A useful service business dashboard shows nine numbers. New enquiries, response time, qualified leads, booked calls, show rate, close rate, revenue won, cash collected and delivery on time. Together they follow a client from first contact to finished work, so when growth stalls you can see exactly which step is the problem. If you add more numbers than this, you usually end up paying less attention to the ones that matter.
The nine numbers
| Number | What it tells you | Usually comes from |
|---|---|---|
| New enquiries | Whether marketing is bringing people in | Forms, calls and messages logged in your CRM |
| Response time | How fast a new enquiry hears back | CRM: time from enquiry to first reply |
| Qualified leads | Whether the enquiries are the right people | CRM: enquiries that meet your criteria |
| Booked calls | Whether qualified people take the next step | Calendar or booking tool |
| Show rate | Whether booked people turn up | Calendar: attended vs booked |
| Close rate | Whether sales calls turn into clients | CRM: won vs calls held |
| Revenue won | The value of new business agreed | CRM: deal values marked won |
| Cash collected | Money actually received | Payments or accounts software |
| Delivery on time | Whether you keep your promises after the sale | Project or task tool |
Define each number once
A lot of times people argue about a dashboard and it's really about what a number means, and the data is fine. So write one sentence for each number and stick to it.
- Qualified lead: say exactly what counts. Budget, location, service and timing, for example.
- Show rate: calls attended divided by calls that were booked and not moved. Decide how moved calls count.
- Close rate: won deals divided by sales calls held, over the same dates.
- Revenue won vs cash collected: keep them apart. Revenue won is the agreement. Cash collected is the money in the bank. If you take instalments or retainers, you can look healthy on one and be struggling on the other.
- Dates: decide if a number belongs to the day the enquiry came in or the day the deal closed. Mixing the two is the most common reporting mistake there is.
How to read it
Read the numbers from left to right, like a pipe. The first number that drops compared with last month is usually where to look.
- Enquiries down: a marketing problem.
- Enquiries steady, qualified down: the wrong people are enquiring. Look at who you're targeting and what you're saying.
- Booked calls down: your follow-up is too slow or too weak. Check response time. Our speed-to-lead guide explains why.
- Show rate down: the gap between booking and the call is too long, or reminders are missing. See why show rates drop.
- Close rate down: a sales or offer problem, or the wrong people getting onto calls.
- Revenue up, cash down: a collection problem. Check overdue invoices.
- Delivery slipping: you're selling faster than you can deliver. What ends up happening is it shows up in cancellations a few months later.
Keep it honest
- Every number should click through to the records behind it. If nobody can check a figure, nobody will trust it.
- Compare like with like: this week with last week, and this month with a stretch of the same length before it.
- Show gaps plainly. If a source is disconnected or data is missing, say so on the dashboard instead of showing a zero.
- Don't add money in different currencies, or mix numbers from different date rules, into one total.
Getting it built
Drawing the charts is the easy bit. The work is getting clean data out of each tool and agreeing what each number means. Most businesses start with a CRM that holds enquiries and deals properly (see CRM setup and migration), and then pull the rest into one live view. Our dashboards and reporting page covers how we do that, including clicking through to the records behind each number.
Start with the nine above. Only add a tenth when you've got a decision it would change.
