Best KPIs for 8 business objectives with dashboards

best kpis

Best KPIs

Best KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for a particular business depend on the objective. That’s because Key Performance Indicators are measurable values with targets.

They show how effective or not a business is in reaching their specific goal. And serve as an actionable scorecard for getting there.

If you are looking for examples for your industry or department, here are the best KPIs for 8 different business objectives with KPI dashboards.

1. Customer Service

Your customers are your most important asset. If this means great customer service is the key to achieving your business objective, you’ll need to know their expectations, how you deliver on them and what is their level of satisfaction. Best KPIs for customer service and a dashboard from Slide Team are:

  • Customer wait time
  • Minutes spent on call
  • First resolution calls
  • The ratio of resolved calls
  • Abandoned calls
  • Escalation Rate
  • Customer churn
  • Customer retention
  • NPS (Net Promoter Score)
Best KPIs - Customer Service

2. Sales KPIs

Sales never come easy. But, with the right metrics, you can know what is going to be required to get them and to keep your salespeople on track. Key metrics that matter and an executive dashboard from Dasherco for Sales KPIs are.

  • Calls and contacts
  • Leads
  • # of activities to close a sales
  • New vs. returning customers
  • Actual sales including average price discount
  • Deal size
  • Profit (Gross margin per sale)
  • Cost per acquisition (CPA)
  • Purchase frequency
  • Cycle time
  • Revenue per salesperson
Sales KPIs

3. Marketing

What does it take to measure, prove and grow the contribution of marketing to an organization? Here are the KPIs for marketing with a dashboard from Klipfolio.

  • Sales revenue
  • Effective reach
  • Conversions and conversion rates
  • Qualified leads
  • Cost per acquisition (CPA)
  • Best channels for acquisition
  • Annual customer value (ACV)
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • ROAI (Return on advertising investment) and marketing tactics
Marketing dashboard

4. Manufacturing KPIs

For manufacturing, the objective is all about constantly uncovering ways to streamline your operations to lower costs and boost your productivity. The best KPIs and a manufacturing KPI dashboard from Slide Team are.

  • Cycle time
  • Production volume
  • Production cost
  • Maintenance cost
  • Capacity utilization
  • Defect density
  • Delivery time
Manufacturing KPIs

5. Finance

Finance is all about understanding what makes a business profitable. Furthermore, what keeps and can increase profitability. Best finance KPI and a dashboard from Klipfolio are:

  • Gross profit margin (% of sales revenue)
  • Net profit margin (% of revenue after operating expenses)
  • Monthly recurring revenue
  • Account receivables turnover
  • Return on equity (ROE)
  • Burn rate
  • Revenue per FTE (full time employee)
  • Revenue growth rate
  • Asset turnover ratio
best KPIs - finance

6. Healthcare KPIs

No industry impacts us, is regulated more and debated more about who policy than healthcare. KPIs can help get to the goal of better outcomes, The best KPIs for healthcare and a KPI dashboard from Klipfolio are:

  • Average hospital stay
  • Treatment cost
  • Hospital readmission rates
  • Patient wait time
  • Patient satisfaction
  • Patient safety
  • ER wait time
  • Cost by payors
Healthcare KPIs

7. Human Resources

To optimize recruiting processes, workplace management, employee productivity, turnover, and, ultimately, attract and keep the best talent, human resource departments should use theses KPIs and dashboard from Adnia Solutions:

  • Absentee rate
  • Overtime hours
  • Cost per hire
  • Recruiting conversion rate
  • Time to fill
  • Turnover rate
  • Part-time employees
  • Average stay time
  • Employee satisfaction
Human Resources KPI Dashboard

Social Media KPIs

Many companies jump into social media because it’s a free publishing channel that’s easy to use and their competitors use it. They would likely enjoy greater success if they tracked specific social media KPIs and had this dashboard from Slide Team:

  • Web Traffic
  • Comment
  • Shares
  • Engagement rate
  • Followers or Likes by a social network
  • Clicks
  • Cost per result
  • Video view at 95%
  • Share of Voice
Social Media KPI Dashboard

Do these KPIs help you with your particular business objective? Would your chances of achieving goals be greater if you tracked them?

2 Comments

  1. PAUL Hesselschwerdt

    Really useful blog. I wonder how companies are using dashboards? They have been around for a long time, but my experience is that they are used a lot in manufacturing where you can post them on the wall in the plant. But for functions like sales and service, not so much. Are companies really using on-line dashboards?

    1. Rob Petersen

      Thanks, Paul. Glad it was useful. On the subject of dashboards, I can tell you they have become very big business. Many are available mostly on a subscription basis. Mort offer real-time results. Especially with sales where salespeople are either on the road or working from home, they provide accountability and recency. Many of the project software services offer them as well. Thanks for checking in. Good to hear from you. Rob

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