Descriptive data refers to information about your contacts that helps you better understand who they are and what motivates them on a more personal level. Descriptive data includes lifestyle and general interest information such as:

• Educational level
• Marital status
• Number and ages of children
• Dwelling type: single or multifamily
• Renter vs. homeowner
• Types and ages of cars owned
• Causes supported
• Specific hobbies and special interests

You can use descriptive data to assess whether a person’s stage in life and general interests align with the types of products or services you sell. Understanding details about your contacts allows you to tailor conversations, thus helping you engage with your customers and prospects personally, which makes for stronger relationships.

To track descriptive data, you must create specific fields on your CRM database to place the data you collect. Data can be gathered over time through client conversations or surveys, or by monitoring client activity on social platforms.

Qualitative data refers to the information about your contacts that can’t be quantified but instead speaks to a contact’s attitudes, opinions, level of satisfaction and motivations associated with shopping and buying patterns. While descriptive data describes specific contact traits, qualitative data focuses on contact behavior and feelings.

Qualitative data is often acquired through customer feedback before, during and after a sale. Feedback can be obtained from surveys or satisfaction ratings gathered via phone, email, social media or a company website. Common questions asked when collecting qualitative data include:

• What prompted you to explore this product or service?
• What are you hoping to accomplish or solve using this product or service?
• What factors did you consider when evaluating this product or service?
• How satisfied are you with the product or service you purchased?
• How would you rate your buying experience?

Quantitative data includes hard facts that are objectively measured. You can apply quantitative data at an individual or company level.

Quantitative data is numeric; multiple types of raw quantitative data can be used together to form CRM metrics. For example, the total purchase amount (raw data) divided by the number of purchases (raw data) gives you the average purchase amount (a CRM metric).

Here are a few examples of CRM metrics that your quantitative data will help you calculate:

• Customer renewal and turnover rates
• Customer lifetime value
• Number of contacts in each pipeline stage
• Customer acquisition costs
• Average purchase amount
• Close rates
• Net promoter score (NPS)
• Progress towards sales quota goals

Quantitative data gives you insights into the potential value of pending deals as well as the overall health of your sales pipeline. You can also use quantitative data to measure sales progress, help you better target where to spend your sales and marketing dollars and monitor individual sales and customer rep performance. Quantitative data is also essential for forecasting future sales.

Most CRM platforms come with standard data fields to store and track—such as name, physical address, phone, date of data capture and email address. Not all CRMs have built-in accommodation for all the descriptive, qualitative and quantitative data you want to gather and store.

When choosing CRM software for your business, check out which data fields are standard and which can be added via customization. Depending on your specific needs, you may require a higher level of customization with your CRM so you can better track essential data related to selling signals, including particular customer interests and preferences.

When you need a CRM for your business, you also need a way to gather data for your CRM. Here are some practical ways to collect CRM data:

• Phone calls. Collect pertinent contact information you can add to your CRM via incoming or outgoing calls with customers and leads.
• Referrals. Your current customers can be a terrific way to find new customers, so be sure to ask for referrals along with relevant contact information.
• Emails. When contacting clients or leads via email, consider requesting additional information to help you better understand these contacts.
• Purchases. When a purchase is approved, data regarding the sale amount, type of purchase, date of sale and person authorizing the purchase can all be obtained and stored in your CRM database.
• Sign-up forms. Add email-capture devices on your website or social channels to obtain contact information from new leads.
• Surveys. Gain more in-depth information about your contacts’ needs, interests and opinions by conducting surveys and appending survey data to your contacts’ CRM profiles.
• Third-party data. Several data providers offer industry or niche-specific data that you can purchase for use in conjunction with your CRM data.

Working with weak or inaccurate CRM data is like driving down a dark road on a moonless night without your car lights on; it’s dangerous. To run a successful business, you need a clear view of the metrics that signal both business opportunities and weaknesses.

Accurate, complete CRM data is essential for developing strategically solid sales, marketing and customer service plans for your business. Your CRM data will help you spot issues, improve customer satisfaction, optimize the return you net from your sales and marketing investments and lead to more closed deals.

Your CRM data holds a wealth of information that can prove invaluable for delivering stronger customer service and driving sales growth. The secret to using CRM data effectively is learning to spot buyer signals that help you make better sales and marketing decisions.

Here are some of the ways you can use the data in your CRM strategically:

• Identify lead segments. CRM data provides insights so you can categorize contacts into segments based on behavior or expressed preferences. This, in turn, allows you to create segment-specific communications that align with your leads’ needs and interests.
• Personalize customer and lead communications. Personalizing your sales and service messages with highly relevant messaging can significantly boost customer engagement and sales conversions.
• Track purchase patterns. CRM data can help you track customer buyer patterns, offering clues into which contacts might be ripe for additional product purchases or upsells.
• Lead scoring. Most CRMs come with scoring capabilities, which help you better assess buying potential based on factors associated with known buyers. This lets you focus your limited sales resources on leads with a higher potential for sales conversion.
• Sales journey mapping. Keep track of where your leads are in the buyer’s journey, whether that be in the awareness stage, consideration stage or ready to make a purchase decision.
• Re-engage inactive clients. CRM data can help you identify which customers and contacts have gone cold, so you can create a re-engagement plan, which is usually less costly than new-client marketing initiatives.
• Understand what’s in your sales pipeline. You can forecast future sales more accurately when you have a good handle on the relative strength of your sales pipeline.
• Improve team collaboration. Multiple sales and customer service staff often work on the same account. Giving all team members access to the same CRM data in one place enhances collaboration and reduces mistakes.
• Monitor team performance. CRM data can help you pinpoint which staff members are knocking it out of the ballpark and which need to catch up to achieve sales quotas or service benchmarks.

CRM analytics can get a bit complicated, but the actionable data available within a well-managed CRM system can be invaluable for business growth. An effective CRM strategy will help your business thrive.