CRM

CRM Reports: Definition, Examples, and How to Create One to Boost Your Sales

Liucija Adomaite
LAST UPDATED
July 11, 2024
READING TIME
7 min.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a powerful tool that centralizes all customer data in one place.

But using CRM solely as a place to collect information will not give you the desired results.

The whole idea of using a CRM is not just collecting relevant information but getting actionable insights from it. And using them to your advantage.

That's where CRM reports come into play. Using a CRM report transforms raw data into a narrative of sales performance.

It's a secret weapon to use up all the opportunities and drive growth.

In this article, you learn about the most important types of CRM reports you should start using right now.

What is a CRM report?

A CRM report is an analytics tool in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that presents data and insights about your customers, sales, marketing activities, and overall business performance.

Many different types of CRM reports exist out there, with each unifying your CRM data in a comprehensive manner.

CRM reports often employ charts, graphs, and digestible visual elements so you get valuable insights into your overall data.

Why do you need CRM reports?

A CRM report sorts your CRM data ways that are relevant to you, enabling you to make data-driven and strategic decisions in your business.

CRM reports help you to:

  • Track Performance: Monitor sales metrics like revenue, deals won/lost, and sales cycle length to evaluate effectiveness and identify areas for improvement.
  • Analyze Trends: Identify patterns in customer behavior, sales cycles, and marketing campaigns to inform decision-making and strategy.
  • Measure ROI: Calculate the return on investment for various marketing and sales initiatives.
  • Forecast Future Performance: Use historical data to predict future sales, revenue, and customer behavior.
  • Improve Customer Service: Analyze customer interactions and feedback to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
  • Optimize Processes: Identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in sales and marketing workflows to streamline operations.

CRM reports help you to analyze KPIs and evaluate different stages in your business operations.

They can be used to track progress toward sales goals, deal and overall pipeline statuses, revenue forecasts, marketing campaign performance, sales performance, customer satisfaction, and much more.

CRM reports rely on charts, graphs, and other visual elements that are easy to understand and that can be turned into actionable insights.

Here are the most useful types of CRM reports:

1. Pipeline Analysis (Sales Funnel) report gives you a comprehensive overview of the sales pipeline's health.

The key metrics of pipeline analysis report include number of deals, total revenue in pipeline, deal stages, conversion rates, average deal size, bottlenecks.

CRM report like that can help you to identify deal opportunities and optimize sales process so you can shift your focus on the weakest areas.

2. Sales Conversion (Win-Loss) report helps you to determine why you lost or won the deals.

The key metrics of sales conversion report can include win and loss rates by lead source, industry, company size, competitor, etc.

This kind of CRM report creates multiple benefits to your sales team, such as accurately pinpointing the most potential niches, evaluating competitor performance, and guiding strategy adjustments.

3. Sales Forecast report predicts revenue generation over your chosen time period.

It can give you the probability of conversion for each lead, estimated deal values, and more useful forecasting insights.

This CRM report is great for estimating your goal achievement, targeting sales, and prioritizing high-value leads.

4. Sales Activity report summarizes actions taken by sales team members and their outcomes.

It helps you to monitor team and individual performance, assess which activities were effective and which ones weren't, identify pain points.

Key Metrics of sales activity report includes calls made, emails sent, meetings held, proposals generated, and more.

5. Lead Source report analyzes your new leads and where they're coming from.

This type of CRM report helps you to identify the most effective lead channels and informs you about your resource allocation.

Lead volume, conversion rates, and revenue generated by each source are among the key metrics of such a report.

It's important to note that there are additional valuable CRM reports you can put to use. They include:

  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) report: Measures the total value a customer brings over their entire relationship with your company.
  • Customer Satisfaction report: Gathers feedback to assess customer happiness and loyalty.
  • Sales Rep Performance report: Evaluates individual sales reps' performance based on quotas, deals closed, etc.
  • Marketing Campaign ROI report: Calculates the return on investment for different marketing campaigns.

How to create a CRM report?

Yann Guilleux, the head of sales at lemlist, has relied on CRM reporting for his daily tasks. He shared some very useful insights on building your CRM report.

According to Yann G., when you're building a CRM report from zero, you have to follow some essential steps:

1. Define Your Objective.

Every CRM report starts from determining the purpose of your report. Think of what questions do you want to answer, what insights do you want to get, and what metrics do you want to track.

2. Define What You Want to Highlight in your CRM report.

It depends on your overall goal. For example, being sure that your team is doing enough effort to generate pipeline, or making sure each individual in your team is putting enough level of effort to reach the goal.

The most widely used CRM report tracks the amount of activities, like input volume of calls, meetings, or demos. Conversion rate reports are also widely used to track things like not-to-be-missed opportunities, discovery demos, negotiations, and so on.

Moreover, performance CRM reports can help you measure sales team and individual performances.

3. Use your CRM report for informed decisions.

How you put the CRM report to use is the most important step. Set up key metrics you want to review on a weekly basis and be sure you're on the track with your goal.

4. Follow-up!

This last step is super important. Follow-up your CRM report progress all the time until it becomes a habit.

As an example, that's how Yann's CRM report (he's using HubSpot) that tracks meeting outcomes looks like:

Yann G. argues that it's important to not fall into the reporting just for the sake of it. "Each company is different but you should not have more than 2 dashboards to manage your business," he concluded.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What does CRM report stand for?

A CRM report is a document generated by a Customer Relationship Management system that presents data and insights about your customers, sales, marketing activities, and business performance.

These reports help you track key metrics, analyze trends, and make informed decisions to improve your business strategies and customer relationships.

By using CRM reports, you can identify opportunities for growth, optimize your sales process, and enhance overall customer satisfaction.

2. What is the objective of the CRM report?

The main purpose of a CRM system is to improve the customer experience.

Executing this objective is the most sure-fire way to see positive results across your business.

When you make improved customer satisfaction the main goal for your CRM, all other objectives work to support this goal.

3. What is CRM analysis?

CRM analysis is the process of examining data stored within a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to gain valuable insights.

These insights typically include understanding customer behavior, sales patterns, and marketing effectiveness.

By analyzing CRM data, businesses can make informed decisions to improve customer satisfaction, optimize sales strategies, and ultimately drive revenue growth.

Liucija Adomaite
Liucija Adomaite is a viral content writer and organic traffic expert on a mission to help turn ambitious businesses into big names.
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G2 Rating
Price
Best for
Standout feature
Con
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/mo
$75/mo
$2,999/mo
Large, distributed sales teams
AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs
Lack of tracking system
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Sales operations and finance teams
Powerful configurability
Limited training resources and complex to navigate
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Mid-market and enterprise businesses
Comprehensive incentive management
Potentially high cost and steep learning curve
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$15/user/mo
$40/user/mo
Enterprise: custom price
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Collaborative teams
Connected planning
Complexity and steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with complex sales structures
Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy
Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts
Simplicity and ease of use
Lack of features like redirection
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$30/user/mo
$35/user/mo
Custom: upon request
Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software
Ease of use and adoption
Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs
4.8
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights
A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility
Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/user/mo
$50/user/mo
Smaller sales teams
Powerful automation
Lesser user base and average user interface
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with scalable needs
Automated Commission Calculations
Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app
ERP vs. CRM
ERP
CRM
Summary
Backbone of a business's internal operations.
Backbone of customer-centric interactions and operations.
Goal
To centralize and streamline core business processes in a company.
To increase customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, and boost sales.
Focus
Internal operations and processes across departments (finance, accounting, inventory, supply chain, HR, and sales).
All interactions with leads and customers.
Manages
Internal business data like financial data, inventory levels, production details, supply chain, HR info.
All customer data like contact info, purchase history, communication history, customer preferences and more.
Users
Finance, accounting, operations, supply chain, and HR departments.
Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Benefits
Streamlines operations, improves data accuracy, enhances decision-making, boosts collaboration, increases productivity.
Improves customer relationships, increases sales, strengthens customer service, personalizes marketing campaigns, provides insights.
Price
$150 per user per year on average.
$10 to $30 per user per month on average.
PRM Tool
Rating
Feature
Pro
Con
Mobile App
Integrations
Free Plan
Pricing
4.65
star
star
star
star
star-half
Org-wide alignment
User-friendly layout and database
Suboptimal as a personal CRM
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-check
Team: $20/month
Business: $45/month
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Social Media Integration
Easy contact data collection
No marketing/sales features
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-xmark
7-day trial
$12/month
4.75
star
star
star
star
star-half
Block Functions
High customization capability
Not a dedicated CRM
square-check
Limited
square-check
Plus: €7.50/month
Business: €14/month
N/A
Open-source
Open-source flexibility
Requires extensive manual input
square-xmark
Limited
square-check
Self-hosted
$9/month or
$90/year
3.1
star
star
star
Simple iOS app
Ideal for non-tech-savvy users
iPhone only
square-check
iOS only
Limited
square-xmark
1-month trial
$1.49/month or
$14.99/month
3.6
star
star
star
star-half
Smart Contact Management
Feature-rich and flexible
Reported bugs
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
7-day trial
Premium: $13.99/month
Teams: $17.99/month
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Customizable Interface
Customizable for teamwork
Pricey for personal use
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
Standard: $24/member
Premium: $39/member
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Integrated Calling
Integrated Calling
Too sales-oriented & pricey
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
Startup: $59/user/month
Professional: $329/user/month
4.8
star
star
star
star
star
Business Card Scanning
Business Card Scanning
Mobile only
square-check
Limited
square-check
$9.99/month
4.45
star
star
star
star
star-half
160+ app integrations
Comprehensive integrations
No free app version
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
$29.90/month or
$24.90/month (billed annually)
Capterra Rating
Free Trial
Free Plan
Starting Price (excluding the free plan)
Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan)
Best for
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-check
€15/month/seat billed annually
€792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat
Versatility and free plan
4.2
star
star
star
star
square-check
30-day
square-xmark
But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations
€25/user/month
€500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI)
Best overall operational CRM
4.3
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-xmark
square-check
Limited to 3 users
Comprehensive incentive management
€52/user/month billed annually
Small-medium businesses and automation
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-xmark
€14/seat/month billed annually
€99/seat/month billed annually
Sales teams and ease of use
4.1
star
star
star
star
square-xmark
square-check
Limited 10 users
$9.99/user/month billed annually
$64.99/user/month billed annually
Free plan for very small teams up to 10
CRM goal
Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months.
SMART Breakdown
1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation).
2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking.
3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements.
4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives.
5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date.
Actions
Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation.
Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior.
Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads.
Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up.
Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization.
Outcomes
Increased sales and revenue
Improved marketing automation ROI
Marketing and sales alignment
Data-driven marketing optimization
Table
CDP Software
CRM Software
Approach
Data-centric
Customer-centric
Focus
Interactions across various channels and touchpoints, both online and offline.
Sales, marketing, and customer service interactions.
Functionality
Automatically collects, organizes, tags, and makes data available in real-time.
Helps businesses track customer interactions, sales pipelines, prospects, and service requests.
Goals
Personalized customer experiences across all channels.
Better customer relationships, streamlined processes, and improved profitability.
Benefits
Data integration, management, and accessibility, allowing for detailed analysis and segmentation.
Better communication within teams and with customers by organizing information about customer interactions and history.
Data Handling
Handles both identified and anonymous data, stitches together various data points.
Deals primarily with identified customer data.
Use Cases
Personalized marketing campaigns, targeted advertising, content customization across multiple channels.
Managing campaigns and leads, enhancing customer service, providing better customer support, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Examples
Insider, Bloomreach, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CDP
HubSpot, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM
CRM
Free plan
Best feature
Best for
Con
1. HubSpot CRM
square-check
Sales automation
Sales teams
Up to 1,000 contacts
2. Insightly
square-check
Custom fields
Basic needs
Not enough info about the free plan
3. Agile CRM
square-check
Deal and sales pipeline tracking
Small teams
Up to 10 users
4. Zoho CRM
square-check
Lead and contact management
Businesses of all sizes
Limited to 3 users
5. ClickUp
square-check
Unlimited tasks and unlimited members
Personal use
Up to 100MB storage
6. EngageBay
square-check
Live chat
Small and midsize enterprises
Up to 1,000 branded emails per month
7. Bitrix24
square-check
Unlimited users and 5 scrum teams
Big teams
Up to 5GB of cloud storage
8. FreshSales
square-check
Easy to use and simple setup
Beginners
Up to 3 users
9. Mailchimp
square-check
Very beginner friendly
Marketing teams
Send up to 500 branded emails per month
Type of Affiliate Marketing
Unattached
Related
Involved
Format
Paid advertising
Social media or YouTube channels
Dedicated website or blog
Focus
Quick income
Your niche
Your audience
Engagement with your audience
square-xmark
square-check
square-check
square-check
square-check
Very close connection with your audience
Pro
Little effort
Higher credibility thanks to your niche
Long-lasting and scalable
Con
Paid ads cost a lot
Potential for bias since you don’t use the thing you promote
Require time, effort, and dedication

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