Every interaction you have with a customer, every sale you make, every email you send – all that data adds up to an abundance of insights.

But here's the catch: collecting data is one thing. Making sense of it is a whole different ball game. 

CRM analysis turns your raw customer data into clear and actionable information you could use to boost sales and improve customer satisfaction.

In this article, I’ll break down what analytics in CRM are all about and highlight the essential metrics you should be keeping an eye on as a CRM analyst. 

What is analytics in CRM?

Before going into specific CRM KPIs, let’s understand what is CRM analytics. 

Simply put, it is the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting customer data stored within your CRM system. 

The analytics in CRM go beyond simple lead management. They help you understand customer behavior, preferences, and trends.

There are two main types of CRM Analytics: 

• Operational analytics in CRM: They describe your day-to-day sales and marketing activities. The metrics in operational analytics help you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, identify top-performing salespeople, and optimize sales processes.
• Customer analytics in CRM: Customer analytics dive deeper into understanding your customers as individuals. These metrics analyze their purchase history, interactions with your brand, and online behavior to identify patterns and predict future actions.

All the information you collect in your CRM system, like sales figures, customer interactions, and website behavior, is fair game for analysis. 

This data is cleaned and analyzed to extract meaningful insights. 

Once you have your insights, CRM analytics tools present them in a clear and easy-to-understand way, like charts and graphs. 

This helps everyone in your company understand what the data is telling them.

Benefits of CRM analytics

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Analytics in CRM help you gather and analyze tons of data about your customers, like their buying habits, preferences, and how they feel about your products or services.

So, what's in it for you? Well, buckle up because here come the benefits. 

Improving customer satisfaction

Nothing puts a smile on a customer's face like feeling understood and valued. CRM analytics lets you do just that by giving you insights into what makes your customers tick. 

You can track their interactions with your brand, spot any issues they might be facing, and swoop in to save the day before things go south. 

Save time and money

Time is money, as they say, and nobody has time to waste on guesswork. With CRM analytics doing the heavy lifting, you can wave goodbye to hours spent sifting through mountains of data. 

Instead, you can focus your energy on what really matters: growing your business and keeping those customers happy. 

Boost sales

Who doesn't love more sales? Analytics in CRM help businesses identify sales opportunities they might have missed otherwise. 

You can also keep a check on which salespeople are closing deals consistently and which ones might need a little nudge. 

This way, you focus your resources on maximizing sales success.

Key CRM metrics to track in your business

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Here are some key CRM metrics that you should be keeping an eye on in your CRM analytics. 

1. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) calculates the average cost a business incurs to acquire a new customer. 

It reflects how much you spend on marketing and sales efforts to convert a lead into a paying customer.

Here's a simple formula to calculate CAC: 

CAC = Total Cost of Sales & Marketing / Number of New Customers Acquired

For example, if a company spends $50,000 on marketing and acquires 1,000 new customers, the CAC would be $50. 

The metric is measured in your business currency, such as US dollars. 

The cost to acquire customers varies across industries. 

Some of them include: 

• Arts and entertainment: $21
• Health and beauty: $127
• Fashion and accessories: $129
• Home, furniture, and garden: $129
• Electronics: $377

A lower CAC indicates a more efficient customer acquisition process. 

If your CAC is too high, it’s a sign that you need to refine your customer acquisition strategy.

2. Customer lifetime value 

Customer lifetime value predicts the total revenue a business can expect to generate from a single customer throughout its entire relationship with the company. 

It considers a customer's value over time, including their average purchase value and how long they remain a customer. 

It is, again, measured in US dollars. 

To calculate CLV, you can use this formula: 

CLV = Average Purchase Value x No. of Purchases x Average Customer Lifespan 

Let’s say a customer spends $50 per transaction, makes purchases three times a year, and remains a customer for five years. 

Their CLV would be $50 x 3 purchases x 5 years =. $750.

Ideally, you want your CLV to be significantly higher than your CAC. 

This indicates that revenue generated by a customer over their lifetime outweighs the cost of acquiring them.

3. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) and net promoter score (NPS)

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) measures a customer's immediate satisfaction with a product, service, or interaction. 

CSAT is calculated by asking customers to rate their experience on a numerical scale from 1 to 10. 

In this scale: 

• Scores 9-10 indicate strong customer satisfaction
• Mid-range scores (e.g., 7-8) suggest a neutral experience and room for improvement.
• Scores 1-6 indicate customer dissatisfaction and potential churn risk.

Net Promoter Score (NPS), on the other hand, assesses customer loyalty and the likelihood that a customer would recommend a company to others. 

It is also measured on a scale from 0 to 10, where: 

• Scores 9-10 are promoters (loyal customers who generate positive word-of-mouth)
• Scores 7-8 are passives (indifferent customers who are unlikely to be strong promoters, but they also aren't actively negative)
• Scores 1-6 are detractors (unhappy customers who could damage your brand reputation through negative word-of-mouth)

4. Close rate

The close rate measures the effectiveness of your sales team in converting sales opportunities (leads) into paying customers. It reflects the percentage of deals your sales team closes successfully. 

It is expressed as a percentage. A close rate of 20% means that 20 out of 100 leads resulted in successful sales.

You can calculate it using the formula below: 

Close Rate = (Number of Deals Closed / Number of Sales Opportunities) x 100%

A close rate below 10% suggests there might be inefficiencies in your sales process or your leads might need to be qualified better. 

A rate between 10-30% is a fairly common range for many industries.

If your close rate exceeds 30%, you have a well-oiled sales process and a skilled sales team. 

5. Sales cycle length 

Sales cycle length is the average amount of time it takes to convert a lead into a paying customer. 

It measures the duration of your sales process, from the initial contact with a potential customer to the finalization of the sale.

Sales cycle length is typically measured in days, weeks, or months. 

A short sales cycle length is more favorable as it indicates quicker conversions and more efficient sales processes. 

On the other hand, a longer sales cycle may suggest potential bottlenecks or inefficiencies in the sales process. 

A sales cycle length of less than 30 days is common for low-cost, readily understood products or services with simple buying decisions. 

30 days to 6 months is a typical range for many B2B sales processes. 

6. Churn rate

Customer churn rate is a metric that measures the percentage of customers who stop doing business with your company within a specific period of time. 

Here’s a quick formula to determine your churn rate: 

Churn Rate = (Number of Customers Lost / Total Number of Customers at Start of Period) x 100%

Churn rates also vary by industry. 

Generally, a low churn rate, ideally below 2%, is excellent and indicates a loyal customer base. 

Most subscription-based businesses and SaaS companies have a churn rate between 3% - 5%. 

Churn rate helps you understand your customer retention efforts. 

You can also segment your churn data by factors like customer segment, product type, or acquisition channel to gain deeper insights into why customers might be leaving.

Track CRM analytics with Formaloo like a pro (Even if you aren’t) 😎

Now that you've got a grip on key CRM metrics to track, it's time to leverage them to understand your customers and optimize your business truly. 

But where do you even begin?

Formaloo is your one-stop shop for building a user-friendly CRM and analyzing customer data with ease. 

It converts your customer data into beautiful and easy-to-understand reports with interactive charts, graphs, and tables. 

You can identify trends, understand customer behavior, and pinpoint areas for improvement, all within a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. 

Formaloo also offers a library of pre-built CRM templates that you can easily customize to fit your specific needs. 

And the best part? You can get started with Formaloo for free! That's right – no strings attached. 

Join 30 thousand businesses already reaping the rewards of smart CRM data analytics with Formaloo.