In today's fast-paced business landscape, it is vital to be able to easily access and review information for decision-making purposes. For many organizations, especially those with a high volume of customers or multiple processes that work a little differently, the old reports and systems simply no longer suffice.
This is where custom dashboards in CRM software come in.
Custom dashboards offer organizations the option to develop an easy-to-use hydraulic view to visualize key data points, reports, and performance metrics in one area. All of this can help teams analyze, monitor, and act on important business data more efficiently.
Let’s take a moment to discuss why custom dashboards in CRM software are necessary to develop, and can ultimately help businesses better function smoothly.
What is a Custom Dashboard in CRM Software?
A custom dashboard in a CRM software is a screen that collects and produces all the information you need based on your unique needs. Instead of using the generic reports, organizations are now able to create dashboards that include data that means the most to them.
For example, a sales team may want to see data on their sales targets, deals in progress, and which sales representatives are performing at optimal levels. The same cannot necessarily be assumed in a customer service team that wants to create and develop the numbers in a similar fashion. A customer service team will want to see and track
The advantages of Custom Dashboards in CRM Software
- Quick Access to Critical Information
Custom dashboards give teams a way to view all of the pertinent information in one space. Instead of reviewing multiple reports or systems, brands can review their important metrics on the dashboard quickly without wasting time, thus allowing staff to focus on what matters.
For example, a marketing team can see the performance of their campaigns, their social media results, and website analytics all in one area, allowing them to adjust their approach in real time instead of waiting to see the end results.
- Improved Decision-Making with Real-Time Data
Because dashboards can give teams real-time data to review; teams can make faster, smarter decisions. When a manager can see the numbers in an instant, they can take a moment to understand what is going well, and what opportunities there are to improve.
For example, a sales manager can see the progress of deals in the sales pipeline and instantly answer whether or not, to follow up, or to push for a deal closer for a specific deal. Customer service managers can view when certain ticket items need addressing immediately, based on urgency.
Having real-time data like this at everyone's fingertips helps teams to be one step ahead, and helps them take action as needed.
- Allows Teams to Work in an Effective Manner and Prioritize Tasks
By having a customized dashboard, employees know where their priority tasks are and can focus on those. For instance, a sales person can see their leads, current deals and deadlines, allowing them to prioritize their day to focus on activities that will allow them to reach their target (e.g. hitting their sales quota). Similarly, customer service teams can quickly find their current high priority customer issues, ensuring that they are addressing the most pressing customer issue first, enabling them to handle high customer churn leading to quicker resolutions and happier clients.
- Facilitates teams working together
Having customized dashboards allows employees to view their colleagues’ performance in a digestible manner, which helps with cross-team communication, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. When two teams are using the same CRM system, a sales team can often see the marketing campaigns they are running, and a marketing team can often observe a sales team’s sales process.
For example, if the sales team can see which marketing campaigns are resonating with the right clients, they can tailor their pitches and follow-ups to those campaigns. Additionally, the customer support team can see the sales data, enabling them to better understand how they can assist customers, thus making the customer support more personalized.
Having shared ability to pull key data increases interdepartmental collaboration which heightens teamwork.
- Personalized Views for Differing Roles
Not everyone in a company requires the same data. Custom dashboards allow companies to set up different views depending on the role of the user. A salesperson's dashboard only needs to show their sales targets and progress report; whereas a customer service manager could have a more rounded view to include customer feedback, ticket volumes, etc.
Custom dashboards will give every team the chance to focus on the day to day realities of their jobs as it applies to the important things for them.
- Track Key Performance and Objectives
With a custom dashboard, companies can track their key performance indicators (KPIs), which are calculated values that show overall performance as a company. Sales objectives, levels of customer satisfaction, and marketing return on investment are examples of areas companies can track to ensure their strategic objectives are on track.
For example, if the sales conversion rate is expected to be higher but is lower than expected, a customized dashboard can highlight this immediately and give the team a chance to amend the situation.
- Scalability and Flexibility as Your Business Grows
Your reporting needs will also evolve as your business grows. One thing that a custom dashboard does so well is grow with your business. You can always adjust the dashboard to show new data or track new goals as your business grows.
If your business adds new teams, or changes direction, you can use the dashboard to show the data that's most relevant to you, allowing your CRM system to continually grow to usefully suit your business needs.
Examples of Custom Dashboards in CRM Software
Here are a few examples of how custom dashboards can be helpful in different teams:
Sales Team: A custom sales dashboard can display the status of ongoing deals, sales performance for the month, and track upcoming deadlines so sales reps can keep organized and focused.
Marketing Team: A custom dashboard for your marketing team can show how well the campaign is doing through tracking lead generation, social media engagement and ROI so the team can react quickly to ongoing strategies.
Customer Service Team: A custom dashboard for customer support can show volume of current tickets, customer satisfaction score, and time taken to reach resolution so they can prioritize support tickets and improve response time.
Conclusion
Custom dashboards are a valuable asset of CRM software. They provide organization, speed, and collaboration. You can customize an individual dashboard to best suit each team or department so that every team member has easy access to the most relevant data, helping to keep them engaged and efficient to achieve their goals.
Whether you are involved in sales, marketing, or customer service, custom dashboards will enable you to fully utilize the data presented to make better, faster decisions, and will facilitate staying engaged to drive growth. Implementing custom dashboards will help enable your organization to work more efficiently toward its goals and objectives.