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Using CRM Practice to Create a Team That Understands What Customers Really Want

Why Customer Understanding Is a Competitive Advantage

In an age of abundant choice and information, customers don’t just want products—they want experiences. They expect businesses to understand their needs, preferences, pain points, and aspirations. Companies that consistently meet those expectations win loyalty, referrals, and market share. Those that don’t? They fade into irrelevance.

The path to understanding what customers really want doesn’t lie in guesswork. It lies in data—and more importantly, in how your team uses that data. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can centralize all the touchpoints, behaviors, and communications a customer has with your brand. But owning a CRM system isn’t enough. What truly unlocks customer understanding is intentional CRM practice.



This article will show you how to use structured CRM practice to transform your team into customer experts—people who not only understand your audience but can also anticipate their needs and deliver consistent value. Whether you're leading sales, marketing, support, or product teams, the goal is the same: to build a team that genuinely understands what customers want—and acts on it.

The Customer Understanding Gap: Where Most Teams Fall Short

Many organizations believe they understand their customers, but reality paints a different picture. According to a recent PwC survey, 73% of consumers point to customer experience as an important factor in purchasing decisions, yet only 49% say companies provide a good experience.

This disconnect often stems from:

  • Departments working in silos, using separate tools

  • Inconsistent or outdated CRM entries

  • Teams failing to recognize key customer signals

  • Lack of shared definitions around customer needs

When marketing doesn’t understand what questions sales is hearing, or support doesn’t have visibility into customer history, the result is fragmentation and frustration.

CRM systems are designed to bridge this gap—but only if they’re used strategically and consistently. This is where CRM practice becomes essential.

What Is CRM Practice, and Why Does It Matter?

A Working Definition

CRM practice refers to structured, regular sessions where teams engage with CRM data—not just to update fields, but to interpret customer behavior, collaborate across departments, and improve customer outcomes.

Think of it like a sports team watching game footage. They don’t just review plays—they analyze why they succeeded or failed, and what to do differently next time. CRM practice does the same with your customer interactions.

The Value of Practice Over Passive Use

Many organizations treat their CRM like a filing cabinet: a place to store contacts and notes. But when CRM becomes a dynamic training and collaboration space, it offers transformative benefits:

  • Improved customer insights through real-time interpretation

  • Better collaboration by sharing learnings across teams

  • Increased CRM adoption because people see its daily value

  • Higher customer satisfaction by aligning actions to actual needs

It’s not about using CRM more. It’s about using it smarter.

Understanding What Customers Really Want: Key Signals to Track

CRM systems collect a treasure trove of customer data—but how do you know what’s important? To truly understand what customers want, focus your CRM practice sessions on the following signal types:

1. Behavioral Signals

These show how customers interact with your brand, including:

  • Website page views and click patterns

  • Email open and click-through rates

  • Product usage data

  • Event attendance

Practice Tip: Create weekly “signal reviews” where teams interpret these behaviors. Did a customer view the pricing page three times last week? That could indicate readiness to buy.

2. Sentiment Signals

These reveal how customers feel, based on:

  • Support ticket language

  • Chat and call transcripts

  • NPS and CSAT survey results

  • Social media comments and reviews

Practice Tip: Build a “sentiment watchlist” in your CRM and tag entries that reflect frustration, praise, or confusion. Review trends biweekly.

3. Intent Signals

These suggest what the customer is trying to do:

  • Demo requests

  • Cart abandonment

  • High engagement with solution-specific content

  • Inquiries about features or pricing

Practice Tip: Assign teams to monitor intent signals in their pipelines and bring top prospects to the CRM practice session for collaborative strategy.

4. Lifecycle Stage Progression

This tracks where the customer is on their journey:

  • New lead

  • Active opportunity

  • Paying customer

  • Renewal or upsell opportunity

Practice Tip: Use dashboards to visualize movement across stages. If someone is stuck too long in one stage, discuss in the next CRM drill.

How to Structure CRM Practice Sessions for Maximum Impact

Step 1: Define the Purpose of the Session

Each CRM practice session should have a clear objective. Some examples:

  • “Identify the top five customers at risk of churn”

  • “Audit lead handoffs between marketing and sales”

  • “Analyze customer feedback from the last 30 days”

  • “Create a cross-functional response plan for NPS detractors”

Step 2: Bring the Right People to the Table

Effective CRM practice includes:

  • Sales reps who know what customers are asking

  • Marketers who see what content gets attention

  • Support agents who deal with concerns firsthand

  • Success managers who monitor satisfaction and renewals

Together, they build a complete picture of the customer.

Step 3: Review Real Customer Data

Use your CRM dashboards, reports, and profiles to analyze real customer interactions. For example:

  • Compare support ticket trends with product usage

  • Identify leads with high email engagement but no outreach

  • Find customers with declining activity before a renewal

This grounds discussions in evidence, not assumptions.

Step 4: Collaboratively Interpret the Data

Ask guiding questions:

  • What does this customer care about most?

  • What’s motivating their actions?

  • What are they likely to do next?

  • What do they need from us right now?

Each team member contributes from their lens. This builds shared understanding.

Step 5: Create and Log Action Plans

Based on what you learn, assign clear next steps in the CRM:

  • Sales to follow up with a targeted offer

  • Marketing to adjust messaging based on feedback

  • Support to preemptively address concerns

  • Success team to schedule a proactive check-in

This closes the loop between insight and impact.

Real-World Example: How One Retailer Doubled Repeat Purchases

A mid-sized ecommerce retailer noticed that while new customer acquisition was strong, repeat purchase rates were flat. They launched biweekly CRM practice sessions with marketing, sales, and support.

In one session, they reviewed CRM notes and purchase history from first-time buyers. They discovered:

  • Support tickets showed many new customers didn’t understand how to use the products

  • Reviews mentioned lack of follow-up communication

  • Email engagement dropped sharply after the first sale

The team created a post-purchase nurturing campaign, improved onboarding emails, and added video tutorials.

Within 60 days, repeat purchases doubled, and support tickets dropped by 30%.

The secret? They didn’t guess what customers wanted—they reviewed CRM data together and aligned their response.

How to Build a Habit of Customer-Centric CRM Practice

1. Schedule Practice Like a Standing Meeting

Make CRM practice a recurring event—not an ad hoc initiative. Weekly or biweekly is ideal for most teams.

2. Rotate Leadership and Ownership

Have different departments lead sessions to keep engagement high. One week sales leads; the next, customer success.

3. Tie Practice to KPIs

Track how CRM practice affects metrics such as:

  • Lead conversion rates

  • Customer satisfaction (CSAT)

  • Time to resolution on support cases

  • Customer retention

This helps prove the value of the effort.

4. Create a CRM Practice Playbook

Document scenarios, questions, and reporting templates your team can use to run drills independently. This helps scale the practice across teams and locations.

5. Use Gamification and Recognition

Encourage participation with fun elements like:

  • “Signal Spotter of the Week”

  • CRM Mastery Leaderboard

  • Team rewards for completed follow-ups or clean data entries

Small incentives keep momentum going.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

1. Turning It Into a Data Dump

Avoid sessions that only review numbers without discussion. Focus on why those numbers matter and what to do about them.

2. Ignoring Qualitative Data

Don’t get stuck in charts. Notes from phone calls, support transcripts, and even social media screenshots can offer deep insight.

3. Not Documenting Learnings

Use shared folders or CRM notes to log session outcomes. This creates a valuable record for future hires and cross-team visibility.

4. Lack of Follow-Through

Insights are only valuable if they lead to action. Assign tasks directly in the CRM with due dates and owners.

5. Trying to Cover Too Much

Each session should focus on one key theme or segment. Depth beats breadth when it comes to understanding customers.

Advanced Tips to Deepen Customer Understanding with CRM

Use Tags and Custom Fields

Create custom tags like “Price Sensitive” or “Needs Onboarding Help” based on CRM insights. This allows easier segmentation and targeted messaging.

Integrate Customer Voice Tools

Link NPS tools, survey platforms, or review feeds into your CRM to centralize customer sentiment data.

Set Up Automated Alerts

Trigger internal alerts when key signals occur—e.g., a VIP customer hasn’t logged in for 14 days, or a trial user visits the pricing page twice in one week.

Build Lifecycle Dashboards

Use visual tools to show customer movement through the lifecycle. This helps identify bottlenecks and opportunities.

Practice Turns Insight into Understanding—and Understanding into Growth

Understanding what customers really want is no longer a guessing game. The answers are already in your CRM—if you know how to look. Structured, intentional CRM practice helps teams connect the dots, uncover hidden needs, and act with precision.

When CRM becomes more than a record-keeping system—when it becomes a place for learning, collaboration, and action—your organization evolves from guessing what customers want to knowing it.

Build the habit. Practice together. Learn as a team. And let customer understanding be your competitive edge.