the entire customer journey

Understanding the customer journey is complicated even with one system. When customer data is stored in your CRM, email data is stored in a second system, and transactional data is maintained in a third, managing the customer journey becomes almost impossible.

Unifying all of your customer data into your CRM provides a clearer field of vision and eliminates complicated, unnecessary data integrations. Teams spend less time mapping fields, fixing broken data feeds, and writing code, and more time on what matters most: engaging customers and growing the business.

Centralized platform for team collaboration

Emails. Instant messages. Texts. Shared documents. There are many places that your team members collaborate. Unfortunately, when data is spread across multiple locations, transparency suffers.

When your CRM solves the basic data and process requirements of multiple departments and teams, staff are more motivated to actually use it for ongoing collaboration. As a result, data silos decrease and the value of your CRM increases.

Reporting and visualizations on day one

Part of the challenge with becoming more transparent is providing information back to users in an intuitive, meaningful, and scalable way. The mere task of ingesting data from multiple systems, wrapping it into usable reports and visualizations, and keeping data fresh can consume significant amounts of effort and technical know-how.

Organizing all of your customer data (or as much of it as possible) into your CRM is a better approach, especially when the CRM provider offers prebuilt data reports and business intelligence (BI) visualizations. Users get the real-time information they need sooner, thereby elevating transparency without the upfront cost and effort of starting from scratch.

Measuring productivity in a highly scalable way

Requiring staff to manually report on their activity is a waste of time. (It’s also annoying for your team members who feel like they’re being babysat.)

By contrast, when users have access to everything they need in your CRM—including clearly defined tasks, pipelines, and milestones—productivity tracking becomes just another metric that is natively measured. As projects advance and tasks are completed, data flows seamlessly into top-level dashboards and reports. Users no longer have to remember what they worked on or update mind-numbing spreadsheets. Your unified CRM does all of that tracking for you by design.

Shine forth with a renewed sense of transparency

Achieving organizational transparency requires an ongoing commitment from leadership and staff along with the right mix of systems and processes. By investing in the right technology—starting with a unified CRM—your company will be laying the groundwork for a more transparent, successful future.

Ready to see a unified CRM at work? Request a demo with an Insightly rep to get a free needs assessment and find solutions that will help you bring more transparency to your organization.

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The post How to increase transparency in business with a unified CRM appeared first on Insightly.

With data playing such a pivotal role in today’s business landscape, how can your company increase data accessibility without spending a fortune on data scientists and complex algorithms? Look no further than your CRM.

In this article, we’ll share 11 easy-to-configure CRM reports to guide your decision-making.

1. Total booked revenue

Key metric: Booked revenue for your company during a predefined period of time, most likely year-to-date or quarter-to-date.

Why it’s important: You can’t grow your business without a detailed understanding of reality. Booked revenue provides a high-level indicator of the company’s overall success trajectory. Tracking revenue from closed deals is certainly not a new concept, but it’s absolutely vital for a variety of business processes, such as forecasting, preparing budgets, ordering materials, and making staffing decisions.

2. Revenue performance by team member

Key metric: Booked revenue by sales representative over a given period of time.

Why it’s important: Collectively, your sales team is one of your company’s greatest assets. As with any team, however, not everyone is an equal contributor. Analyzing booked revenue at the individual level makes it easier to identify superstars, rising performers, and, yes, even those who underperform.

User-level data also offers transparency into who is actually using your CRM. Is it possible that “underperformers” are just forgetting to update their deals, thereby leading to underreported revenue? Perhaps they need a little extra encouragement (or training) to fully adopt your CRM.

3. Pipeline by team member

Key metric: Value and number of open opportunities, broken down by team member.

Why it’s important: Next to booked revenue, sales pipeline is arguably your most important sales team KPI. Obviously, pipeline translates into sales. In theory, the more pipeline each sales rep brings in, the more business they’ll eventually close.

User-level pipeline data is also helpful for identifying discrepancies in your funnel. For example, if your lowest producing sales rep consistently has the largest pipeline, there may be a problem. Is his close rate really that bad? Or, is he just pumping your CRM full of low-quality opportunities to inflate his pipeline numbers? Either way, something needs to change.

4. Total pipeline value

Key metric: Value of all open opportunities across all sales reps and pipelines.

Why it’s important: Pipeline is the lifeblood of your organization. All things being equal, a dip in pipeline value will negatively impact future revenues. Total pipeline value is therefore instrumental for detecting and correcting issues before they get out of control.

Filtering expected revenue for specific pipelines can also be useful, especially if your company offers solutions with vastly different sales lifecycles. Is your total pipeline being dragged down by a product-specific quality control issue? Has an unexpected downturn in one sector of the economy impacted your sales forecast?

Start with the big picture and drill down into data that answers the tough questions.

5. Pipeline by opportunity state

Key metric: Value and number of open opportunities, broken down by opportunity state.

Why it’s important: Missing last month’s numbers is a major bummer. That being said, no sales forecast is 100% accurate. Don’t just chalk it up to bad forecasting. Rather, diagnose the situation by diving into the opportunity state data.

Did someone drop the ball last month? How many big deals are still on the verge of closing? What steps should be taken to get more opportunities across the finish line? Opportunity state reports provide your team with rapid answers to complex questions like these.

6. Win rates

Key metric: Number of won opportunities divided by the total number of opportunities.

Why it’s important: Sales reps are competitive people who like to make their bonuses. Win rate data help reps stay one step ahead of their pipeline. If, on average, 50% of your opportunities convert into paying customers, sales reps need to have at least twice as many deals lined up to hit their numbers.

7. Won & lost opportunities by reason

Key metric: All closed opportunities (won and lost), broken down by state reason.

Why it’s important: As we discussed in the buyer journey series, understanding buyer motivation is a key step for pivoting toward a customer journey mentality. Tracking specific reasons why customers choose (or fail to choose) your company provides data-driven insights into buyer behavior. Stakeholders across product development, marketing, sales, customer success, and other departments can then use this information to design innovative solutions that resonate with potential buyers.

8. Lead volume by source

Key metric: Number of leads created during a specific period of time (probably monthly, quarterly, or year-to-date) from different sources.

Why it’s important: Marketers (digital marketers in particular) spend most of the day figuring out how to increase lead flow. Social media, pay-per-click ads, and content marketing are common tactics used by marketers to generate leads. The reality is that some sources generate more leads than others, which is why marketers need source-specific lead reports in your CRM.

9. Lead quality by source

Key metric: Number of leads converted into opportunities, broken down by source and lead rating.

Why it’s important: Generating hundreds or thousands of low-quality leads is counterproductive and fosters misalignment between marketing and sales. Feeding marketers with lead quality reports from your CRM enables them to refine the marketing mix and deliver higher quality leads.

10. Contact volume

Key metric: Number of contacts created during a specific period of time.

Why it’s important: Don’t forget that the letter “R” in CRM stands for “relationship.” Each business relationship involves two or more people, which is why contact volume can be an early indicator of pipeline and revenue.

11. Sales territory maps

Key metrics: Number of leads, number of customers, sales revenue, product sales volume, etc. in any given geographic region — state, region, or country.

Why it’s important: With sales territory mapping you can monitor sales performance across different geographic regions to identify areas with the most (or least) activity, determine potential opportunities, and allocate resources accordingly.

Accelerate your business with CRM data

In conclusion, CRM reports and dashboards can be an excellent source of business intelligence for your company. Take time to explore the prebuilt and custom reporting options that your CRM has to offer.

Learn how Insightly customers like IT Consultis gain insights from dashboard reports and use the knowledge to better manage their sales and grow revenues.

Ready to explore Insightly CRM dashboards and build your own reports? Request a demo below and get started.

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The post Top 11 CRM reports in 2019 appeared first on Insightly.

Managing data: Top 3 roadblocks to effective data use (Part 2)

Managing data: How to accelerate revenue growth with data (Part 3)

Data is rapidly reshaping business as we know it.

With the advent of scalable, cloud-based storage and compute technologies, intuitive CRM integrations, and robust APIs, the appetite and capacity for data has never been greater. Companies of all sizes — especially midsize companies — are turning to data to understand their customers, streamline operations, and build healthier relationships.

Drawing from the insights revealed in Insightly’s customer stories, my next few blog posts will feature real-world examples of how midsize companies are effectively leveraging customer data to fuel growth.

In this first article, we’ll explore why customer data is so important.

1. Data delivers a more complete understanding of customers

It’s difficult to serve customers without a proper understanding of who they are, what they need, and what is their ability to buy. Midsize companies often find themselves in a quandary: they want to better understand their customers, but they lack the necessary resources to effectively harness a limitless pool of data.

The good news is that some midsize companies have figured it out. Just ask PWG and VAe, Insightly customers, who are happy to share their experience and best practices. Let’s take a closer look.

PWG uses interaction data to personalize the experience for 200,000+ guests per year.

PWG’s 42,000 square-foot training and retail facility in Southern California is among the largest of its kind in the United States and attracts thousands of new visitors annually. The company aggressively promotes itself to customers via email, SMS text, and online channels, resulting in millions of demographic and interaction data points.

Without the right approach, making sense of so much data could seem like an impossible task. However, by centralizing its sales and marketing activity into a single, integrated customer database, PWG cuts through the noise and zeros in on the data that delivers results. In particular, PWG leverages out-of-the-box CRM integrations to automatically merge relevant data from other business systems, such as webform submissions, campaign analytics, and product interest information.

PWG’s point of sale integration enables the type of personalized cross-selling and upselling that will move the sales needle.

“As customers buy certain products, we’ll be able to recommend complementary products that meet their needs,” says John Phillips, President & Founder of PWG.

Learn more about how PWG uses data to understand and engage its customers.

VAe uses program data to accelerate veteran reentry into civilian life.

VAe’s innovative work training program helps veterans with service-related disabilities transition into meaningful civilian careers. The program’s proven track record coupled with its full-immersion format that mirrors active duty training has yielded rapid growth for the organization.

Before VAe can help, however, it must first obtain an in-depth analysis of each veteran’s needs.

“Understanding each veteran’s unique situation has always been a top priority for us,” says Matt Vargas, COO at VAe. Centralizing all veteran contact and background information under one roof is mission-critical for achieving this goal.

CRM pipeline management simplifies tracking of each veteran’s progress and streamline the collection of related information, such as certification documentation and job interview outcomes. With a few clicks, internal stakeholders gain real-time access to key business metrics, including job placement rates, average salary data, and interview success ratios.

Read more about how VAe harnesses data to serve more veterans.

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2. Data streamlines the delivery of goods & services

Data should also play an equally important role in shaping (or reshaping) internal business practices. Reducing and eliminating internal delivery roadblocks creates a virtuous cycle, often resulting in happier customers, lower production costs, greater capacity, and, ultimately, improved bottom-line performance.

Here’s how two Insightly customers are leveraging data to do exactly that:

The Waite Company uses activity data to increase educational outreach.

Recognized as one of the top PR firms in New Mexico, The Waite Company was recently tapped by the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange to increase community awareness for the beWellnm program. Under the contract, The Waite Company is responsible for managing 26 outreach programs across more than 30 counties.

Engaging thousands of community leaders, nonprofits, and other constituents requires a seamless alignment between contact information and outreach activity data.

“Our team manages the outreach for beWellnm, which includes making phone calls, sending emails, and mailing packets of information,” says Jason Marshall, Program Director at The Waite Company.

All activity is logged securely in The Waite Company’s CRM, which fosters collaboration, standardizes the team’s follow-up workflow, and yields a streamlined delivery of services. Intuitive reporting offers transparency to the client, which demonstrates value and avoids potential discrepancies during invoicing.

See how The Waite Company is using data to engage more constituents.

HeroX uses pipeline data to ensure a seamless customer experience.

Large companies from across the globe are turning to HeroX’s community of 98,000+ “heroes.” The innovative platform brings new meaning to “crowdsourcing” by solving the world’s most complicated societal and business issues.

Interacting with major brands and corporations can be an intricate, time-intensive process that requires significant coordination and many layers of feedback. Dozens of contacts and hundreds of emails may be related to a single project, which can cause confusion during the handoff from sales to implementation.

HeroX avoids the confusion by using their CRM to convert opportunities into projects, delivering a 360-degree view of the customer’s entire journey. Key conversations, emails, linked contacts, project requirements, and other project-specific data points are easily accessible by anyone with proper access. Workflow automation and CRM Gmail integration accelerate the collection of data, freeing up more time to ensure total satisfaction.

3. Data is the foundation for healthy, lifelong relationships

“It’s easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one.” It’s been said many times, by many people across the business landscape. But, is it actually true for medium sized business? With the right combination of data and IT systems, midsize companies can move beyond the cliches and test different strategies that boost customer engagement and encourage brand loyalty.

Let’s look at how Kimberbell Designs and Millers Music use data for long-lasting customer relationship building.

Kimberbell Designs uses merchant and event data to build a favorable brand image.

Quilting and sewing is more than just a hobby. For some, it’s a way of life. That’s especially true for the countless retailers and distributors who sell products made by Kimberbell Designs.

To help solidify long-term brand awareness in the industry, Kimberbell Designs sponsors quilting and sewing events throughout the United States. The events, which are hosted by certified merchants, require significant follow-up and outreach.

“Our events have a lot of moving parts and require close coordination with store owners,” says Brielle Lowry, Events Coordinator at Kimberbell Designs.

Effectively following up with retailers demands a rock-solid relationship management system, one that provides at-a-glance access to merchant contact information, store-level (organizational) data, employee information, and related correspondence. Email inbox integration, with email tracker, simplifies data collection, while relationship linking accelerates customer outreach, resulting in better events and healthier relationships.

Read more about Kimberbell Designs’ approach to relationship management.

Millers Music uses customer feedback to deliver elite service.

For more than 160 years, Millers Music has kept the joy of music alive and well in Great Britain. And, as Great Britain’s second oldest independently-owned music store, Millers Music understands the importance of creating lifelong customers. To stay competitive in an era of “big box” retail stores, Millers Music must continuously implement new business processes to ensure each customer relationship is healthy and thriving.

Over the past decade, the company has been particularly focused on refining its approach to data collection and use. “By collecting the right data early in the sales cycle, we’re able to better understand our customers, work through more leads, deliver higher levels of service, and be more successful,” says Simon Pollard, Managing Director at Millers Music.

Customer contact details, product interest data, financing preferences, and other relevant criteria (such as consumer vs. B2B) is collected and managed with ease by leveraging Insightly’s mobile CRM app, CRM Gmail integration, and web-to-lead forms. All of this information is tracked through pipelines, ensuring each customer receives the personalized assistance that he or she expects and deserves.

With a streamlined data structure and collection process in place, sales reps stay focused on building long-term relationships that keep things humming.

Check out Millers Music’s story for more tips on building healthier customer relationships.

Next Up, Data Bottlenecks

If you’ve enjoyed this article, stay tuned for the next post that focuses on common bottlenecks to effective data use.

Also, be sure to check out all of Insightly’s customer stories.

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The post Managing data: Why customer data is increasingly important (Part 1) appeared first on Insightly.