Hello Everyone!

We are happy to introduce you to yet another exciting update from Zoho CRM. This time, it's about the addition of a valuable dashboard component in Voice of the Customer called "Voice based forecast analysis"

This feature is a sequel to the previously announced VoC feature. If you already registered for the Voice of the Customer (VoC) Early Access, you do not need to register again as the enhancement will automatically apply to your account. You can learn more about the VoC function by reading this post if you haven't already.

This is available in a public early access mode, which means this feature will be enabled for you upon request. To start with, To submit your request for this feature, kindly fill out this form.

As the feature is currently in EA, we eagerly look forward to your feedback. Do try it out and post your feedback in the comments section.

Let's have a quick look

As you may already be aware, Forecasts in Zoho CRM help you set and achieve sales targets for your teams by a specific period (by month, by quarter, etc). By creating and working with forecasts, you are effectively able to use the knowledge of current sales progress to set and meet future sales goals for your teams.

The challenge with the current forecast setup is that, while the system will actively help you monitor sales progress, it does not capture specific feedback from customers on your sales efforts, that lead up to a winning or losing deal.

For instance, in the cases of failure to meet the set target, you may not exactly know what your customers have to say about the deal. Or for that matter, you may not know what it is that you are doing well, that is giving you winning deals. So, knowledge of this winning/losing pattern along with contextual feedback from customers will help you set better goals and also meet them better.

This is where VoC enters the picture. With our new Voice based analysis dashboard, you are provided with real-time insights about your customers' feedback across the sales process, offered to you in the context of your sales forecasts.
 
 
This way you are effectively able to understand what went right/wrong with deals in a specific forecast category, which will
 
a) Potentially help you take corrective actions for deals on a losing path, before their target period is over, with the help of contextual feedback from customers.
b)  Set and meet better data-driven sales targets with VoC insights at your disposal for future sales goals.

Zoho CRM will now include a dedicated dashboard in its Voice of the Customer solution, called "Voice-based forecast analysis" in order to present intelligent insights about customer feedback presented in the context of forecast categories configured in the CRM.

Let's say Zylker Tech uses Zoho CRM to keep a track of their sales efforts. Currently in their CRM, the Forecasts module projects a target of $10000 for sales team for the upcoming quarter.

In this context, with insights in the Voice based forecast analysis, they can observe real-time, key takeaways from customer feedback plotted in the context of forecast details.

For example, here you can see that there are three customers in the 2500-3000 deal lost category, who've mentioned the term "bad product" in some of their conversations with the organization. If a handful of customers have been lost because of their feedback that a "product is bad", this could immediately call for corrective actions from the organization as a whole, in terms of revisiting the quality of their offerings, and also reaching out to these lost customers to make remedies.

This will also help sales teams to plan future conversations with such customers to meet their targets better.

Key components in forecast analysis are:

Forecast type: In Zoho CRM, forecast analysis is based on the deal count (Deal Quantity) or the deal amount (Deal Revenue).

Forecast period - You can set the forecast based on Quarterly (Quarter 1, Quarter 2,.... Quarter n) or Monthly (Month 1, Month 2, Month n) period.

It is incomplete when we stop with just viewing the numbers. It turns out to be useful and important only when we question the reasoning for the gaps. It is at this juncture that VOC will help us analyze these forecast for our customers based on their constantly uttered keywords and the intent of these keywords before and after a deal win or deal loss.

It is reasoning out everything based on the Voice of the Customer. What was spoken by the customer before a deal was won or lost? How many deals were open when they were spoken?...We already have umpteen number of charts inside VOC to cater to these needs. What is new is that, CRM has now curated a certain set of charts based on forecast attributes and deliver these insights as dashboards within VOC.

        

7. Click Configure to complete the configuration.