Balancing sales and support team metrics in your CRM system. Can you find harmony amidst conflicting goals?

Who Cares About ROAS? 🤔📉 Back in 2013, when we started with Akane, the only word on the mouths of marketing agencies was ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). 📈 No need to understand who bought which product—ROAS was king. But with competition growing and CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) soaring 🚀, we had to shift our focus to indirect KPIs like our prospect database, email opening rates, and click rates. 📊 We began working on our prospect qualification to improve these numbers. At first, our ROAS dropped 😬, but then magic happened. We ended up with an improved transformation rate, a decrease of 300% in our CAC, running a profitable e-commerce business. 🎉💪 Be patient, invest in service and quality, and eventually, you’ll reap the rewards. 🌟🍎

Keeping customers happy is important to all businesses. Connecting with your customers on a personal level is the key to building a long and trusting relationship with your business. 79% of organizations that have exceeded revenue goals have a documented personalization strategy. Personalization increases loyalty, leads to more conversions and ultimately increases revenue. Understandably, the path to personalization is challenging for some companies, and as a result, marketers have created segmentation strategies instead of creating a truly personalized experience.

Why would you call Sales and Support metrics for CRM conflicting? The KPIs for these COMPLETELY DIFFERENT business functions expectedly and obviously are DIFFERENT… The function of SALES must measure pipeline velocity and how fast the deals close, how well upsell happens… the goal is to close more deals as fast as possible for that industry and company size while creating upsell and cross-sell opportunities. THAT is what needs to be measured for sales. For the SUPPORT business function, we must measure the effectiveness of self-service, if cases are filed, we measure time to resolution, and we measure customer satisfaction, which depends on support significantly and rightfully so. Why would you call these different KPIs CONFLICTING?

Balancing sales and support metrics in a CRM system is crucial but achievable. In my experience, aligning both teams through shared KPIs, like customer satisfaction and revenue growth, fosters collaboration. For instance, setting up automated workflows in CRM that trigger support follow-ups after a sale ensures continuity in customer experience. Additionally, using dashboards that visualize both sales targets and support resolutions helps both teams see their impact on overall business goals. This approach not only harmonizes conflicting objectives but also enhances team synergy and customer loyalty.

Equilibrar métricas de vendas e suporte no CRM é crucial para o sucesso. Vendas focam em fechar negócios e aumentar a receita, enquanto suporte garante a satisfação do cliente. Para harmonizar, crie metas comuns que beneficiem ambos, como a satisfação do cliente, e promova uma comunicação eficiente entre as equipes. Utilize um CRM integrado para visualizar todas as interações com os clientes. Treine as equipes para entenderem suas funções e ofereça incentivos alinhados ao sucesso coletivo. Automatize tarefas para reduzir o trabalho manual e analise dados regularmente para ajustar estratégias. Isso melhora a experiência do cliente, aumenta a retenção e maximiza a eficiência, impulsionando os resultados comerciais.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Ensuring customers are happy with the service they receive is paramount for the support team. CSAT scores provide direct feedback on this. First Response Time: The time taken to respond to customer inquiries impacts customer satisfaction and retention. Resolution Time: The duration it takes to resolve a customer's issue from initial contact to resolution is critical for maintaining customer trust and satisfaction. Ticket Volume and Backlog: Monitoring the number of support tickets and the backlog helps in managing workload and resource allocation.

Considero importante que a partir de un customer service equilibrado y bien medido con las Kpi’s correspondientes se puede generar un buen nivel de conversión en ventas, seguido de la correcta medición de convertidores y performance del funnel de ventas. El reto en mi opinión es mantener ese equilibrio y correlación entre estas dos operaciones.

The performance indicators for your support team in the CRM revolve around the satisfaction level of your clients, time spent solving emerging issues, and ticket numbers that reflect on how your team solves client concerns. While sales representatives’ KPIs are primarily numbers-oriented, support metrics indicate the professionalism and performance of representatives as well as the speed of issue resolution. These have to be combined with sales data to synchronize customer retention with the growth of your business. This results in the development of a balanced CRM whereby the focus is shifted not only to getting new clientele but also to satisfying the existing ones.

As métricas de suporte ao cliente no seu CRM, como satisfação do cliente, tempos de resolução e volumes de tíquetes, são essenciais para avaliar a eficácia da sua equipe em resolver problemas. Ao contrário das métricas de vendas, que focam em números, essas métricas destacam a qualidade das interações e a eficiência nas soluções. Integrar essas métricas aos dados de vendas é fundamental para garantir que suas estratégias de retenção estejam alinhadas com o crescimento da empresa. Isso cria um CRM equilibrado, que valoriza tanto a conquista de novos clientes quanto a satisfação e a fidelização dos atuais, promovendo um relacionamento mais forte e duradouro com seu público.

Balance is key to achieving personal and group goal. There's need for both sales and customer satisfaction to be met in order to reach set KPI. CRM helps attain this by maximizing both to reach harmony.

Consider: Tracking satisfaction in CRM means you are storing data in an internal system. Don’t. Instead store customer satisfaction in external systems and reporting. Tracking non revenue metrics may make the performance metrics easy for sales support, but does not drive to your business outcome needs, which is revenue. Tie metrics to the business outcome needs and work harder to provide payouts based on that reality. Harder, simpler and more impactful.

Unified Goals: Aligning the goals of sales and support teams around common objectives such as customer retention and satisfaction can create a more collaborative environment. Cross-Functional Training: Providing sales teams with an understanding of support processes and vice versa fosters empathy and better teamwork. Integrated Communication: Utilizing a CRM system that facilitates seamless communication between sales and support ensures that customer information is shared effectively, preventing misunderstandings and delays. Shared Metrics: Introducing metrics that both teams contribute to, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), can help in aligning their efforts.

O que trago de atenção aqui são para os especialistas em CRM. Na teoria é muito tranquilo a defesa do alinhamento entre área, pois a teoria já esta posta. Porém, hierarquicamente, processualmente, os processos mudam de empresa e empresa e você terá de construir isso dentro do CRM, o que te exigirá experiência, conhecimento e criatividade. Então, se respeite faça esse item em partes e dê tempo de SLA para o desenvolvimento do mesmo. Construir um CRM de dados compartilhados leva tempo. Solucione as dores primeiro, depois vai melhorando essas interconexões aos poucos.

En toda compañía es importante que las áreas de ventas y servicio al cliente trabajen de manera mancomunada por un mismo objetivo. No es rentable para una compañía recibir un porcentaje alto de nuevos clientes y que, probablemente, al mes de servicio se estén retirando más de la mitad de usuarios. Antes de que suceda esto, es clave crear estrategias de fidelización y lealtad para promover la vida del cliente dentro de las compañías, esto asegura la retención y también genera oportunidades a que los usuarios actuales del producto y/o servicio puedan traer nuevos clientes.

Sale team and Tech support team must have their goals and activities clearly specified, in order to not duplicate activities. Example: Easy to solve problems can be attended by sales person, this won’t consume much time and will make customer and Sadler person relationship to be more close, sales person is the hero. On the other hand, if sales person identifies a complicated problem, he must past this cases to designated tech support person, avoiding to spend lot of time solving/rescuing; purpose of this is to spend as much time as possible doing sales activities (generating $$$) instead of solving problems on the products already sold, this last situation doesn’t generates $$$.

Tailored Dashboards: Customize CRM dashboards to display relevant metrics for both sales and support teams, ensuring they have access to the data they need without being overwhelmed by irrelevant information. Automation: Implement automation for repetitive tasks such as follow-up emails and ticket assignments to free up time for both teams to focus on higher-value activities. Custom Reports: Create reports that provide insights into how sales and support activities impact each other, helping teams to identify areas for improvement and collaboration. User Permissions: Set user permissions in the CRM to ensure that team members have appropriate access to data, promoting transparency while protecting sensitive information.

Love this! Customizing your CRM is absolutely essential for balancing sales and support metrics. Creating dashboards that display both metrics side by side and setting up automated alerts for key thresholds can really drive collaboration. It's all about highlighting those interdependencies to foster a holistic approach to customer management. And remember, this isn’t a one-time setup – keep evolving your CRM as your team adapts and your business grows. We help our clients tailor their CRMs for exactly this, making sure both sales and support shine. 🌟

Personalizar seu sistema de CRM é essencial para atender às necessidades únicas das suas equipes de vendas e suporte. Imagine ter painéis que mostram métricas de vendas e suporte lado a lado, ou alertas automatizados que avisam quando certos limites são atingidos. Isso facilita a colaboração entre as equipes, promovendo uma abordagem mais integrada no atendimento ao cliente. E lembre-se, essa personalização deve evoluir continuamente, acompanhando as mudanças e o crescimento da sua empresa. Assim, você maximiza cada interação, fortalece os relacionamentos e impulsiona o sucesso comercial.

KM Supports a Wide Range of CRM Functions Because the applications are quite flexible, businesses can build a variety of knowledge repositories that can be applied to CRM's core sales, marketing, and service functions: Knowledge-based customer service. KM databases contain historical customer information, such as spending habits, product preferences, and past purchases. Often they also include best practices for servicing the customer. Expertise management. This function enables front-line office personnel to quickly find subject-matter experts within the firm to address specific customers' needs and concerns. Their employees' expertise can be in technical, legal, or marketing areas.

A personalização permite que crie visões diferentes para diferentes áreas e níveis hierárquicos, pois cada um desses querem ver dados e itens de forma diferenciada. Novamente aqui o conhecimento do CRM é extremamente importante. Então desenvolva-o com cursos, palestras.

Analytics Integration: Integrate analytics tools with your CRM to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and team performance. Predictive Analytics: Use predictive analytics to forecast future sales trends and identify potential support issues before they escalate. Feedback Loops: Establish feedback loops between sales and support to continuously improve processes based on real-time data and customer feedback. Performance Reviews: Conduct regular performance reviews using CRM data to identify strengths and areas for development in both teams.

The person in charge of data análisis should not be part of the sales team, why? If sales team analyze his own data in order to make changes on the sales process, this could generate sales person to choose incorrect decisions to avoid getting to work harder or more difficult activities.

Para garantir um equilíbrio eficaz, seu CRM deve capacitar sua empresa a tomar decisões baseadas em dados que integrem insights de vendas e suporte. Analisando dados combinados, você pode identificar padrões e correlações que não seriam evidentes de outra forma. Por exemplo, um aumento nos tíquetes de suporte pode estar relacionado a uma campanha de vendas específica, revelando áreas para melhoria. Utilizar os dados do CRM de maneira inteligente permite decisões informadas que otimizam tanto a aquisição de novos clientes quanto a retenção dos existentes. Essa abordagem integrada melhora a eficiência e promove o crescimento sustentável do negócio.

Iterative Processes: Adopt an iterative approach to process improvement, regularly reviewing and refining workflows based on data and feedback. Training Programs: Invest in ongoing training for both sales and support teams to keep them updated on best practices and new CRM features. Customer Feedback: Actively seek and incorporate customer feedback into your processes to enhance the overall customer experience. Benchmarking: Regularly benchmark your metrics against industry standards to ensure your teams are performing at optimal levels.

At Akane, we use Klaviyo as our global CRM, and this software is nothing short of amazing, improving month after month. 🚀 Klaviyo utilizes AI to evaluate the risk of churn for each customer. 🧠📉 Therefore, it's crucial to feed the beast with appropriate and clear data. It’s also essential to focus on fresh KPIs to decrease this churn rate. 📈 More qualified clients lead to higher email response rates, as we use historical data to prevent any off-topic communication. 📬🗂️ Always learn from new features and understand what’s at stake. Thousands of people have thought through these challenges before you had the chance. 🤔💡 Stay ahead by continuously adapting and learning, and watch your customer loyalty soar! 🌟📧

At Akane, we use Klaviyo as our global CRM, and this software is nothing short of amazing, improving month after month. 🚀 Klaviyo utilizes AI to evaluate the risk of churn for each customer. 🧠📉 Therefore, it's crucial to feed the beast with appropriate and clear data. It’s also essential to focus on fresh KPIs to decrease this churn rate. 📈 More qualified clients lead to higher email response rates, as we use historical data to prevent any off-topic communication. 📬🗂️ Learn from new features, understand what’s at stake. Thousands of people have thought through these challenges before you had the chance. 🤔💡 Stay ahead by adapting and learning, watch your customer loyalty soar! 🌟📧

Every contribution so far are very insightful but we can also make the process fun rendering it even easier.... Imagine a company wherein the support team earns points for promptly resolving issues, and the sales team earns points for each new customer they sign up. Bonus points are given when support helps close a sale.The team with the highest point total at the end of the month wins prizes like gift cards or lunch at a local restaurant, or some type of recognition by management. This approach would not only create a smooth balance but also make it enjoyable, motivating and foster collaboration

Pour moi le retour et le feed back de mes équipes est un élément précieux à conjuguer au CRM. Des discussions « informelles » entre les équipes et les clients sont une mine d’Or pour le CRM et la personnalisation de l’offre. Exp: parler de l’entrée en université de son enfant, la location se son appartement….etc deviennent des « insights » hautement intéressantes qui permettent d’offrir la meilleure expérience client par le CRM.

Sales teams are typically driven by targets such as conversion rates, revenue generation, and new customer acquisition. On the other hand, support teams focus on metrics like customer satisfaction, response time, and issue resolution rates. Here are a few strategies to achieve this balance: 1. Unified Goals: This can foster collaboration and a shared sense of purpose. 2. Integrated Metrics: Use your CRM to track metrics that matter to both teams. For example, customer lifetime value (CLV). 3. Cross-Functional Training: Encourage sales and support teams to understand each other’s roles and challenges. 4. Regular Communication: Schedule regular meetings where sales and support teams can share insights and discuss challenges.