ROI Success Metrics Reference

Trying to build a business case for CRM?  Just want to see how you measure up? The below reference is a range of example metrics actually reported from random customer (6,200) of Salesforce CRM by an independent 3rd Party, Market Tools, Inc.

Success Metric Reference from Salesforce CRM Customers

ROI General Metrics

Low

Avg

High

Description

Implementation (days) 10 66 90 Number of days from implementation start to go-live date.
Time to ROI 6 11 12 Number of months to achieve ROI.
ROI Overall % (12 months) 25% 91% 100% Overall ROI from Salesforce application in first 12 months.
Collaboration Increase (%) 10% 35% 50% Increase in company collaboration.
Email Usage Decrease (%) 10% 32% 50% Decrease in email as a form of communication.
Meeting Decrease (%) 10% 28% 50% Decrease in meetings held.
Finding Information Quickly Increase (%) 20% 48% 76% Improvement in finding information quickly.
Managing Customer Information Increase (%) 25% 54% 80% Improvement in managing customer information.
Idea Generation Increase (%) 10% 31% 50% Increase in idea generation and the sharing of those ideas.

Sales

Low Avg High Description
Profit Margin Improvement 5% 24% 30% Improvement in operating profit margins.
Revenue Improvement 10% 28% 30% Improvement in top-line revenue.
Win Rate Improvement  % 10% 25% 30% Improvement in percentage of opportunities converted to sale.
Opportunity Size Increase (%) 10% 29% 45% Increase in average deal amount ($)
Sales Cycle Time Decrease (%) 10% 30% 46% Decrease in the average length of opportunity cycle.
Sales Productivity Improvement (%) 10% 34% 50% Improvement in amount of time spent on productive activities.
Reporting Time Reduction (%) 20% 57% 80% Reduction in time spent on creating reports.
Forecast Accuracy/ Revenue Visibility (%) 15% 42% 60% Accuracy level of forecasts vs. actual revenues.
Sales Content Management Improvement (%) 15% 45% 75% Improvement in publishing, managing and presenting sales content.
Sales Productivity Improvement from Mobile (%) 10% 29% 45% Improvement in productivity due to Mobile device support.

Marketing 

 Low  Avg  High  Description
Marketing Campaign Effectiveness (%) 10% 37% 50% Increase in the amount of pipeline generated through campaigns.
Lead Volume Increase (%) 10% 38% 50% Increase in total volume of sales leads.
Lead Conversion Rate Increase (%) 10% 32% 50% Increase in number of leads converted to sales opportunities.

Service and Support

Low Avg High Description
First Call Resolution Rate Increase (%) 10% 34% 50% Increase in number of cases successfully resolved in the first call.
Self-service Case Increase (%) 10% 32% 50% Increase in number of cases deflected to self service customer portal.
Case Resolution Time Decrease (%) 10% 34% 50% Decrease in amount of time taken to process a case.
Agent Productivity Increase (%) 10% 40% 60% Increase in total productive agent time.
New Agent On-boarding Time Decrease (%) 10% 31% 50% Decrease in new agent training time.
Service/Support Cost Reduction (%) 10% 32% 50% Decrease in overall cost of service/ support organization.
Customer Retention Increase (%) 10% 33% 50% Decrease in time taken for initial response.
Customer Satisfaction Increase (%) 10% 35% 50% Increase in overall customer satisfaction rate.
Customer Responsiveness Increase (%) 10% 32% 50% Increase in overall customer responsiveness.

Information Technology

 Low

 Avg

 High

 Description

IT Costs Reduction 10% 37% 50% Reduction in IT costs.
Application Support/Admin Cost Reduction 10% 36% 50% Reduction in cost to support and administer the application.
Application Dev/Customization Cost Reduction 10% 42% 50% Reduction in cost to do customization.
Custom Application Dev Cost Reduction 10% 45% 60% Reduction in cost to develop new custom application.
Integration Cost Reduction 10% 40% 50% Reduction in cost to integrate applications.
IT Infrastructure Management Cost Reduction 15% 45% 70% Reduction in cost to manage IT Infrastructure.
User Training Cost Reduction 10% 40% 50% Reduction in user training cost.
Upgrade Cost Reduction 15% 49% 80% Reduction in cost for upgrades.
1 Source: Salesforce Customer Relationship Survey conducted from June 2009 to November 2010 by an independent third-party MarketTools Inc. Survey respondents were over 6200 business executives/project sponsors and system administrators from all size high tech-related companies worldwide, randomly selected. Low and High numbers correspond to those statistics for the middle 50% of customer responses.