Voice-based forecast analysis in Zoho CRM | Public Early Access 2023

Voice-based forecast analysis in Zoho CRM | Public Early Access 2023

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.


Voice-based forecast analysis— An overview

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.





There are several more chart components in this dashboard, and they are outlined in the following sections in this post. This is just an example to indicate the value from just one particular chart. To summarize, the insights in this dashboard will help you in the following ways.

  • To observe real-time feedback from customers in the context of sales forecasts, which will help you meet your sales targets better. 
  • To recognize a winning/losing path for deals across a projected target period and use the insights to increase the chances of successful deals within the target period.

To learn from what went wrong and apply the learning to future sales targets.

How does Voice based forecast analysis work

Zia captures all types of voice-related attributes such as keywords spoken by customers and the intent and sentiment with which the keywords were spoken. This information in conjugation with many other CRM features will give insightful dashboards for customers.
 
For every role in an organization, you can set a deal amount or deal revenue that needs to be delivered/achieved in a particular period (quarterly or monthly). You can see the performance trends and comparisons across periods.

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.

How to configure voice based Forecast Analysis dashboard


To set the dashboard configuration:

  1. Go to Voice Of The Customer module.
  2. Select Voice-based Forecast Analysis dashboard from the left pane.
  3. Select Configure Dashboard from Actions option on the upper-right corner of the page

  4.           



  5. In the displayed dialog box, set the following options:

      1. Select Forecast - Select a forecast that you configured on the Forecast module. It is to be noted that the computations are based on forecasts for the current quarter or month only.
      2. Select Modules - Select the module where you want to execute forecast analysis.
      3. Keyword Preferences - You can choose to include all keywords or exclude certain keywords.










        
7. Click Configure to complete the configuration.

Type of Charts for Voice-based Forecast Analysis  


Overall Keyword tabular view 

This analysis covers details on how many deals were lost, won or open for the targeted period. The type of keyword mentioned by the customers for that month or quarter before a deal loss or deal won or any open deals. You can view the most commonly spoken keywords before every stage of a sales cycle.



 

Top 5 Keyword Buzz for lost deals

Displays the deal loss percentage for every month or quarter. The number of lost deals where the top keywords were spoken over the chosen period. This will help understand the keywords that led to losing the deal and not being able to achieve the target.






Keyword quadrant analysis for lost deals

Latest keywords with negative intent mentioned before lost deals is plotted against quadrants. This helps the user to avoid using those keywords for upcoming deals and prioritize the issues to avoid more deal loss. This helps achieve the set target for a period by analyzing the gap and avoiding such keywords that lead to deal loss.






Keyword quadrant analysis for open deals

Latest keywords that were uttered during an open deal are plotted in this chart. You can compare this chart with the previous chart to find out similarities and the trajectory to lose a deal. This will help you to plan your conversations with a customer who uses keywords mentioned in the previous chart that lead to deal loss.





Open deal amount by intent

Deals that are open are analyzed by the intent and the keywords associated with the intent. The chart gives the user a perspective on what the state of the deal would be at the end and how it will affect the target.




Intent-based deal lost tabular analysis

Keywords mentioned by customers are grouped based on the intent of the keywords. For example, the groups can be a complaint, request, dissatisfaction and so on. You can see the deal revenue that is lost for an intent and what keywords are associated with that intent. This is similar to the previous chart but this chart gives detailed understanding in the tabular view.



To learn more about VoC and what it offers, please refer to this guide.

That's all about this enhancement. Let us know you're feedback in the comment section.

Thank You :)

      • Recent Topics

      • Some emails are not being delivered

        I have this problem where some of my mail just seems to disappear. When I send it, it appears as sent with no mention of any problem, but my recipient never gets it, not even in the Spam folder. Same for receiving, I have a secondary e-mail address, and

      • New in Zoho Chat : Search for contacts, files, links & conversations with the all new powerful 'Smart Search' bar.

        With the newly revamped 'Smart Search' bar in Zoho Chat, we have made your search for contacts, chats, files and links super quick and easy using Search Quantifiers.   Search for a contact or specific conversations using quantifiers, such as, from: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations received from a specific user. to: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations sent to a specific user. in: #channel_name - to find a particular instance in a channel. in: #chat_name - to find

      • Template modifiactions

        Hello, I am struggling with the templates in ZOHO Books. Especially with the placement of some items, like company address, ship to, bill to etc.  For example: One item I like from template X (placement of ship to and bill to next to each other in the

      • Aggregating the First Value in the Group By of a dataset

        Hi I am trying to get the following Aggregate Formula to work in my chart, but cannot seem to get the right format. I have a series of data that I am running an include_groupby and want to SUM only a column in the first row of each group. So for example.

      • Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

        Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture

      • Track Zoho Campaign and Workflow sales impact

        I am attempting to measure the performance of our marketing workflows and campaigns by comparing the date each campaign was sent to a contact with the purchase date of the contact. For example, if Contact A was sent Email A on 9/1 and made a purchase

      • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

        It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?

      • What is a line break code for zoho?

        Hi, I am archiving data by adding values from a single line field from one form to a multi-line field in another form. So I need a code/function that starts a new line on that multi-line field so it does not just keep adding it on the same line. Example, doing something like this means that it will be on a same line. archive.field1 = archive.field1 + input.Field1 I need a code so the input.Field1 can just start on the next line. Instead of "value 1, 2,3,4,5" It will be: "1 2 3 4 etc.".  something

      • Automatic Project Owner change

        Is there a way to change Project Owner automatically once a specific Milestone in a project is marked as completed. Different Teams are working on projects in our Org, they have their own Milestones to complete and so we transfer the project from team

      • Button to add product to cart

        Is there a way to have a button on a page, that when clicked, will add Qty 1 of a product to the cart?

      • Problem with Submit Button Design

        I have made a template to apply to my forms and under the button controls, I have it set to "standard" and yet it's still filling the container. This is super frustrating and looks weird. Why do we not have full control over button size? How can I fix

      • Zoho CRM- Authorize your Microsoft Teams account issue

        Hi, I tried to link Zoho CRM with Teams and I got the following message: Clicking "Authorize now" sent me to the following page, Microsoft tried to start a session but, after 3 seconds the page closed and nothing happened. I get the same message each

      • Passing the CRM

        Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when

      • Is there a way to associate an email in ZOHO Main to a Vendor record in ZOHO CRM

        My situation is as below, I have a vendor in ZOHO CRM lets say "Vend A" and an associated contact, "Cont A" If Cont A sends me an email using the email I've registered in the contact record the standard OOTB email sync will work. But the vendor has some

      • Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account.

        Hello, I'm trying to add bank charges to a customer payment, but I get the error message "Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account." I found this old thread, where it says that I need to "select a Bank account for the 'Deposit To' dropdown

      • Kaizen #207 - Answering your Questions | Advanced Queries using COQL API

        Hi everyone, and welcome to another Kaizen week! As part of Kaizen #200 milestone, many of you shared topics you would like us to cover, and we have been addressing them one by one over the past few weeks. Today, we are picking up one of those requests

      • Présentation de SecureForms dans Zoho Vault

        Soyons francs : demander à quelqu’un de transmettre un mot de passe ou des informations sensibles n’est jamais une tâche facile. On attend, on relance, parfois de nombreuses fois. Et quand l’information arrive, elle se retrouve souvent dispersée dans

      • Introducing Connected Records to bring business context to every aspect of your work in Zoho CRM for Everyone

        Hello Everyone, We are excited to unveil phase one of a powerful enhancement to CRM for Everyone - Connected Records, available only in CRM's Nextgen UI. With CRM for Everyone, businesses can onboard all customer-facing teams onto the CRM platform to

      • Granular Email Forwarding Controls in Zoho Mail (Admin Console and Zoho One)

        Hello Zoho Mail Team, How are you? At present, the Zoho Mail Admin Console allows administrators to configure email forwarding for an entire mailbox, forwarding all incoming emails to another address. This is helpful for delegation or backup purposes,

      • Sales order & purchase order item links for item details

        This is fantastic for checking lots of things, I use it a lot. It would be great to see it extended to invoices & bills On another note, may as well throw in my favourite whinge ..... Wish you guys would get the PO receive differences sorted urgently,

      • Custom Fonts in Zoho CRM Template Builder

        Hi, I am currently creating a new template for our quotes using the Zoho CRM template builder. However, I noticed that there is no option to add custom fonts to the template builder. It would greatly enhance the flexibility and branding capabilities if

      • Zoho Workdrive - Communication / Chat Bar

        Hi Team, Please consider adding an option to allow admins to turn on or off the Zoho Communication Bar. Example of what I mean by Communication Bar: It's such a pain sometimes when I'm in WorkDrive and I want to share a link to a file with a colleague

      • Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

        We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring

      • Kaizen #190 - Queries in Custom Related Lists

        Hello everyone! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! This week, we will discuss yet another interesting enhancement to Queries. As you all know, Queries allow you to dynamically retrieve data from CRM as well as third-party services directly within

      • Need the ability to have read only fields on a form.

        There needs to be functionality in Creator that allows a field on a form to be read only. Most screen building software applications have this capability. I know you can hide certain fields from specific users and that you can also make the whole form read only but that's not the functionality I need. I want to be able to create a form where certain fields are editable and other are for display purposes only (read only). For example if the form was displaying information on an item that the user

      • Reverse payment on accidentally closed invoice.

        An invoice was closed accidentally with the full payment added. However, only partial payment was paid. How can I reopen the invoice and reverse this to update it to show partial payment?

      • New integration: Track booking page appointments in Google Analytics 4

        Hello all, Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re excited to introduce our new Google Analytics 4 (GA4) integration designed to help you track booking activity, understand customer behavior, and measure marketing performance, all in one place. What

      • How to list emails in a folder, e.g. Inbox, on multiple pages when using Zoho mail webpage?

        Something as shown in the figure. There are totally 50 emails in Sent folder. If "Mail per page" equals 20, then the Sent folder is split into 3 pages. When I wander through Sent folder, I can just select a specific page to jump to. BTW, it seems that

      • How to add image to items list in Invoice or Estimate?

        Hello! I have just started using Zoho Invoice to create estimates and, possibly to switch from our current CRM/ERP Vendor to Zoho. I have a small company that is installing CCTV systems and Alarm systems. My question is, can I add images of my "items" to item list in Zoho Invoice and Estimates and their description? I would like to show my clients the image of items in our estimates so they can decide if they like these items. And I tell you, often they choose more expensive products just because

      • Zoho Calendar soft bounce on @hotmail.com and @yahoo.com email addresses

        Hello, our Zoho calendar recently does not send the calendar invites to emails with hotmail and yahoo domains and comes back with a "soft bounce". other domains like Gmail works fine. Also sending "email" to the same emails to the above domains work well

      • ERROR CODE :512 - 5.4.4 DNS error:NXDOMAIN.

        Suddenly we cant send mail, we are getting this error for all outbound mail to multiple domains.

      • Can Zoho Flows repeat Actions more than once?

        I'm attempting to make an intentional Zoho Flow loop using the below layout. However, when "WithinLimit" condition is met, the program fails to execute the action "Get & Add Request Co..." again. Is this by design? Is Zoho Flows unable to repeat actions

      • Unveiling Cadences: Redefining CRM interactions with automated sequential follow-ups

        Last modified on 01/04/2024: Cadences is now available for all Zoho CRM users in all data centres (DCs). Note that it was previously an early access feature, available only upon request, and was also known as Cadences Studio. As of April 1, 2024, it's

      • customer data security

        We are exploring ways to enhance our within Zoho CRM. Our Goal: We want to fully integrate RingCentral with Zoho CRM to enable click-to-call functionality for our sales team. However, to comply with data privacy regulations and protect customer contact

      • Zoho Cliq not working on airplanes

        Hi, My team and I have been having this constant issue of cliq not working when connected to an airplane's wifi. Is there a reason for this? We have tried on different Airlines and it doesn't work on any of them. We need assistance here since we are constantly

      • Sync CRM inventory data with Zoho Books

        I just switched everything over to ZoHo books, but I am trying to find out why the CRM Estimates, Invoices, and Sales Orders created in ZoHo CRM are not then duplicated in ZoHo Books? I had Quickbooks before, and had to do everything twice, I thought

      • mask Customer phone number and agents cant see customer phone number

        Is there any way we can integrate Zoom Phone with Zoho CRM while ensuring that customer phone numbers remain masked? We need a solution where agents can make outbound calls but cannot see customer phone numbers. Please let us know if there is any solution

      • Email Reminders on Shared Calendars

        How do we turn off the setting that emails reminders to everyone who has accepted or declined a calendar invite? If 8 of us have been invited to the same meeting, we receive 8 notifications for every step of the process, from invitation to decision.

      • Default Sorting on Related Lists

        Is it possible to set the default sorting options on the related lists. For example on the Contact Details view I have related lists for activities, emails, products cases, notes etc... currently: Activities 'created date' newest first Emails - 'created

      • One Contact with Multiple Accounts with Portal enabled

        I have a contact that manages different accounts, so he needs to see the invoices of all the companies he manage in Portal but I found it not possible.. any idea? I tried to set different customers with the same email contact with the portal enabled and

      • Next Page