CRM Analysis - This Is What's Behind Customer Information

1. What areas does a CRM analysis cover?
2. How do you conduct a CRM analysis? 
3. How often should you perform a CRM analysis?
4. What are the benefits of a CRM analysis for you?
5. What are the drawbacks of a CRM analysis for you?
6. What role do CRM solutions play in the analysis?
7. CRM Tools Overview
8. CRM Analysis - your helping hand for the most important customer information

Nowadays, almost every company has a website, necessitating the capture and maintenance of a vast amount of customer interactions. CRM analytics can help transform website visits into useful information. There are a number of software options for this, which we will explore in this article. If you're currently considering implementing CRM analytics in your business, you've come to the right place.

What areas does a CRM analysis cover?

The term CRM analysis encompasses processes like customer data analysis and representation. These precursors enable more efficient and swifter business decisions. The following areas are included in a CRM analysis:

• Customer segmentation:e.g. dividing customers into those most likely or unlikely to repurchase. You can find more on this in our article on Customer Segmentation.
• Marketing insights:e.g. your conversion rate - Which customers bring in the most profit?
• Personalisation:personalised communication with certain customers (e.g. with an email sequence template).
• Event monitoring:e.g. notifications as soon as customers have ordered from you for a purchase price of 10,000 euros. 
• What-if scenarios:the probability of customers buying another product when purchasing a product, is, for example, 20 percent.
• Predictive modelling:e.g. forecasts about the buying behaviour of customers (customer X is expected to bring in 50,000 € this month).
• Feedback:e.g. net promoter score (NPS) or customer effort score (CES).

Careful and continuous analysis of data facilitates future business decisions and also brings you closer to your customer demographics and customer behaviour. CRM analytics not only improve supply chain management (faster deliveries and lower inventory levels), but also strengthen your customer relationships through faster sales and service processing. You can find suitable tools for deliveries and inventory in the category Supply Chain & Logistics Software.

 Application areas of CRM analysis (Source: Forbes)

How do you conduct a CRM analysis? 

Now that you know what areas a CRM analysis covers, we have a step-by-step guide for you that can help you conduct a CRM analysis. 

1. What information do you need? Define what you are looking for!

You need to determine which information is most important to you. This allows the CRM to create an overview that fits exactly to you and your company. It shows you the next steps and ensures a smooth process.

2. Sort and filter your customer data

Sorting your customer data is made easier by the overview you created in the first step. You can filter your data eg. by customer profiles, Lead Generation or conversion rates. Be sure to be meticulous when entering data. The more precise and tidy your database is, the better the result of your CRM analysis.

3. Information analysis 

Next, you need to analyse the information you've previously entered. Conduct the analysis both quantitatively (e.g. customer profiles) and qualitatively (e.g. correct email addresses) to compare conversion rates. This is one of the biggest advantages of a CRM or CRM analysis: all data is in the same place. 

How often should you perform a CRM analysis? 

To answer this question, we first need to mention that a CRM analysis should not be a management report or overview that needs to be updated every minute. A CRM analysis is a one-time analysis of ALL the data in your CRM. This analysis provides a deep insight into your data and prevents seasonal data errors. You gain valuable and hidden insights into your customer behaviour, such as long-term trends or unexpected correlations that improve or deteriorate your revenue. We show you how to prevent such data and CRM errors in our Contenthub article on 10 CRM errors that can ruin your customer relationships.

In short, a CRM analysis should not be conducted daily or weekly. It is a complex process that should only be pursued when you have enough manpower and resources to evaluate the results and implement the ensuing actions.

What are the benefits of a CRM analysis for you? 

What exactly does a CRM analysis bring and how can it support your company and your employees? Here are some points we have summarised for you:

1. Improved sales figures

A CRM analysis supports your sales process by giving you insight into your sales figures and visualising process optimisation proposals. The analysis helps create a sales pipeline, automates several operations, and gives you an overview of your sales figures. This can increase your sales numbers and productivity. 

2. High decision-making certainty

Through a CRM analysis, your company does not just make decisions based on assumptions, but can take data-based steps that are guaranteed to lead to success. Team leaders can compare analysed data, reports, and tables to make well-founded decisions. 

3. Lower CAC costs (New Customer Acquisition Costs) 

With carefully planned strategies (based on your CRM analysis), you use resources such as time and money purposefully. Investments are only made in actions that, according to the CRM analysis result, successfully bring in customers or leads. This significantly lowers CAC costs.

Benefits of CRM Analysis (Source: Apptivo)

What are the drawbacks of a CRM analysis for you? 

The benefits are clear, but what reasons could argue against a CRM analysis? In this section, we'll bring you closer to the disadvantages of a CRM analysis:

1. Cost point of a CRM analysis

It is no secret that a CRM analysis can save considerable costs. However, it should be noted that a thorough analysis can also cost money and resources. You need to weigh up whether a CRM analysis is worth it for your company.

2. Lack of employee acceptance

Everyone in your team needs to understand the benefits of the CRM analysis for the results of the analysis to be implemented internally. If only 50% of your staff is willing to learn how to use a CRM analysis, it might be worth planning a training session first.

3. High data volume

Lastly, you should be aware of how much data a CRM analysis really generates. You may not have enough resources to sift through the volume of data. Be aware that you only store data that's important for your company. 

What role do CRM solutions play in the analysis? 

Now we've told you a lot about CRM analysis, but of course to conduct a CRM analysis, you need the appropriate CRM. There are basically three different types of CRMs:

1. Collaborative CRMs

The goal of a collaborative CRM is to bring your teams together. Often, employees in marketing, customer support, or sales are separated from each other either by departments or geographic location. The collaborative CRM shares all customer data in real time and allows access for all your employees. This way, every department can retrieve the information they need. This also improves the customer experience (user experience), as customers don't have to constantly repeat themselves when they are redirected to a different contact point in the company. 

2. Operational CRMs

Operational CRMs optimise all processes that have something to do with your customer relationships. Typically, this tool offers any process automation in marketing, sales, or service. This allows your team more time for creative tasks, for instance.

3. Analytical CRMs

Today, every company collects data. However, not every company knows what to do with this data. This is where an analytical CRM can be of great help. It not only provides you with a very detailed data overview, but also shows you how to optimise certain processes thanks to its analytical capabilities. 

This brings us to the answer to the question 'What role do CRM solutions play in the analysis?'. As you can see, it's not just about how you approach a CRM analysis, but also about which tool your company chooses. Because not every CRM is capable of performing a detailed CRM analysis.

CRM Tools Overview

OMR-Reviews gives you an overview of suitable CRM Systems for your company. Verified reviews from users help you decide on a suitable CRM. Here are some tools listed for you:

• Salesforce CRM: many users describe it as one of the best analytical CRM tools on the market
  (Go directly to the Salesforce website)
• HubSpot CRM: analytical CRM tool for marketing purposes
• CentralStationCRM: collaborative CRM tool for small and medium-sized businesses
• Pipedrive: extremely affordable CRM tool at only 15 €/month per user
• weclapp: scalable and customisable collaborative CRM tool
• TecArt CRM: operational CRM software for medium-sized businesses
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: an all-rounder with many integration possibilities
• ClickUp: according to users, the best solution in terms of data visualisation
• BSI Customer Suite: operational CRM tool specialised in the DACH market
• ActiveCampaign: self-proclaimed as a 'Customer Experience Automation Platform'

CRM Analysis - your helping hand for the most important customer information

We hope that this insight into the CRM world and the overview of the most popular CRMs will help you with your decision. As you've learnt, it can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. To remain competitive, you should definitely consider getting a CRM. Your sales and marketing department will surely appreciate the many benefits.