Last updated on February 1st, 2024

This guide will show how to calculate your CRM ROI, real-life case studies, and 7 tips to get the most out of your CRM investment.

There are various metrics that your CRM helps you track.

But how do you measure the return on your CRM investment?

And how can you use your CRM ROI to help you identify gaps and improve your return?

Feel free to skip to the section that you’re most interested in:

• What Is CRM ROI And How Do You Calculate It?
• CRM ROI Statistics
• Best Case Studies Of CRM ROI
• 7 Ways To Increase Your CRM ROI
• Frequently Asked Questions About CRM ROI
• How VipeCloud Can Help You Get The Most Out Of Your CRM Investment

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What Is CRM ROI And How Do You Calculate It?

CRM ROI is a metric used to evaluate the financial performance and effectiveness of a CRM system in relation to the costs incurred. 

In other words, CRM ROI provides insights into the impact of CRM on your business. 

Here’s the simple formula to calculate CRM ROI:

ROI=(Net Gain from Investment/Cost of the CRM)×100

Follow these 5 steps to use this formula:

1. Define Your Variables:

• Net Gain – The benefits you get from using the CRM. Think increased sales, happier customers, and improved efficiency.
• Cost of Investment – Everything you spend on the CRM, including software, hardware, training, and implementation.

2. Measure Your Net Gain:

• Increased Sales – Track the revenue boost directly linked to the CRM. Look for data like closed deals and average deal size.
• Improved Customer Retention – Monitor changes in customer churn rate and loyalty indicators like repeat purchases and positive feedback.

Tip: Remember these 11 CRM metrics. They can help quantify your results and give you a more holistic picture of the impact.

3. Calculate Your Costs:

• Direct Costs: Software licenses, hardware purchases, and consultant fees.
• Indirect Costs: Training expenses, data migration costs, and ongoing maintenance.

4. Apply the Formula:

• ROI = (Net Gain – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment * 100

5. Analyze Your Results:

• Positive ROI? Great news! Your CRM is paying off, as it should.
• Negative ROI? It’s time to re-evaluate. Is your team using the system effectively? Could you benefit from a different CRM solution?

Remember:

• Focus on measurable metrics for an accurate ROI calculation.
• Consider indirect benefits beyond just sales figures.
• Regularly monitor and adjust your CRM strategy for optimal ROI.

CRM ROI Statistics

CRM is more than another piece of tech. It’s your business’s secret weapon for streamlining operations, centralizing data, and providing excellent customer experiences.

Check out these eye-opening stats that showcase the power of CRM:

• Companies report an average of 445% return on investment in their CRM Solutions. 
• For every dollar spent, a CRM Solution pays back $8.71.
• CRM can achieve a 505% ROI over 3 years
• Users close 50% more deals in the first year of acquiring a CRM

3 CRM Case Studies That Demonstrate CRM ROI

1) Executive Coaching Firm Achieves 2x Revenue With CRM

Before adopting VipeCloud’s CRM, Pathfinder Solutions struggled to efficiently manage client interactions, track leads, and capitalize on growth opportunities.

The reason? They had to manage sales, marketing, and operations with a combination of brain power, spreadsheets, and CRM software that didn’t connect to her email. To make matters worse, they had to deal with sluggish CRM customer support that was too generic to be helpful.

After choosing VipeCloud as their CRM solution, they were able to:

• Speed up the learning curve of using a new CRM with VipeCloud’s personal support.
• Consolidate their tech stack, which saved them more time to focus on business strategy.
• Streamline customer interactions on a single platform.
• Scale customer relationship management with automation.

But most important of all:

I’m very much more organized. I attribute VipeCloud to helping me double my revenue since using it.

– Tamie Rising, Founder of Pathfinder Solutions

2) CRM Implementation Delivers 507% ROI, Streamlining Operations And Elevating Engagement At A Private Research University

In November 2019, Nucleus Research conducted a case study on a private research university implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The university aimed to streamline processes, enhance engagement with students, faculty, alumni, and donors, and improve gift processing.

Before implementing CRM, the university faced challenges with an error-prone and time-consuming third-party financial system for gift processing. The university deployed Salesforce, centralizing access to university projects, initiatives, profiles, and other information.

The university achieved a Return on Investment (ROI) of 507% in a payback period of 2.4 months.

3) Equinox Achieves 184% ROI With A Payback Period Of 8 Months With CRM.

Equinox, a renowned high-end fitness club operator, implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM after facing a challenge in acquiring and retaining members.

While equipped with a computer-based member management system, the tracking of prospects remained predominantly paper-based, hindering a clear and complete view of the sales process. 

The company aimed to define and scale its sales efforts effectively, using a CRM solution to support its strategy.

Nucleus Research analyzed costs and benefits over 3 years, yielding a substantial 184% ROI and an 8-month payback period.

7 Tips To Increase Your CRM ROI

Unlock the full potential of your CRM investment with these 7 tips to enhance your CRM ROI. 

From setting clear goals and tracking KPIs to leveraging automation capabilities, these strategies will optimize your CRM implementation.

Tip #1: Set Clear Goals and Track CRM KPIs

Set clear goals to ensure your CRM implementation aligns with the overall business strategy. 

To achieve this:

• Set clear goals tied to the use of CRM.
• Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) directly tied to the utilization of the CRM system(such as Customer Lifetime Value, Deals Closed/Won Rate, Customer Acquisition Cost, and Length of Average Sales Cycle)
• Track those KPIs quarterly to help you make further optimizations.

For example, if a company aims to improve customer satisfaction, they can track customer retention rates with CRM.

Tip #2: Improve User Adoption

Teams that use CRM across all departments are 16% more likely to feel that their CRM system effectively supports the complete customer lifecycle.

Ensuring that everyone understands their role in using your CRM leads to higher user adoption and, consequently, a higher return on investment (ROI).

Here are some tips to improve this adoption:

• Provide comprehensive onboarding and training for how to use your CRM.
• Integrate your CRM with your other business software to avoid data silos.
• Provide SOPs, training, and access to support

Tip #3: Establish Processes to Keep CRM Data Up-To-Date

According to the State of CRM, only 32% of executives and 27% of employees feel their CRM system provides a single source of truth today. 

Which is why businesses can’t overlook CRM data maintenance.

To maintain accurate data:

• Implement processes such as regular data audits to identify and correct inaccuracies and duplicate data. 
• Use a CRM that automatically checks for duplicate data.
• Provide comprehensive training programs to educate team members on effective data entry practices.
• Hold users accountable if they don’t keep CRM data up-to-date.

Remember, a well-maintained CRM system ensures a reliable single source of truth, enabling better decision-making and enhancing the overall effectiveness of the CRM tool for the entire organization.

Tip #4: Connect Your CRM To Your Other Systems

Fragmented software can make data management confusing. 

To enhance ROI and minimize data silos and manual data entry, it’s crucial to either use an all-in-one CRM or integrate your CRM with your other business software. 

This ensures teams have access to accurate data across departments and systems.

Customize your CRM to align with your business processes to enhance operational efficiency AND foster a unified, data-driven environment within your organization.

Tip #5: Customize Your CRM To Your Business

Customizing your CRM makes for a more intuitive experience, better data, and better reporting. 

In other words, when your CRM aligns with your business, you can make better data-backed decisions.

Here are some things to take into account when customizing your CRM:

• Create custom fields that align with your needs.
• Use consistent, familiar language throughout your CRM.
• Customize your CRM pipeline to match how your sales process works.
• Create custom task types

Remember, customization is an ongoing process. As your business evolves, adapt your CRM to reflect your changing needs.

Tip #6: Use CRM’s Automation Capabilities

78% of businesses automating tasks saw an increase in the productivity of all stakeholders. 

Repetitive tasks can drain your team’s energy and hinder their ability to focus on strategic initiatives. 

Automation of repetitive tasks can free up your team’s bandwidth for high-value activities that drive business growth.

Here’s how to get the most out of your CRM’s automation capabilities:

• Analyze your day-to-day processes and pinpoint tasks that can be automated. Look for repetitive actions like data entry, lead scoring, email campaigns, and follow-up reminders.
• Use built-in automation tools like workflow automation, email scheduling, and data validation. Explore these tools to automate as many tasks as possible (without sacrificing the customer experience).
• Integrate your CRM with other sales and marketing automation tools to create seamless workflows. 
• Provide proper training to your team on how to use the automation features effectively. Ensure they understand the benefits of automation and how it can enhance their work.

Remember to encourage knowledge-sharing and experimentation within your team. 

You need a culture where team members can share their automation successes and learn from each other’s experiences.

Tip #7: Establish Regular Training And Get Feedback From Your Team

Your CRM training shouldn’t stop after your CRM implementation. 

You need to establish regular CRM training, so your team can constantly improve your processes for interacting with customers and stay on top of any updates to your CRM.

Here are 5 CRM training tips you can apply in your organization:

• Create SOPs (standard operating procedures) for how your team should use your CRM.
• Share your CRM company’s help articles and video tutorials with your team.
• Schedule periodic training sessions to educate your team on new features, processes, or best practices (make sure you segment your training sessions based on the roles of your team).
• Create a space where your team can share CRM tips and ask questions (this could be as simple as having a dedicated Slack channel for CRM training).
• Track CRM KPIs to identify gaps in your CRM workflows that could be improved with new SOPs.

Last but not least, regularly ask your CRM users for feedback on using your CRM. 

This will help you uncover new problems to solve that data can’t show. For example, you might find sales reps are struggling with burnout because they’re not using automation where they could be.

Frequent Asked Questions About CRM ROI

When Should A Company Invest In CRM?

A company should consider investing in CRM if they’ve been stuck managing customer data using tools like spreadsheets or other manual methods that are prone to errors and don’t scale with business growth. 

Why Is CRM ROI Hard To Measure?

While there are plenty of financial metrics, there are other nonfinancial benefits from a CRM system that can indirectly impact the ROI. 

For example:

• Improved customer satisfaction
• Centralized data management
• More streamlined team collaboration.

When calculating CRM ROI, consider both quantitative and qualitative factors to understand the impact of the CRM system on your business.

Is a CRM worth the investment?

Companies like Pathfinder reported double revenue after implementing a CRM solution in the first year. So yes. A CRM system is worth the investment for any company that needs to manage customer data and wants to provide a better customer experience.

How VipeCloud Can Help You Get The Most Out Of Your CRM Investment

If you’re considering using CRM for the first time or switching from another CRM, VipeCloud is an affordable CRM with best-in-class customer support. Even Capterra named us the #1 CRM by value. 

Ready to try VipeCloud yourself? Sign up for a 15-day free trial.

Want to learn how VipeCloud can fit into your business objectives? Request a demo with our customer support team today.