More deals were completed by your sales team last quarter than they ever have completed before. This is great – until someone inquires, “What were the reasons for it?” Did they use a better outreach strategy? Did they have better quality leads? Did they have faster follow-up? Did they have better sales processes? Or did they just get lucky? If you are unable to answer this question with certainty, then you likely do not manage your sales process data-wise.
Most B2B sales teams already have all the data they need available in their CRM but often do not use it for anything besides maintaining data on whether the deal was won or lost. Because of this, some very important information is neglected.
Your CRM system provides you with information regarding deal stalls, best reps, lead sources that convert, opportunity time frames, and revenue present in your pipeline.
Here we will discuss the important CRM metrics for B2B sales teams and show how WHSuites, for instance, makes it easier, faster, and more efficient.
Understanding the Importance of CRM Metrics for B2B Sales Staff
In B2B, sales cycles are usually lengthy, involve more than one decision maker, and seldom follow a direct path. Hence, relying on mere assumptions may lead to poor decision-making by sales professionals if they do not use proper metrics.
Benefit from tracking proper CRM metrics:
- Identify the reasons why deals are stalled or lost
- Predict future revenue more precisely
- Learn what successful salesmen are doing differently
- Keep losses from excessive delays in the process down
- Assess leads and marketing performance
- Manage staffing rationally
- Spot new available revenue sources hidden in your sales pipeline
- More than just a database, CRM can serve as an information dashboard.
Key CRM Metrics Every B2B Sales Team Should Track
1. Lead Reaction Time
Reacting to any inquiries should be done quickly for your prospective buyer to enter the sales conversation as soon as possible. It is an especially important factor in competitive B2B environments where late responses might make the leads leave for other suppliers.
What to measure:
- The average time taken from registering a lead to contacting it for the first time
- The time of the reaction by different channels – websites, chats, phones, or emails
- The time for a representative to respond
- The percentage of contacts reached in the proper time
- Using automated alerts and assigning leads can ensure new entries are not lost in
- an inbox.
2. Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion Ratio
Not every lead becomes a sales lead, i.e. a sales opportunity. This indicator gives you the information about the number of leads established as sales leads.
Why it is important? A low ratio may indicate:
- Low-quality leads
- Weak targeting
- Poor qualification
- Misalignment of marketing with sales
- Slow follow-ups
- Tracking conversion by different sources can help you analyse where the problem is.
Revised formula:
Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion Rate = (Qualified Opportunities/Total Leads) x 100.
3. Sales Pipeline Valuation and Pipeline Velocity
- The pipeline value reflects the amount of potential income that can be earned with open business opportunities at the moment.
- The pipeline velocity shows how quickly these opportunities are moving.
- The factors influencing the pipeline velocity are four: one is the quantity of opportunities available, second is average deal value, third is win rate, and fourth is the average length of the sales cycle.
The expansion of the pipeline doesn’t mean that it’s healthy, as the deals might be proceeding slowly. The pipeline velocity can give a clearer picture of the advancement of the opportunities as they are progressing.
4. Win Rate
- Win rate is a measurement of the success rate of achieving closed-won deals for sales opportunities.
- The win rate can be attributed to a variety of factors including the sales representative, the lead source, the industry, the customer segment, the deal size, the product or service, and the sales channel.
5. Average Deal Size
The average deal size indicates how much revenue a typical deal brings in.
This metric is beneficial for:
- Forecasting revenue
- Sales quota setting
- Determining price trends
- Assessing account quality
- Tracking discount policy
If the average deal size is persistently decreasing, it may mean that sales representatives are being drawn to easier, smaller deals instead of high-value clients.
However, without regular reporting through CRM, this trend may remain unnoticed.
6. Length of the Sales Cycle
Length of the sales cycle measures the time taken for a lead to go from first interaction to closed deal. The importance of this measure for B2B organisations is that long sales cycles cause the sales team to have their resources tied up for a long period of time and create difficulties in revenue forecasting.
You can review the length of your sales cycle in relation to:
- Sales representative
- Deal size
- Lead source
- Type of client
- Type of product
By comparing the above-mentioned figures, you can see if any of your deals need help with their sales cycles.
7. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
It represents the total amount of money the organisation invests in marketing and sales activities to obtain a new customer. Monitoring CAC in conjunction with revenue and customer value informs you about whether your growth is sustainable—not just about the increase in numbers. To gauge your CAC more clearly, break it down by the channel, campaign, customer segments, or sources of acquisition when the data allows it.
8. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) vs. CAC
Customer Lifetime Value measures the amount of money a customer will produce over their lifetime while being your customer. Calculating the relationship between CLV and CAC is essential for understanding if customer acquisition costs pay off in the long term.
The generally accepted CLV: CAC ratio is around 3:1, although it may depend on the specific business model, industry, margins, and growth stage of the company. The ultimate goal is not only to maximise the ratio. Excessively high ratios may show that companies can invest more aggressively in acquisitions.
9. Quota Attainment
Quota attainment means how much of the goal assigned in terms of sales has been achieved by a person or team within the timeframe determined. Its main goal is to:
- Find gaps in performance
- Spot the top achievers
- Uncover ways to train more people
- Assess if your expectations are realistic
- Improve your future goal-setting process
10. Metrics of Follow-Up and Sales Activity
Most B2B transactions do not take place with just one meeting. Continuously following up is often what leads to deals being closed. Some of the key metrics of follow-up:
- Total calls made
- Number of emails sent
- Number of meetings conducted
- Number of follow-ups completed
- Average time between two actions
- Number of actions done in relation to an open deal
- Number of deals with no follow-ups
Activity metrics should not simply be used to evaluate how “busy” a sales manager is, the value lies in the connection of the activity to the results.
For example, if top salespeople have a particular follow-up technique before closing deals, the entire team can use this information to improve its own processes. Automation allows arranging reminders and follow-up processes in a much easier way.
11. Churn Rate
For subscription-based, contract-based or repeating order businesses, churn is a vital metric. Churn percentage is the number of clients lost during a certain period.
Why is it important? High churn can indicate problems with:
- Onboarding of customers
- Account management
- Product or service fit
- Customer support
- Engagement
- Renewal of subscriptions
- Using CRM systems allows tracking
How WHSuites Aids with Automatic CRM Metrics Tracking
It is not easy to track multiple metrics through spreadsheets; this task can quickly become overwhelming for sales operations as they expand.
This is where WHSuites comes in. WHSuites combines lead management, pipeline management, follow-ups, sales activity tracking, and reporting all in one application. Sales managers do not have to wait until the end of the month to gather spreadsheets anymore; they can now have an overview of the current state of the pipeline and the performance of their teams.
With features such as automated lead distribution, performance tracking, task generation, pipeline monitoring, and customised reports, raw CRM data can be turned into actionable sales insights.
As a result, teams can have a stable point of view: they will be able to see what is happening, why it is happening, and what actions are necessary.
FAQ For CRM Metrics Every B2B Sales Team Should Track:
What is the difference between a KPI and a CRM metric?
Any data measured via CRM falls under the category of CRM metrics. For instance, leads, calls, meetings, etc. Meanwhile, KPI refers to a metric that directly fits into a vital business objective. Put differently, every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI.
How frequently does the B2B sales team need to analyse CRM metrics?
This varies based on the metric in question. Evaluation of metrics such as pipeline health, lead response time, and sales activity is typically performed on a weekly basis. On the other hand, metrics such as CAC, CLV, and churn will require analysis on a monthly or quarterly basis, as fluctuations that occur over shorter periods may result in misleading information.
What is the most relevant CRM metric for small B2B sales teams?
There is no single metric that is unique to this, but lead response time, win rate, and pipeline velocity can be safely analysed. These metrics have a high correlation with revenue, and therefore they provide ground for process flaws identification.
Is it feasible for CRM systems to calculate these metrics automatically?
Absolutely. With the functional CRM system in place, the system can pull pipeline, lead, opportunity, customer, and activity data in order to automatically calculate metrics like win rate, average deal size, conversion rates, and pipeline performance.
Should your sales team be big before CRM metrics start proving useful?
No. In fact, small teams may get the most out of tracking CRM metrics since an earlier use of available metrics can expose inefficiencies before they become ingrained and difficult to change.
Are you ready to see your pipeline in perfect clarity?
Guessing is not a strategy in sales. CRM metrics will focus the sales team on what works and what slows down closing a deal.
With WHSuites, you will have a comprehensive system that will manage the leads, carry out pipeline management, and perform performance reporting without making you rely on dozens of spreadsheets. Sign up for a free WHSuites demo and learn how WHSuites can help your B2B Sales team manage its data.
