Salesforce solutions help in accelerating the entire business processes through increased productivity and cost-efficiency. It reduces administrative costs, hence huge profits. Salesforce CRM is one of the biggest investments in a business, it 

assists companies to identify gaps in workflow and provides cost-effective solutions, ensuring maximum Return on Investment (ROI) from salesforce investment. 

ROI is a financial metric used to calculate the gain or loss generated from an investment on building an asset and the usability of that asset to generate revenues. Technically, Salesforce ROI = (Value of Opportunities Won – Cost of Campaign)/ Cost of Campaign. Here, opportunities won is defined as the monetary value of all closed or won opportunities, and the campaign is the various marketing funnels from where you find these opportunities. 

Importance of ROI 

Calculating ROI helps to understand the range of benefits prompted by the deployment of Salesforce CRM. For a good ROI, a company should ensure that the customer data collected is of the right depth and is being deployed effectively. It should be noted that if your customer relationships improve, it is a sign of effective CRM.

Return on Investment can be measured effectively only over a period of few months – at a minimum of three months or more. Various sub-metrics are also required to be put in place at the operations, sales, and marketing levels to ensure maximum ROI. 

Factors to Consider While Measuring ROI 

Return on Investment in essence is not just the percentage return on investment, but it depends on a few other metrics as well. These metrics include top-line growth, opportunities converted into sales, sales productivity, and its cycle time, reporting time, forecast accuracy, lead volume, cost per lead, case resolution time, support cost, customer retention rate, customer satisfaction rate, and others. 

Let us discuss them in detail. The following metrics can help you determine if you are on the right track with your implementation process –

1. Marketing Metrics 

• Marketing campaign effectiveness: This explains the increase in the number of campaigns planned and implemented along with the revenue generated by these campaigns.
• Lead Volume Increase: This shows the increase in the total volume of inbound leads and customers acquired from each campaign.
• Lead Conversion Rate: This shows the number of leads generated and by how much percentage leads are being converted to sales opportunities.
• Cost Per Lead: It shows the increase or decrease in the cost per lead.
• Increased Customer Response: Increased response for all marketing channels, including social media handles, website, and mobile marketing will show you are on the right path for engagement.

2.  Sales Metrics 

• Improved Profit Margin Rate: Changes in the profit margin can be quickly checked.
• Revenue Generated: Revenue from different product lines/services and how much is generated by cross-selling efforts.
• Increased Win Rate: You can measure the conversion of leads into customers – how many opportunities were converted to sales. Also, the total number of sales calls against total sales is the WIN RATE. 
• Opportunity size and number of deals: You can measure the average deal amount, the number of products sold per customer, and wallet share. 
• Sales Productivity: You can record the decreased time spent on productive activities. The role of mobile device support in sales productivity and rate of closure and renewal are important to measure.
• Decreased duration of the Sales Cycle: You can measure the Sales cycle efficiency, the percentage of an average length of the opportunity cycle, and other timelines.
• Reporting Time Reduction: Administrative time such as time spent on creating reports should be reduced.
• Accuracy Level: Errors identified, and complaints can be tracked as well.

3. Customer Service and Support Metrics 

• Decreased resolution time: An important measure is an average time to process and resolve a case for customer service.
• Customer Insights: This will give you various feedback from customers in one place and help develop various insights for products and services.
• Agent Productivity Increase: You can check on the number of cases closed the same day and the number of cases resolved by an agent of the client.
• Customer Retention: A very crucial parameter is to check the return customer or percentage of Customer Retention.

4. Information Technology 

• With a matured Salesforce implementation there will be an increase in productivity related to app development, revenue generation from new apps, and lower cost of app development. 
• You need to spend less on the IT Infrastructure maintenance, Integration, support/admin costs of hiring more staff. 
• There can be minimum expenditure on frequent upgradation of existing IT systems.
• The time required for deployment, integration, and configuration of systems also reduces.
• Another benefit is improved Coding Productivity and System Testing Time.

5. Collaboration Metrics 

• Increased company collaboration.
• Fast search for information and expertise.
• Improved employee satisfaction.
• Increased rate of employee engagement and productivity as well.
• Improved employee connections.
• Increase in innovation/idea generation.
• Decreased Email Usage as a form of communication. 
• Decreased meetings.

Once you are tracking these metrics, you will look for ways to improve upon them. Salesforce consultation experts can help you in this process. 

How Salesforce CRM Helps Improve ROI 

1. Lead Generation

Generating repeated and consistent sales can be challenging. Salesforce CRM helps to increase and manage new sales leads. It targets your lead to boost the profitability index. When your employees are busy handling multiple tasks altogether, they can miss important sales leads, resulting in a loss of sales opportunities. Salesforce CRM keeps your employees updated about all potential leads.

2. Guarantees Effective Sales Pipeline 

Salesforce CRM facilitates you to track all the individual prospects. So that you get an idea about their expectations, pain points, and accordingly plan to meet their requirements. It provides exact guidance on how to deal with your potential customers and convert it into a sale. Once you know what your potential client wants it becomes quite easy to guess their next step. 

3. Boosts Efficiency and Productivity 

Salesforce CRM automates most of the time-consuming business processes. It eliminates all the wasteful and redundant efforts of employees. As a result, the overall percentage of productivity in your business improves, eventually resulting in a good ROI. 

4. Ensures Proper Customer Engagement and Satisfaction 

The more a business can build a connection with its customer, the higher is the customer engagement. To enhance the customer engagement level you should be quick enough to address their queries or complaints. Salesforce CRM makes this process easy by providing data about your customers. You can provide quick service with the detailed information in your hand, resulting in a satisfied customer. A good customer engagement leads to repeat purchases, ensuring improved ROI using salesforce services.

5. Solid Top-Line Growth Through Customer Retention

Salesforce CRM allows you to know your customers very well. You have detailed profiles of each customer, including their purchase history and response to your various marketing campaigns. Using this crucial data, you can find better solutions to retain your valuable customers. A higher rate of customer retention ultimately results in solid top-line growth.

6. Increases Company Value

Salesforce CRM brings consistency to your business operations and services. As a result, your brand credibility and goodwill get a boost. A credible brand can expand its customer base easily, eventually improving the overall ROI of a business.

Thus, your investment in Salesforce CRM can help you track various complex metrics with ease. Simultaneously, it assists businesses to identify gaps in the workflow, allowing them to work on the areas where the teams might be lagging.