CRM Reporting
So you finally have your system populated with data, clean data I presume. You have all of your basic, required and custom fields full of data, now comes the return.
I was told once that the work in any system starts when the data is in and you cannot improve what you can not measure; this is where reporting comes in.
Gone are the days where you have to write all of your reports from scratch or pay consulting fees to have it written during implementation. The majority if CRM systems today come with “canned” reports, lots of them broken up in the three components, marketing, sales and service.
Views
Most systems deliver views with each leads, contacts, accounts and opportunity tabs or sections. It allows the individual user to view that data in the format that they prefer such as leads today, key contacts, top accounts and ready to close opportunities. The criteria of a view can be as detailed as you prefer such as a specific zip code or dollar amount. Views can be very handy in giving you a quick reading without having to run a standard report.
Reports
It is standard procedure these days for CRM systems to come out of the box with pre-written reports on the most common reports companies use. Reports such as lead source, leads that close or reports that can give you information on campaigns, activity, cold leads and many others.
Even if you prefer to write a report you can copy a current one and modify it for your use. Report writers commonly use the wizard method to walk you through the steps of writing a report.
All of the data can be run and printed out as well as exporting to a spreadsheet format.
Dashboards
If you are like me you like data shown in a picture form. Dashboards allow the output of any report to appear in a graphical representation such as a pie chart or a bar graph chart. Dashboards can sit on your homepage and alert you to how your pipeline is looking or a quick look at your forecast for the month or quarter.
Whether you are an individual contributor or an executive level the data will appear to you based on your role and security level. For instance, if you are a sales manager and you have a team of reps you can view their data individually or it all rolls up as a team total.
As a start the reporting delivered with most CRM systems will give you what you need and as you progress and need more analytical reporting you need to explore the data warehouse capabilities that many can add or integrate with 3rd partner vendors that specialize in analytics.
Regardless of what you use it still comes down to having good clean data because dirty data in will create dirty reporting.