When trying to justify an investment in Salesforce, we might think of increased close rate, leads created, etc., as metrics to support our business case. In fact, Salesforce.com likes to use these metrics when selling Salesforce. But, unless “Salesforce” is the name of a new sales person in the filed bringing in sales, the software doesn’t directly increase sales, leads, etc. It’s only through the use of Salesforce that these metrics get influenced.
Close rate, sales booked, and leads generated are functions of your sales efforts, the activity of marketers, R&D, etc. These metrics are also heavily influenced by external sources. Sales might fall because of the economy, leads are not generated because of a poor website, and so on. To get success metrics that focus specifically on the operation of Salesforce we must find indicators that that show how Salesforce is performing. You must then detail how these metrics influence bottom line results.
Here’s a quick list of success metrics, with a brief idea on how they impact bottom line results:
Login rate
Adoption rate is the king of all salesforce measurements, meaning the login rate should be the most closely monitored of all metrics. It should be clear that if people aren’t using the system, it will not impact revenue. While login rates will vary depending on the organization, you should strive for:
- Daily login for all sales people
- A steadily increasing by all profiles
- An increase when any new functionality is introduced
Usage
Moving one step beyond login rates will paint a more complete picture of user adoption. Where ever possible, you should be measuring: (this list is just an example, these measures can get very specific)
- Record creation and modification
- Report creation – if users are creating these themselves, you know your doing something right
- Opportunity modification – when users are making detailed changes to the opportunity, it suggests the opportunity logic is being used to manage sales
- Tool usage – if new tools are introduced, determine ways to measure if / how these tools are being used
The ability to measure KPI’s
While this may not sound like a success metric, the ability to measure KPI’s can be the most important result of Salesforce usage. If your organization is unable to determine metrics like close rate, lead source, forecasts, etc., you have something to strive for. The ability to measure these items are binary, you can or can’t do it. List the KPI’s your organization wants to measure, and ensure the Salesforce is used and configured to achieve these these measurements. When you can measure, you can manage things like:
- Which deals close at a higher rate
- Which deals are more profitable
- Which leads convert at a higher rate
- Who your most profitable customers are
When armed with this information, your company can begin to optimize it’s efforts. Direct ROI is achieved through this optimization. For example:
- Your company can allocate more sales resources to your most profitable customers
- Stop spending money on unprofitable lead sources
- Determine which sales people are the most effective
User feedback
This one is simple, if users don’t like the system, it generally won’t yield ROI. Users should see Salesforce as a tool that helps them do their job, not a painful place to enter orders. If Salesforce is to become a critical business tool, find some time to talk to users and collect feedback. You should also segment users based on their login rates, and find out why users aren’t logging in, and why power users love the system.
Salesforce data quality
This metric is related to the ability to track KPI’s, because without good data, KPI’s can’t be trusted. At the very least, data should be stored so KPI’s can be generated without the need for ad-hawk reporting. Determine what information is critical to your origination, and measure if records are collecting this information. Records can be scored by their completeness, and users can be identified by their tendency to create good and poor quality records.
Efficiency
Salesforce success should not only be measured on it’s influence on sales. Salesforce also has the ability to automate person hours out of existence. If the reasons for implementing Salesforce is to improve process and workflow, you will need to create benchmarks for the time it took to complete an activity before and after Salesforce. This of course needs to include the added expense and administrative time Salesforce now requires. These hours saved can be reported on as monetary improvements to the business.
Depending on your objective, you can measurably improve things like:
- Time to quote
- Time to bill
- Time to deliver the product or service
- Time to create end of month reports
Fell out of bed feeinlg down. This has brightened my day!