Zendesk recently launched its brand-new Dashboard Builder, and there’s plenty to get excited about. To help you get the most out of it, we asked Zendesk Expert Jude Kriwald to break it all down. In this post, he covers what’s changed, what’s improved, where there might be challenges, and how to successfully migrate your existing dashboards.

Zendesk recently launched a new Dashboard Builder in Explore. This is an announcement that shouldn’t be overlooked as they’re planning to sunset the current (legacy) Dashboard Builder in Q4 2025.

Major product changes like this always ruffle a few feathers. 

In this post, we’ll cover some of the key features that are changing, how to work around some of the less-than-ideal knock-on effects, as well as clarifying what isn’t changing. There’s a lot of confusion in the air…

We’re going to clear a few things up!

Dashboard Builder / Report Builder – what’s the difference?

First, the new Dashboard Builder is not to be confused with the new Report Builder, announced in April 2023.

The Report Builder is where you combine metrics and attributes to build individual reports, such as tables, bar or line charts. The Dashboard Builder, on the other hand, is used to display multiple reports that are grouped by use case or category, along with filters which can update the data for all the reports on that given dashboard.

The new Report Builder is still missing some absolutely fundamental features, such as custom metrics and there are no current plans to sunset the legacy Report Builder.

We can continue to create reports just as before, using the legacy report builder. The creation and editing of reports is unaffected by the new Dashboard builder; using it does not require the use of the new Report builder.

How does Geckoboard fit into the picture? As an external tool, it works differently, there’s no distinction between reports and dashboards. 

Geckoboard is one of Zendesk’s most popular integrations, it complements what you can do in Zendesk and takes it a step further:

• Spin up real-time dashboards in minutes – Geckoboard customers often highlight how quick and easy it is to build dashboards.
• Access live data, regardless of your Zendesk plan. Your metrics update based on the Zendesk tools you use, not your plan:
  • Zendesk Support: every 10 minutes
  • Zendesk Chat: every minute
  • Zendesk Talk: every 30 seconds
  • Zendesk Agent Status: every 30 seconds
• Bring data together from multiple sources – Connect other tools like Aircall, Intercom, Shopify, and 90+ more to centralize all your customer service metrics in one place.
• Easily share insights with your team – Share dashboards on TV screens, via Slack, email, direct links, mobile, or embed them in other tools.

A guide to migrating dashboards 

Migrating existing dashboards to the new platform is easy. Simply head to the dashboard page and hit “Start migration”.

Default Zendesk dashboards (such as “Zendesk Support” in the screenshot above), cannot yet be migrated. However there is a workaround; clone it and then migrate the clone!

You’ll note in the example images that Zendesk only offers us a limited migration for this dashboard, meaning not all features can be migrated. Clicking this button reveals which features will be missing.

Note the option to share the dash with the same people, which is recommended in most cases.

Although it may look like a long list of incompatible features, most dashboards look virtually identical once created. That doesn’t mean they function at all the same.

To illustrate that point, here’s an example of what the default Support dashboard looks like in the Legacy format:

And here it is, converted to the new format:

You can see there are very few differences visually, and despite the warnings such as Ticket Group and Ticket Brand won’t be carried over, yet they appear to migrate fine. 

However some elements do not migrate so well. For example hidden elements are no longer supported in the new Dashboard Builder.

We can see that the Assignee role is indeed unhidden. This filter is normally bookmarked (pre-set) to filter only for agent or admin activity.

Data restrictions

This can be fixed using the new Dashboard Restriction feature to only show data where the Assignee Role is Admin or Agent. The feature is hidden away. Head to the arrow in the blue Share button > Manage data restrictions.

This works well for filters that will rarely change. The downside, along with Filtered Views, which we’ll cover below, is that there are now three different ways of filtering a dashboard (normal filters, Dashboard Restrictions and Filtered Views), whereas before all filtering was achieved by… filters!

Filtered Views

As mentioned, there is a third option to handle the removal of hidden fields: using Filtered Views. On the surface, this is a great improvement on its predecessor, hidden bookmarks. 

This is pretty much a like-for-like replacement for the bookmark feature, except it’s easier to use. You set your filters first, then save that as a Filtered View.

The huge downside to using a Filtered View, however, is that, as you have to set the filters first, you must use visible filters (hidden filters are gone in the new Builder). This means that these filters will always be visible, even for an unwavering filter such as setting the assignee role to agent and admin.

Given that filters are typically used for variables that we want to, well, vary, it’s frustrating that utilising a Filtered View requires these never-changing filters to always be visible next to those that will be varied. This will lead to confusion among occasional readers of our data for whom it’ll need to be made clear which filters they should play around with and which should not be touched.

Whilst it makes sense to move away from an over-reliance on hidden filters (which were cumbersome to set up), the new solution does require a bit of a learning curve. 

Key tips

• Use Dashboard Restrictions for filtering requirements that will never change (such as setting the Assignee Role to Agent and Admin)
• Use Filtered Views when there are more than one collection of filter combinations you want your users to be able to easily switch between, such as custom ticket field combinations or jumping between time periods specific to your organisation.

Now, back to the practical steps of migrating!

Finishing your migration

Go ahead and click Migrate. 

Once the migration is complete, you’ll notice that the legacy dashboard’s value under “Migration” has changed from “Migrate” (as you’ve just migrated it) to “Delete”.

If you want to migrate a default Zendesk dashboard, such as the Zendesk Support one above, you simply need to clone it, then migrate that clone.

In my testing, dashboards replicated and migrated like this produce identical data, when viewed side by side.

More key changes

Background

Visually, the dashboards remain largely unchanged, except for a rather distracting new default background visible whilst editing the dashboard.

Unfortunately, there isn’t currently a solution to this. In the old builder, we could have at least put a white rectangle behind our working space! Not a big deal, but enough for people to rightly moan about!

My understanding is that these squares are there as the new Dashboard Builder puts a great emphasis on snapping your reports and filters to this grid. That may produce neater outputs, but it makes working on dashboards an eyesore.

Time filters

Time filters are one of the most clicked-upon elements in any Explore report, so it’s worth noting how they’ve changed.

In the legacy builder, they looked something like this, with two tabs for Simple and Advanced time ranges:

In the new builder, they’re not so different, but might take some getting used to:

Gone are the tabs. Instead, we have a list of simple options, with our custom option at the bottom, alongside Rolling range. Rolling Range may be a new name, but it’s no different to the functionality available to us in the legacy builder under the Advanced tab.

This shift in UI simplifies things and nestles advanced options away but keeps them clearly labelled.

Tabs

There are some other obvious differences, such as the tabs being listed in a sidebar instead of along the top, more like pages or chapters.

Exporting reports from dashboards

In the legacy Dashboard Builder, you could hover over any report and easily export it as a CSV, image or PDF. 

Unfortunately, that feature is no longer available in the new Dashboard builder.

Instead, we are only offered this option at the top of each tab.

Confusingly, whilst the tooltip says “Export dashboard”, this button actually only exports the tab. It does this by compressing all of the reports on that tab into a ZIP file.

This is cumbersome as it means not only extracting the archive, but also then looking for the correct CSV file name for your report.

As a far-from-perfect workaround, if there’s a report that you regularly need to download, it’s recommended to put it on a tab of its own.

Whilst this doesn’t prevent Explore downloading the report as a ZIP, it does at least save time sifting through a list of reports which, let's be honest, tend to not always follow the best naming conventions in Explore. 

Better still, if you really download a given report often, go straight to the report on the Reports section of Explore. A possible downside to this is that you’ll have to build any filters into the report, whereas previously you could do the filters at a dashboard level.

Live data

The new Dashboard builder does make it easier to view live data in Explore. Historically, live data, such as call volume and messenger activity, were spread over different parts of Zendesk, outside of Explore. With this update, it’s all in Explore.

However, there are some limitations.

1. Access to live data is still limited – it’s only available on Professional and Enterprise plans and if you want to customize your dashboards at all you’ll need to be on an Enterprise plan.
2. Live doesn’t always mean live – lots of metrics will refresh in near real time but there are some, such as New Tickets which will update every 30 or 60 minutes depending on the component you use.
3. Live metrics are limited – the full list is here but you’re not able to customize these to create more specific metrics such as tracking total number of tickets updated with public comments throughout the day in real time.

In a nutshell, real-time metrics remain basic compared to Geckoboard where you have more flexibility and faster data refreshes (Zendesk Support every 10 minutes, Zendesk Chat every minute, Zendesk Talk every 30 seconds and Zendesk Agent Status every 30 seconds).

Dynamically filter based on viewer

Another new feature is the ability to restrict data. Whilst this sounds like it might be used to close people out, it actually has the opposite effect. Similar to dynamic views, Explore now allows us to set dashboards to automatically filter data depending on who’s looking at it.

The use cases for this are vast. The most obvious being allowing agents and teams to see their data, and only their data, without the need to duplicate dashboards for every team/group, and set differentiated, static filters on each.

Instead, we can do something like this:

This will exclusively show ticket data for tickets on which the current user is the assignee.

The same can be done for groups so that each team can view their stats from the same dashboard. Just like dynamic views (e.g. “My Open Tickets”), this dashboard will update to share their data.

To sum up

There are a huge amount of changes to digest with Zendesk’s new Dashboard Builder, and we’ve certainly only scratched the surface. Despite a few niggles, there are some positive changes . Whilst some power users might hit a few issues migrating over, most dashboards do migrate very well, and we’re hopeful that the key features we really need, such as exporting individual reports, will come before too long. 

Despite all these changes, there’s still a very strong case for using Geckoboard alongside Zendesk Explore: 

• Real-time data dashboards, no matter your Zendesk plan
• Build dashboards in minutes with a simpler, more intuitive experience
• Easily share with the whole team via TVs, links, Slack, email, mobile, or by embedding in other tools
• Highlight team or individual progress with goal visualizations directly on your metrics
• Combine data from multiple sources into one dashboard — hello, Aircall data!
• Customize dashboards to reflect your company’s branding
• Geckoboard offers better looking dashboards, designed to be engaging

Want to build your own real-time Zendesk dashboards in minutes? Try Geckoboard for free for 14 days.

For Chris Brogan, VP of Customer Operations at Token, data isn’t just important, it’s critical. Leading a fully remote team, he relies on real-time insights to keep Customer Support aligned, responsive, and informed.

Before implementing Geckoboard, reporting was a challenge. As a small team without a dedicated data owner, Chris was frequently asked for updates on ticket trends and customer satisfaction. Reporting was manual, time-consuming, and often failed to tell a clear story.

Within three months of joining Token, Chris introduced Geckoboard alongside Zendesk, moving away from Jira. The impact was immediate.

Empowering teams to own their data

Chris invited his team to use Geckoboard for their reporting needs — something they’d struggled to do with Zendesk Explore due to the steep learning curve to really nail it.

With Geckoboard, teams at Token now have direct access to the data they need:

• Customer Support tracks live ticket queues, satisfaction scores, and identifies root causes of issues.
• Product & Engineering monitors customer feedback and incident trends to inform development priorities.
• Customer Success gets full visibility into customer interactions and issues in real time.

Instead of waiting for reports, team members can now self-serve, reducing reliance on Chris and improving efficiency across the board.

Real-time insights for faster decision-making

The team at Token understands that the world of payments is an emotional space for the end user, therefore it’s absolutely critical that they’re able to react fast.

As a remote team, they can’t rely on TV dashboards or in-person meetings to drive action. Instead, they integrate Geckoboard with Slack — sharing snapshots and pinning live dashboard links in relevant channels.

“Because we’re fully remote, the Geckoboard integration with Slack has been really vital for us to have accurate, real-time data.”

This enables:

• Faster incident response, with clear visibility into emerging issues.
• More effective workload distribution, ensuring agents get support when needed.
• Increased transparency, reducing questions from senior stakeholders.
• A stronger focus on wins, with CSAT and QA data encouraging the team.

“We’ve seen an increase in quality as we’re able to show the rest of the business customer satisfaction and QA data in real-time.”

A more connected, data-driven culture

By making data visible and accessible, Geckoboard has transformed how Token collaborates. Instead of static reports, dashboards spark real-time discussions in Slack, helping teams take action when it matters most.

“Having dashboards in Slack at a regular occurrence is really vital to be able to tell stories about what’s happening for each of the teams”

For Chris, this isn’t the first time he’s introduced Geckoboard to a business — and it likely won’t be the last. By enabling teams to self-serve their reporting, stay informed, and make data-driven decisions, Geckoboard continues to be a game-changer for high-performing, remote teams like Token’s.

Does your remote team need more oversight of your real-time data? Try Geckoboard for 14 days free.

As Periculo rapidly grew, they realized critical business data was hidden in the tools they use, out of sight and underutilized. Cory Vollbrecht, Director of Operations, shares how Geckoboard helped them make data visible, actionable, and accessible across the company.

The challenge: growing team needs data visibility

Periculo provides cyber security for digital health companies. As they grew, they struggled to capitalize on marketing campaigns and sales efforts due to a lack of visibility.

The problem? Their data was scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult to get a complete picture.

Sales growth was their top priority, closely tied to marketing performance. But without a clear view of marketing ROI and sales pipeline impact, they couldn’t track how well their efforts were working.

Cory needed a way to bring key metrics together without spending hours manually compiling reports. He tried HubSpot’s internal reporting but found it too complex for their needs.

They were looking for something streamlined and accessible that would allow them to bring together important data.

The solution: sharing data with dashboards

Cory’s goal was to enlighten everyone on the performance of the whole business by sharing sales and marketing data alongside project management updates and website analytics.

“Data is the cornerstone of everything we do here at Periculo”

With Geckoboard, Periculo built real-time dashboards that pulled in data from HubSpot, LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Jira.

Dashboards were displayed on office TVs and sent via snapshots in Slack so that everyone stayed in the loop.

Cory also started using Geckoboard dashboards within management review meetings. Quickly pulling up a dashboard was much easier than creating a manual report each time.

The impact: a data driven and motivated team

Because everyone at Periculo now has a clear picture of business activities across the company, they’ve seen:

• Better sales forecasting
• A clearer picture of marketing ROI
• Projects being run more efficiently 

“Before we were making decisions based on a feel, now we’re able to make informed decisions based on data and Geckoboard has been a huge part of that.”

Geckoboard also gives Cory a view of how everyone in the business is performing, and the team can see how the business is growing. Something neither could easily access before rolling out their dashboards.

Having data constantly displayed around the office on TV screens has allowed the team to celebrate successes together.

The culture at Periculo is naturally competitive. They spend time together playing pool in the office and competing against each other at the local gym.

“Geckoboard has fueled our friendly competitive nature”

Bringing individual performance into the limelight has stoked friendly competition when it comes to work, encouraging them to close tickets or respond to requests faster.

Why visible data is so important

All the data that Periculo shares in dashboards exists within the tools that they use every day. But the time and effort it required to understand the reporting within each individual platform — let alone run reports — was too great.

Now that they have real-time data available at a glance, they can’t imagine operating without it.

“If we lost Geckoboard we’d go back to the dark ages. We’d struggle with sales forecasting and effectively tracking projects. Our customer success and quality would also be negatively affected. Geckoboard has illuminated the darkness for us.”

Want to share company metrics with your team? Try Geckoboard for 14-days free.

Flowbird, a CRM and software automation agency specializing in HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Make implementations, struggled with inconsistent sales performance and lack of real-time activity visibility. By implementing Geckoboard's TV dashboards, they transformed their sales culture through gamification and real-time metrics, leading to improved activity levels and faster deal progression.

Jason Rainbird is the Managing Director at Flowbird. His philosophy to sales is that activity leads to deals – you need to put the calls in. 

It’s a fact that every sales person knows, if you make enough phone calls, you'll get some deals.

Weekly sales meetings created some bad habits

When Jason was looking to boost his sales team’s performance, his immediate focus was on improving activity. To do this they needed to be constantly aware of their activity numbers.

Previously, the sales team would meet weekly with their manager to review their performance. It would take the manager time to prepare the report and run through the data together with the reps. 

This approach wasn’t working for them.

Jason noticed that certain inefficient behaviours were cropping up as a result of this weekly overview. 

Some reps would cram work into the end of the week so that they met their targets, but this led to poorer quality calls and inconsistent output. 

Alongside that, reps didn’t see how their performance compared to their peers as they only saw a view of their individual numbers.

Looking for sales gamification with TV dashboards

Jason was keen to introduce gamification and some friendly competition into the team by broadcasting activity metrics on TV screens within their office.

Flowbird uses HubSpot as their CRM so he looked to implement TV dashboards using the HubSpot internal reporting. This was fiddly. It required them to login and cast to the screen each morning, it didn’t look great and regularly timed out.

They tried Databox but found the activity metrics weren’t updating quick enough.

It was important to Jason that the dashboard was real-time.

I needed something that was going to update regularly because we’re focused on activity-based metrics. When the team logs activity in HubSpot, they want to see it showing up instantly.

This is when they tried Geckoboard.

Using leaderboards to gamify sales activity

With Geckoboard Jason was able to build TV dashboards powered by his HubSpot data to share important metrics such as calls for the day and week, leads created, leads activated, leads pursued, deals won and deals lost.

Jason was looking to gamify the sales activity. With Geckoboard he built a number of sales rep leaderboards that allowed individuals to see, for the first time, where they placed among their peers in terms of their performance. 

Gamification is the important thing for us, that's what drives activity.

By gamifying a standard part of their sales process, Jason was able to encourage reps to take action. Jason introduced both daily and weekly leaderboards on their TV dashboards. 

This worked really well by making sure every day was competitive, but also helped iron out bad habits like compressing all activity into the end of the week.

Improved team engagement with their KPIs

There’s been a change in the way that Jason’s sales team work since they began broadcasting activity metrics on TV dashboards. 

This isn’t a stick and carrot scenario. The team wants to see the numbers. Sales can be a harsh role so if you can create some competition and some fun, people enjoy having that visibility.

There’s also been improvement in the handling of stale deals. Jason came back from his Christmas break and saw there was a large backlog of stale deals. Frustrated that they weren’t shifting, he added stale deals to the dashboard and very soon saw a change in behaviour. 

Now that stale deals are constantly visible, they’re not hanging around like they used to.

In the past I would be discussing stale deals in a weekly meeting with the reps. But then the next week, we’d be in the same meeting looking at the same stale deals. Since including these on the TV dashboards, they see what needs to be done. I can go out there, look at the dashboard and they know they need to clear their stale deals because everyone can see them.

The Flowbird sales team are no longer relying on historic data from weekly meetings, they’re working with real-time updates on their daily performance, on show for the whole company to see. 

The board makes a difference because it's permanently on display in the office.

Sharing the data openly on TV dashboards reinforces Jason’s philosophy around activity leading to sales. Everyone can see how more calls lead to more sales.

Want to transform your sales team’s performance with real-time dashboards? Try Geckoboard for 14 days free.

Pearl (dental AI leaders) are on a mission to energise and align their sales team. They’re making lots of big changes to make this a success, including moving back to the office and implementing TV dashboards for their Sales Development Representative (SDR) team. We chatted with Matt Dubois, Director of SDRs to find out what impact this has had on productivity.

When Matt joined Pearl around five months ago they were in the process of moving all SDRs back to the office to bring energy and enthusiasm for this hard working team, many of whom were new to the business.

With a short sales cycle, the team needs to be constantly generating demo appointments for their Sales Executives to maintain a healthy pipeline. It’s key that SDRs are motivated for the outreach at hand.

In the new office space, Matt knew he wanted TVs to share live KPIs. He knew that having the SDR activity data up there for everyone to see was a way for him to boost friendly competition.

The idea now we're in-office with TVs on the walls was to have something driving competitiveness. Also as a leader, at a glance, I wanted to look up and see exactly where we are.

Pearl uses HubSpot as their CRM. But the thought of setting up a TV dashboard using HubSpot was too time consuming for Matt and wouldn’t update frequently enough.

Here’s where Geckoboard comes in.

Matt was able to quickly spin up a dashboard of their most important KPIs within minutes.

It's just automatically doing everything that I wanted to share. It probably saved me a week’s worth of tinkering around with HubSpot.

They’re using dashboards to highlight a leaderboard of dials for the day, number of demos booked by each SDR and as a whole team, their average Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and monthly revenue leaders.

Moving to an office environment and making these KPIs easily available to the whole team has had an immediate and significant impact on team productivity.

We started to see the effort metrics go up and with this, we’ve also seen outputs increase too. More than anything, we’ve seen excitement. 

The dashboards allow us to give ourselves small milestones to hit and celebrate. They make performance super visible. Everyone knows exactly where they're at.

If you’re thinking about implementing dashboards for your SDR team but worry about how it’ll affect the team on those harder days, Matt has found that openly sharing the data there helps too.

Sharing performance data on dashboards makes the highs and the excitement much higher because we're fully transparent and everyone sees everything. But then the lows are a little less low because, you know that someone's watching your number, whether that's the COO with it on his TV at home or everyone else in the office. It motivates you to keep pushing and you have your teammates around to help pick you up.

Want to try an SDR dashboard for your team? Sign up for a 14-day free trial with Geckoboard, connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Aircall, Pipedrive, and over 90+ data sources to get started.

Guest post by Mark Iafrate, Principal Integrated Marketing at Intercom

As AI becomes a cornerstone of customer service strategies, support leaders face a new landscape for evaluating performance, operationalizing insights, and demonstrating value. This shift requires rethinking traditional metrics, integrating AI-specific performance indicators, and maximizing the broader benefits of AI for both efficiency and customer satisfaction.

In their live discussion, Ben Newell, VP of Product at Geckoboard, and Declan Ivory, VP of Customer Support at Intercom, shared their insights and actionable guidance on adapting their metrics to fit this AI-first world. Below is a recap of the discussion topics and key takeaways. 

You can access a full recording of the webinar here. 

Rethinking Metrics for AI Integration

AI is reshaping the way customer service performance is measured. Traditional metrics like First Contact Resolution (FCR) and Average Handle Time (AHT) are no longer straightforward indicators of success. As AI tools resolve simpler, transactional queries, the remaining workload for human agents often involves complex issues that may take longer to resolve or require multiple interactions. This shift can make it seem as though metrics are "getting worse," but in reality, it reflects a fundamental change in the nature of customer service work.

To measure AI’s impact effectively, support teams need to adopt new metrics tailored to this shift:

• AI Involvement Rate: Tracks the percentage of interactions AI handles, showcasing its reach and efficiency.
• Resolution Rate: Measures how many queries AI resolves without human involvement, reflecting the quality of its performance.
• Inferred Metrics: Tools like Intercom’s Customer Experience Score use AI to evaluate interactions, even in cases where customers do not provide direct feedback.

These new metrics help teams understand not only how AI contributes to efficiency but also how it shapes the overall customer experience. As these tools mature, leaders must analyze both human and AI performance holistically to provide a complete picture of success.

Operationalizing Metrics to Drive Performance

Metrics are only valuable when they drive actionable insights. For human support, real-time metrics can be transformative, allowing teams to identify and address issues as they arise. For example, a team might shift resources to handle an increase in phone queue volume or adjust workflows to improve response times. Real-time dashboards empower teams to self-organize and solve problems collaboratively.

"Real-time metrics empower teams to address bottlenecks immediately, fostering ownership and agility." —Ben Newell, VP of Product at Geckoboard

AI metrics, on the other hand, require a different approach. Because AI performance trends often emerge over time, leaders need to analyze data at a slower cadence, identifying patterns and opportunities to improve content, workflows, and guardrails.

Cross-functional collaboration is essential in operationalizing metrics. AI's success depends on input from multiple teams—R&D for feature optimizations, sales for aligning customer expectations, and customer success for ensuring that AI-driven processes deliver value.

"AI is a teammate—measuring its CSAT alongside humans ensures consistency in customer experience." —Declan Ivory, VP of Customer Support at Intercom

To ensure the right insights reach the right teams, support organizations should establish regular feedback loops, leveraging dashboards and reporting tools to share updates with stakeholders. By aligning metrics across teams, organizations can ensure AI and human support work seamlessly together.

Measuring ROI: Beyond Efficiency Gains

AI’s most apparent contribution to customer service is efficiency. Automating routine tasks reduces the workload on human agents, helping organizations manage growing customer demand without a proportional increase in headcount. However, focusing solely on cost savings misses the broader benefits AI can provide.

By integrating AI, companies can elevate their service offerings in ways that were previously unattainable:

• Enhanced Service Levels: AI enables capabilities like 24/7 multilingual support and proactive outreach, ensuring customers receive assistance whenever and however they need it.
• Proactive and Consultative Support: Freed from routine tasks, human agents can focus on helping customers get more value from products, identify new opportunities, and resolve complex issues with a personal touch.

The ROI of AI extends beyond efficiency. By improving the customer experience and deepening customer relationships, AI drives long-term value, including higher retention rates, increased customer loyalty, and reduced churn.

Conclusion

AI is transforming customer service by changing the way organizations measure success, operationalize insights, and deliver value. By adopting new metrics, creating effective feedback loops, and focusing on both efficiency and customer experience, support teams can maximize the benefits of AI while preparing for its continued evolution. Organizations that embrace this shift will be well-positioned to meet rising customer expectations and build stronger, more loyal relationships.

Sustainable fashion retailer Selective Marketplace consistently achieves a 95-100% Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score. It’s no coincidence that as a business, their effort is focused on customer happiness and creating a positive contact center environment for the team.

We spoke with Head of Customer Experience, Patricia Limb, who talked us through how they have such happy customers and staff.

We still send out catalogs and our customers like to talk to people for advice and information on sizing. About 80% of our inbound calls are customers wanting to buy something. We’re very focused on providing great customer service so it’s a really positive environment.

Patricia manages a team of 30+ customer service agents. The contact center operates in two shifts to cover UK, European and US time zones. It’s a long day, starting at 8.30am, ending at 10.30pm.

The contact center team uses Zendesk Talk to handle calls and Zendesk Guide for customer service content and Patricia’s really happy with how it works for them. Using Zendesk Explore she’s able to run regular reports and drill down into specific issues. Her agents also use Zendesk to track their weekly and monthly performance. 

However, when setting up TVs for live data within the contact center, they needed a better solution. Zendesk’s data wasn’t real-time enough and it was tricky to configure into TV dashboards. 

The contact center is very busy, so they needed a quick and simple solution that would allow them to give the agents transparency of their team metrics. 

It’s important that this team is able to see the workload when they come in for their shift and to know the status of their peers (who’s online, who’s on calls).

This is where Geckoboard comes in.

With Geckoboard, Patricia has four TV dashboards around the contact center that have been created with data transparency in mind. 

Whole team metrics such as current workload, CSAT ratings and Agent status are displayed for everyone to see. 

The dashboards have become a habitual part of the day for the agents. They arrive for their shift, check the TV and see what the workload looks like. They get to lunchtime, want to take a break and check the TV to see if there are enough agents available to handle the call volumes coming in.

The dashboard creates transparency for the team and autonomy for the agents. It helps them to figure things out by themselves, removes unnecessary communication and avoids micromanagement.

We have status indicators that will alert red or green to let the team know if we’re hitting certain targets or not. They’re able to manage the work themselves because they can see where they’re needed.

Patricia’s team isn't tightly focused on KPIs, customer effort is the most important thing within the contact center. If someone’s on a long call with a customer, they aren’t hurried off the phone. The opposite, they’re encouraged to take time to make sure the customer has all the information they need.

We used to have the number of calls taken by individual agents on the screens. But we saw the call quality drop dramatically because people were trying to get to the top, to do more work. The quality of service wasn't the same so we removed it. 

Not every business is able to do that, but thankfully, we are. And that's why we get such good feedback from our customers, because it's just so important that they come first.

Because of the people-first environment created within the contact center, Selective Marketplace has great staff retention, the customers are happy and the business wins! 

Would you like to set up contact center dashboards for your agents? Try Geckoboard for 14 days free.

KPIs can be a blessing and a curse. 

Customer support is–in comparison to many other industries–extremely easy to measure. KPIs provide crucial insights into the customer experience and can provide a lot of direction for you.

That said, an overly rigid focus on individual metrics can lead teams to chase numbers at the expense of genuine customer success. The best way to avoid that is by taking a holistic approach. Understanding how these metrics work together is essential in crafting a data-driven strategy. 

The good news is that Zendesk provides a wealth of reports that make it easy to track all the data you need. It also offers a ton of features that you can tweak to implement strategies that balance productivity with customer satisfaction.

Here’s how. 

Key customer support KPIs and how they influence each other

The most widely used support KPIs include:

• First Response Time (FRT): The time it takes for an agent to respond to a customer's inquiry for the first time. A faster response should correlate with higher CSAT and a low resolution time. 
• First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR): The percentage of tickets resolved in the first interaction without the need for follow-ups. FCR should also lead to low resolution times and higher CSAT–and ideally a lower first response time in the long-run as well, since fewer tickets require a second response. 
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): The percentage of customers who are satisfied with the support they receive, typically based on post-interaction surveys. This can sometimes be measured in a scale as well. 
• Contact Rate: The percentage of customers submitting support tickets. An increasing number of knowledge base views or interactions with an AI solution should result in a lower contact rate. 
• Ratio of Knowledge Base Views vs. Tickets submitted: A measure of how often customers turn to the self-service knowledge base compared to submitting tickets. Ideally, if the number of knowledge base views increases in relation to tickets submitted, it should also come with good helpfulness ratings on the articles. 
• Deflection Rate: The percentage of contacts that are resolved using self-service options (such as a chatbot or knowledge base), without a ticket being submitted. This works best when combined with another qualitative metric like CSAT or a Customer Effort Score.

Each metric provides only part of the picture. 

Aiming for a fast response time should mean that customers are more satisfied because they’re getting their answers solved faster. But it could also mean that customers are getting low quality answers. 

A low contact rate should mean that customers are managing to solve their questions before they reach out, but it could also mean that customers are struggling to find contact options. Even CSAT, which might feel like a good catch-all metric, can suffer from low response rates and fluctuate. 

Considering how these metrics interact will help you make informed decisions that genuinely improve agent productivity and the customer experience, rather than chasing numbers for their own sake. 

Five proven strategies for maximizing productivity in Zendesk 

Zendesk is a powerful help desk with a range of features for maximizing productivity. 

These features vary in complexity. Some are simple and quick to implement, like triggers and automations. Others require more experience and knowledge, like creating custom-built dashboards in Zendesk Explore. 

Zendesk also has more than 1600 apps and integrations available that offer extra features beyond what Zendesk can do natively. Using Geckoboard, for example, you can create custom KPI dashboards, which are much better at surfacing real-time metrics to your team – so you can create faster feedback loops between your agents and their KPIs.

Because Zendesk is a flexible tool, there will be multiple ways to implement each of the following strategies. Treat these as inspiration and adapt them based on your setup. 

Optimizing ticket routing

Ticket routing is often the foundation of the entire Zendesk setup. Most teams start by creating a few basic triggers and automations that categorize incoming tickets and assign them to the correct people.

That often leads to inefficiencies as you scale. As these triggers grow organically every time there’s a need, it’s easy to have triggers overwriting each other or for the team to develop ingrained habits manually assigning and reassigning tickets when these actions should be automated.

Zendesk has a few key features for ticket routing:

• Skills-based routing is the most impactful, allowing you to match tickets with agents based on their specific expertise, language abilities, or product knowledge. These involve defining and assigning skills to specific agents and combining these with triggers that identify those tickets.
• Triggers and automations are slightly different features but can be used similarly. They enable you to create rules based on ticket properties like priority, channel, customer segment, or custom fields.

The best metrics that would indicate if there are opportunities here are:

• The escalate or reassignment rate looks at the percentage of tickets that have to get reassigned.
• First assignment time will display how long tickets spend in the queue before getting assigned. You can also see if there’s a large gap between first assignment time and first reply time. 
• Full resolution time, broken down by agent group. It’s normal for higher tiers to have a longer time here but if it’s unreasonably long, improving ticket routing should help.

Adjusting coverage to meet SLAs

SLAs are a great tool for maximizing productivity in general. Psychologically, the design of having a countdown attached to a ticket that turns red when the SLA is breached is very effective for most teams. 

And adjusting coverage to meet SLAs is quite obvious. The difficulty is in implementing it in practice, especially in response to unexpected surges in volume.

Zendesk has a ton of time-based reports for volume and SLA breaches, so it’s easy to identify recurring patterns–if 80% of SLA breaches happen at 3pm on Wednesdays and if peak volume comes in at 2pm on Fridays, these reports will show that.

One additional solution is to use volume metrics and tagging data to identify how large the impact of an unexpected event is. 

For example, say you experience a high-impact bug. How many more tickets did you receive in that hour or those days than you would usually expect? And how often do these high-impact bugs impact your team? 

That data should give you an idea of how much buffer or extra capacity you need to bridge those times. Doing this type of planning in advance is effective at enabling your team to consistently meet SLAs.

Improving macros based on analytics

Macros are powerful efficiency tools, but their real value emerges when you refine them based on usage analytics. 

Zendesk has a few features that are great for macros:

• It automatically suggests macros for agents, which should increase how often a macro is used and improve its adoption rate. 
• Macro suggestions for admins help admins create macros and suggest relevant actions. This is part of the Zendesk Advanced AI add-on.

That said, it doesn’t offer detailed reports on macro performance. You have build your own reports to dig into which macros are most effective and which need improvement by cross-referencing macro usage with resolution times and CSAT. 

If a frequently used macro correlates with lower satisfaction scores or higher reopen rates, it might need to be revised. Macros with high success rates but low usage might need better visibility or agent training.

There are tons of apps that offer better analytics like Macros Reporting or that help you optimize macro usage. For example, Zendesk’s native feature only allows you to search for a macro based on the title. Swifteq’s Macro Search app lets you search through the content as well. 

Digging into response times

Each of the strategies above should already improve response times, but sometimes taking a more targeted approach can also help.

Zendesk's analytics tools can break down ticket handling time into specific components: first response time, time between agent responses, time spent waiting for customer replies, and total resolution time. You can also measure average handling time, although that requires installing the Time Tracking app.

This granular view helps identify exactly where bottlenecks are in your support process:

• If the delay is caused by a high agent wait time, you can try to reduce the need for follow-up questions by improving your contact form or asking more clarifying questions upfront. 
• A high time between agent responses suggests that agents are juggling too many tickets simultaneously or that there are inefficiencies in ticket routing.
• Tickets with a high first response could benefit from automation or better macros. 
• To improve full resolution time, look at the ticket types that are consistently taking longer to resolve. You can develop specialized workflows or provide targeted training for agents handling those issues.

Implement knowledge-centered service (KCS)

The KCS methodology is a proven and structured framework for making every member of your team responsible for creating, using, and updating your knowledge base and documentation.

That might not seem like a way to improve your agents’ productivity. If they’re each spending time updating your knowledge base, isn’t that actually going to slow them down?

It might, for a short period. But the broader long-term impact of implementing knowledge-centered service is that it makes your entire team — from new hires to experienced agents — vastly more productive.

When you have a knowledge base that’s comprehensive, up-to-date, and constantly being refined, every agent on your team is able to help customers faster (and you’ll probably see your self-service improve, too!). 

Swifteq has written a detailed guide to implementing KCS within Zendesk, but the core methodology relies on four principles:

1. Abundance - get every member of your team involved in creating and maintaining knowledge.
2. Create value - capturing knowledge (which you can use later) is a valuable part of a customer interaction
3. Demand driven - create knowledge as a response to demand (e.g. a customer’s question), rather than trying to anticipate issues or questions that customers may not even have.
4. Trust - trust your team to create accurate knowledge, build a trustworthy knowledge base, and trust your team to use it well.

Implementing the KCS framework can take some time, but it leads to massive gains in productivity across your whole organization. 

Refine your Zendesk workflows over time

Maximizing productivity isn’t about working harder but working smarter.

Zendesk is releasing new features constantly and might have features that have existed for a long time that you’ve never looked at. Reassessing your setup once or twice a year is a great way to ensure that you’re constantly improving your workflows and equipping your team with the right tools they need. 

Agent productivity and customer satisfaction aren't opposing goals–they're complementary ones. 

When agents have the right tools, efficient workflows, and clear priorities, they can focus on what matters most: solving problems and building long-term relationships with your customers.

Most engaged HubSpot users will have experience using its Dashboard and Reporting Software. Here, users can build dashboards and reports that track their sales pipeline performance, as well as their sales team performance.

However, there are some situations where sales leaders find that HubSpot reporting can’t deliver on all their needs. 

In this article, we’ll explore some alternative ways you can report on HubSpot. Especially if you need sales and marketing reports that include metrics from other data sources.

Why would you need an alternative to HubSpot Reporting?

For many sales leaders, HubSpot Reports will meet their needs just fine – but not always. Here are a few common examples of times when businesses need different reporting solutions:

1: Creating dashboards with metrics from multiple data sources 

If you want to create a dashboard that includes (even just a few) metrics from other data sources (such as LinkedIn, Google Analytics or Zendesk), attempting to do this in HubSpot itself can prove quite complicated. 

Similarly, many of the products that promise to bring your data together into one platform (such as a data warehouse) are usually too much of a technical hurdle for small to medium sized companies. 

You may even consider compiling reports manually – using spreadsheets – but this is both time-intensive and slow. 

2: Broadcasting data to your team

One of the most powerful things you can do with reporting is create performance feedback loops, by sharing KPIs and goals with your team. 

Sometimes, sales leaders would benefit from dashboards you can display on a TV or integrate with Slack and Notion for maximum KPI visibility.

3: Custom goal setting

Not all HubSpot plans offer the same level of customization. For example, it’s not possible to create activity-based goals on the lower tier pricing plans. Third-party tools can allow you to create these custom reports, without the limitations. 

Geckoboard – an alternative to HubSpot Reports

Geckoboard is a KPI dashboard tool that makes it simple to build real-time HubSpot dashboards that improve team performance. 

You can connect HubSpot in a few clicks, and easily design KPI dashboards in minutes. 

Better yet, because Geckoboard has direct integrations with 90+ other data sources, it’s easy to build dashboards that display the exact metrics you want to showcase to your team. 

Let’s explore how. 

Step 1: Signup to Geckoboard

Sign up for a 14-day free trial to get started. 

Step 2: Connect your HubSpot account

To start, click ‘add widget’ then select HubSpot.

Select any of the widgets to get started, then sign in to HubSpot to set up your connection to Geckoboard.

Step 3: Add a widget to your dashboard

Once you’ve established a connection to your HubSpot account, you can start creating visualizations, called ‘widgets’ – these can include numbers, bar charts, line charts, and leaderboards. That means you can display anything from deals, revenue, or leaderboards that show team performance.

You can give further context to widgets by including goals, comparisons, and status indicators. This helps the people looking at your dashboard to understand the importance of the metrics they’re seeing – so they know if they’re good, bad, or unusual.

Step 4: Build up your dashboard by adding more widgets

Once you’ve built your first widget, you can then build up your dashboard to visualize the KPIs you care about. That might also include metrics from other data sources. In the example below, we have created a dashboard which visualizes real-time data from HubSpot, LinkedIn Ads and Google Analytics. 

Step 5: Share your dashboard

One of the biggest challenges for sales leaders who use HubSpot is getting their team to regularly engage with their goals and performance metrics. 

With Geckoboard, it’s easy to broadcast your dashboards in the spaces where your team can’t miss them. That might mean displaying your dashboard on a TV in the office, setting up regular snapshots for Slack and Email, or embedding your dashboard in shared spaces like Notion. 

Seeing their dashboard several times a day will create feedback loops, which are vital for teams who want to improve their overall performance. 

Try Geckoboard for free here

Managing sales data from different platforms can be challenging, but Geckoboard makes it easy to visualize sales metrics from tools like Aircall, HubSpot, Intercom, and Zapier all in one place. With Geckoboard, you can track these sources on the same sales dashboard or, if it works better for your team, create separate dashboards that focus on specific areas.

This flexibility allows you to monitor exactly what you need, whether you prefer a unified view or detailed insights across multiple boards.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through setting up a sales data dashboard that integrates Aircall, HubSpot, Intercom, and Zapier metrics. We’ll also discuss how to create multiple dashboards for more specific reporting if that’s the better option for your team.

Step 1: Connect your data sources in Geckoboard

Start by connecting your various data sources to Geckoboard. Here’s how to link each account:

• Log into Geckoboard: Sign in or create a Geckoboard account if you don’t have one yet.
• Connect HubSpot: From the ‘Data Sources’ section, select HubSpot and follow the prompts to connect your account. You’ll be able to pull in key sales metrics like deal stages, lead conversions, and total revenue.
• Connect Aircall: Similarly, select Aircall in the ‘Data Sources’ section. This integration allows you to track call volume, duration, and response times; important metrics for understanding your sales team’s phone performance.
• Connect Intercom: Add Intercom as a data source to visualize customer conversations and support metrics, such as chat response times and resolution rates.
• Connect Zapier: Lastly, integrate Zapier to track how many workflows are running, how successful they are, and how automation is impacting your sales processes.

Step 2: Set up widgets for each data source

Now that your data sources are connected, it’s time to create widgets to visualize the key metrics from each platform:

• HubSpot widgets: Track essential metrics like deal stages, conversion rates, and closed deals. This data is critical for monitoring your sales pipeline in real time.
• Aircall widgets: Create widgets to visualize call volume, call duration, and average response times, which are key indicators of your team's outreach efforts.
• Intercom widgets: Use Intercom widgets to track customer conversation data, like how quickly issues are resolved and how many inquiries are coming in through live chat.
• Zapier widgets: Set up widgets that show how many automations Zapier is running and how efficient they are at helping your team streamline workflows.

Step 3: Customize your dashboard layout

Whether you decide to track all your data on a single dashboard or split it into multiple dashboards for more focused insights, Geckoboard allows for easy customization.

1. Single dashboard for a unified view: If you prefer an all-in-one approach, arrange widgets from Aircall, HubSpot, Intercom, and Zapier on the same dashboard to get a holistic view of your sales activities. Group related metrics together to see how they influence each other, like comparing sales calls to deal closings.
2. Multiple dashboards for specific insights: You might find it easier to separate data by platform or category. For example, one dashboard could focus solely on HubSpot metrics like deal stages and revenue, while another could track call activity from Aircall. This way, you can dive deeper into specific areas without cluttering a single dashboard.
3. Tailor your layout: Geckoboard allows you to adjust widget sizes, colors, and layouts to make the most important data stand out. Consider organizing by priority, placing key performance indicators (KPIs) at the top of the dashboard for quick insights.

Step 4: Automate snapshot reports

To keep your team updated without manually checking the dashboard, Geckoboard allows you to automate snapshot reports. Here’s how to set them up:

• Set daily snapshots for real-time sales data: For your sales team, automate daily snapshots to track call activity, deal stages, and customer interactions. This provides a quick overview of performance.
• Weekly and monthly snapshots for trend analysis: Use weekly or monthly reports to get a broader picture of how your team is performing over time. These reports can help track patterns in closed deals, customer inquiries, and workflow efficiency.
• Schedule snapshot reports for email: Set up automatic snapshots to be sent directly to your team’s inbox. This ensures everyone stays informed without needing to access the dashboard regularly.

Choose the right dashboard setup for your team

With Geckoboard, you have the flexibility to visualize sales data from Aircall, HubSpot, Intercom, and Zapier on a single sales data dashboard or create separate dashboards to drill down into specific areas. Whether you need an all-in-one view of your sales operations or prefer dedicated dashboards for more focused insights, Geckoboard allows you to tailor your setup to what works best for your team.

Ready to see how Geckoboard can simplify your data tracking? Start a free trial today and experience firsthand how easy it is to visualize and monitor all your sales metrics in one place.

When you rely on HubSpot reports for key insights, keeping them up to date is crucial. But ensuring they reflect the latest data isn’t always as easy as it looks. Are your reports refreshing frequently enough? Are they covering the right date ranges? And how do you spot errors before they mislead your team?

This post walks you through how to keep your HubSpot reports current by adjusting refresh rates, selecting accurate date ranges, and identifying data issues, so you're always working with the most reliable information.

Understanding refresh rates for HubSpot reports

One of the most important factors in keeping your HubSpot reports current is setting the correct refresh rates. A report that doesn't refresh frequently enough could leave you working with outdated data.

HubSpot's default settings refresh reports daily, but this can be adjusted depending on your needs. For example, sales teams often rely on daily sales reports to track performance, but if you’ve also set up a HubSpot quarterly report, it’s likely to need less frequent updates.

Make sure to align your refresh rates with the operational needs of your team. You can adjust these in the settings of your HubSpot dashboard, depending on whether you need daily, weekly, or even hourly refreshes.

How to set accurate date ranges

HubSpot allows you to set custom date ranges for reports, from “Today” or “Yesterday” to more expansive options like “Last 30 days” or “Last Quarter.”

For regular reporting needs, such as daily sales reports, you’ll want to make sure your data is updating in line with that. It’s always worth double checking any preset ranges that might accidentally skew your figures, rather than assuming it’s set up properly from the start. For instance, if you're reviewing a HubSpot quarterly report, confirm that your report covers the exact months in your fiscal quarter to avoid discrepancies.

How to know when your HubSpot report data is wrong

Sometimes, you may notice that your HubSpot report doesn’t look quite right. Perhaps a graph shows no data points for a particular month, or maybe certain sales figures don’t seem to add up. Common indicators that something's off with your data include:

• Missing data points: If graphs or tables show no data for long periods, it’s a sign that your report isn’t pulling in the correct time range or data.
• Unusual spikes or dips: Unexplained spikes or sudden dips in data could indicate incorrect parameters in your report.
• Delayed updates: If your reports are not refreshing as often as they should, your data might be out of sync with real-time operations.

If you notice any of these red flags, it’s essential to recheck your report settings and the sources of data to ensure everything is being pulled correctly. If you have more than one admin on your account, be mindful that other members of your team could make changes that impact your data accuracy, even if they’re accidental.

How to ensure your reports are always up to date

To make sure your HubSpot reports remain up to date, here are a few best practices:

1. Set realistic refresh schedules: As mentioned, not all reports need to be refreshed daily. Consider the needs of your team and adjust your refresh settings accordingly. For a daily sales report, a daily refresh makes sense. But for monthly or quarterly reports, you may want to adjust this to weekly or monthly.
2. Check your date ranges regularly: Within HubSpot, ensure that the date ranges you’re reporting on are still relevant. This is particularly important for reports covering seasonal sales trends or fiscal quarters. Regularly audit your reports to make sure they reflect the correct time frames.
3. Regularly monitor for errors: Set aside time to regularly check your most critical reports for any errors in data. Keeping an eye out for missing data points or odd trends can save you from making decisions based on faulty information.
4. Automate snapshot reports: Tools like Geckoboard can simplify the process of pulling together your sales data at regular intervals. This tool allows you to schedule daily, weekly, and monthly report snapshots that automatically pull data for periods like ‘Today’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘Last Week’, and ‘Last Month’. These shareable HubSpot reports are ideal for recurring reports like HubSpot quarterly reports and daily sales reports.

Keeping your HubSpot reports up to date

Keeping your HubSpot reports up to date is all about getting the basics right: consistent refresh schedules, accurate date ranges, and staying alert for any data inconsistencies. With these steps in place, you can trust that your reports will give you the information you need, when you need it.

And with tools like Geckoboard, automating report snapshots can make it even easier to keep track of your daily, weekly, or monthly insights, so your data is always fresh and ready to go.

Managing a sales pipeline can feel overwhelming without the right insights. Deals are progressing, but without clear data, it’s tough to know what’s working and what’s holding things up. That’s where HubSpot’s sales pipeline reporting comes in. It gives you visibility into every stage of your pipeline, helping you catch issues early and keep your team focused on the most important tasks.

In this guide, we’ll explain how to get the most out of reporting on your HubSpot sales pipeline. You’ll learn how and why to share these reports with the right people, to be sure that they’re being used to drive better decisions. Whether it’s identifying bottlenecks, forecasting revenue, or tracking team performance, these reports will help you take control of your sales process and keep everything running smoothly.

Setting up a sales pipeline dashboard

Before diving into reporting, the first step is setting up a custom sales pipeline dashboard in HubSpot. Think of this dashboard as your central hub for all things sales-related. It gives you real-time insights into how deals are progressing and helps you track key metrics like deal velocity and win rates.

If you’re unsure how to get started, check out our post on setting up HubSpot dashboards for a step-by-step guide. It’s a great resource to help you build a dashboard that fits your needs.

Why sales pipeline reports matter

Once you have a dashboard set up, it’s time to talk about why sales pipeline reports are so important. These reports are essentially the compass for your sales team. They show where deals are progressing, where they’re stalling, and whether you're on track to meet your goals.

Reports give you the visibility to identify bottlenecks, forecast revenue, and adjust your sales strategies. They’re not just a luxury; they’re a necessity for any well-functioning sales operation.

Types of sales pipeline reports you should be creating

When it comes to sales pipeline reports, there are a few types that will provide you with the most value. By focusing on these key report types, you’ll get a comprehensive view of your sales pipeline, tracking progress, predicting revenue, identifying successes and failures, and monitoring your team’s efforts. Let’s break them down:

1. Deal stage reports: These reports track where each deal is within your sales pipeline. By seeing how deals move through each stage, you can quickly spot where things might be stalling. For example, if a lot of deals are getting stuck in the ‘Negotiation’ stage, it might be time to revisit your pricing strategy or improve negotiation skills.
2. Sales forecasting reports: These reports help predict future revenue based on the deals currently in your pipeline. By analyzing the likelihood of deals closing and the value of each, sales forecasting gives you a clearer idea of what revenue to expect in the coming weeks or months. This is crucial for executives and managers who need to plan resources, set expectations, and make strategic decisions. A good forecasting report shows not just what’s in the pipeline but when it’s likely to close.
3. Win/loss reports: Win/loss reports analyze which deals your team is winning and losing, and why. Understanding the reasons behind wins and losses can help to refine your sales strategies. For instance, if many deals are being lost to a specific competitor, it could signal the need for stronger competitive positioning. These reports are great for identifying areas for improvement in both your sales process and product offering.
4. Activity reports: These reports track the actions taken by your sales team, like calls made, emails sent, and meetings scheduled. Activity reports help correlate sales efforts with deal progress. These reports are especially useful for managers to monitor productivity and understand what activities are driving success.

Who needs to see your sales reports?

Your sales pipeline data holds valuable insights for everyone in the organization. Executives, sales managers, and sales reps all have different needs, so it's important to tailor your reports to each group.

Customizing your reports for these different audiences ensures that each person gets the information that’s most relevant to them.

Customizing reports for different audiences

• Executives care about top-level metrics such as revenue projections, deal velocity, and pipeline value. They need a quick snapshot of overall performance to make informed, high-level decisions.
• Sales managers need more granular reports. They want to see how individual reps are performing, which deals are moving (or stalling) through the pipeline, and what actions are driving success. This helps them manage the team effectively and address any issues.
• Sales reps benefit from highly specific, personal reports. They need to know which deals need immediate attention, how their activity levels compare to targets, and where they can focus to maximize their performance. Customizing reports to show individual progress and deal priorities gives them clear direction.

When you tailor reports to suit the needs of each group, you empower them to take meaningful action based on relevant, actionable insights.

How to make sure reports are actually seen

Creating valuable reports is only half the battle; ensuring they get in front of the right eyes is just as important. Here’s how to make sure your sales pipeline reports aren’t ignored:

• Automate email reports in HubSpot to send them directly to key stakeholders. Set up scheduled deliveries-daily, weekly, or monthly-so everyone gets the sharable data they need without having to manually pull reports. This ensures that your team always has up-to-date information in their inbox.
• For teams that need quick, real-time updates, HubSpot’s daily summary emails can include pipeline snapshots. These snapshots give a concise overview of deals, deal stages, and expected revenue, keeping everyone informed on a day-to-day basis.
• To give your reports maximum visibility, consider displaying live sales pipeline data on an office TV screen. Geckoboard can pull real-time data from HubSpot and display it in a visually engaging way, keeping critical metrics front and center for your entire team. When the data is right in front of everyone, they’re more likely to act on it.

How to know when your reporting isn’t working

Even with a solid HubSpot sales reporting system, things can go off track. If your team isn’t acting on the insights from your reports, it’s a sign something’s wrong. Here are some common issues to watch out for:

• Data overload: If the reports are too detailed or complicated, team members may not engage with them. Simplifying the reports can make them more useful.
• Out-of-date information: If your reports aren’t being updated regularly, decisions may be based on outdated data. Make sure your reports are refreshed to prevent this issue.
• Low engagement: If no one is checking the reports, it might be time to rethink how you deliver them. Try adjusting the format, making them more accessible, or displaying them in a high-visibility area like an office TV screen.

Recognizing these signs early will help you optimize your reporting process and make sure your team is getting the most value from the data.

Turn your reports into actionable insights

Sales pipeline reports are a powerful tool when used effectively. They give you the visibility you need to understand how your sales process is performing, where improvements can be made, and how to keep your team on track. By tailoring reports to meet the needs of each audience and sharing them in ways that ensure they’re seen and used, you can transform raw data into clear, actionable insights.

With the right approach to reporting, you’ll not only track progress but also drive meaningful action, helping your business stay focused, adaptable, and ready for growth.

When it comes to sales, numbers tell the real story. But with so many metrics out there, it’s easy to get lost in the data. That’s where HubSpot comes in; it offers a ton of ways to track your sales performance, but knowing which numbers actually matter can make all the difference.

Focusing on the right HubSpot sales metrics gives you a clear path to better decisions, smarter strategies, and more wins. Whether you’re trying to speed up your sales cycle or figure out why deals are getting stuck, the right data helps you adjust course in real time. Let’s break down the most important HubSpot sales metrics you should be tracking to keep your team on the right track.

1. Deals Created

At the heart of any sales process are the deals your team creates. Tracking the number of deals created in HubSpot helps you monitor the volume of opportunities entering your pipeline. This metric gives you an early indication of sales momentum and provides insights into whether your marketing and lead generation efforts are working effectively.

Why it matters: If deals created suddenly drop, it could signal a problem with lead generation or prospecting, requiring immediate action to prevent pipeline drought.

What to track:

• Number of deals created by rep or team
• Deal creation trends by week or month

2. Deal Stage Progression

Not every deal moves through the pipeline at the same pace, and that’s okay. What’s important is tracking how deals progress through each stage of your pipeline. HubSpot allows you to create custom deal stages, and tracking where deals get stuck (or where they accelerate) helps identify potential bottlenecks.

Why it matters: If many deals stall at a particular stage, you may need to refine your sales process or provide additional support to your team to move deals forward.

What to track:

• Conversion rates between deal stages
• Time spent in each stage

3. Win Rate

Your win rate is the percentage of deals that successfully close compared to the total number of deals created. This is one of the most important HubSpot sales metrics to monitor because it gives you a clear view of how effective your sales team is at closing deals.

Why it matters: A declining win rate could mean that your team needs better training, improved tools, or more qualified leads entering the pipeline. On the other hand, a high win rate indicates that your team is well-equipped and your sales process is functioning smoothly, but could be an opportunity to test higher price points.

What to track:

• Overall win rate
• Win rate by sales rep

4. Average Deal Size

Understanding your average deal size is essential for forecasting revenue and setting sales goals. HubSpot sales metrics allow you to track the total value of deals and calculate the average size of a closed-won deal.

Why it matters: If your average deal size is shrinking, it may indicate that your team is closing more low-value deals or offering too many discounts. On the other hand, increasing average deal size could mean your team is successfully upselling or cross-selling.

What to track:

• Average deal size over time
• Average deal size by sales rep or team

5. Sales Cycle Length

Sales cycle length refers to the average time it takes to close a deal, from the moment it enters the pipeline until it becomes a closed-won deal. HubSpot makes it easy to track this metric so you can identify anything wrong in your sales process.

Why it matters: A long sales cycle can affect cash flow and cause frustration for both your team and potential customers. By reducing the time it takes to close deals, you can increase your overall sales velocity and improve team morale.

What to track:

• Average sales cycle length overall
• Sales cycle length by deal size or type

6. Lead Response Time

How quickly your sales team responds to new leads can directly impact your chances of closing a deal. HubSpot allows you to track lead response time, which is the average time it takes for your team to follow up with a new lead after they’ve been assigned or have made contact.

Why it matters: Studies show that the faster your sales team responds to a lead, the higher the chance of converting that lead into a paying customer. Monitoring this metric helps ensure that leads are not slipping through the cracks.

What to track:

• Average lead response time by team or rep
• Lead response time trends over time

7. Quota Attainment

Quota attainment measures how close your sales reps are to hitting their assigned sales goals. In HubSpot, you can track each sales rep’s performance in relation to their target and see how they’re progressing throughout the month or quarter.

Why it matters: This is one of the most direct indicators of whether your sales team is performing well. If reps consistently fail to meet their quotas, it may indicate a need for more training, better leads, or improved processes.

What to track:

• Percentage of quota achieved by rep
• Quota attainment trends over time

8. Revenue by Source

Understanding where your revenue is coming from is important for optimizing your sales strategy. HubSpot sales metrics can track revenue by lead source, whether it’s inbound marketing, outbound prospecting, referrals, or another source.

Why it matters: If one source consistently brings in more revenue than others, you can adjust your efforts to focus on what works best. If certain sources are underperforming, it may be worth reevaluating your investment in them.

What to track:

• Total revenue by source
• Revenue trends by source over time

9. Customer Retention Rate

While HubSpot is often seen as a tool for driving new sales, tracking customer retention is just as important. This metric tells you how well you’re keeping your existing customers and whether they’re likely to renew or make repeat purchases.

Why it matters: Retaining customers is often more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. A high customer retention rate indicates customer satisfaction and strong product-market fit, while a low retention rate signals that you may need to work on customer experience or support.

What to track:

• Overall customer retention rate
• Retention rate by product or service

Are you tracking the right metrics?

It’s easy to get lost in all the data HubSpot provides, but the real magic happens when you focus on tracking the right sales metrics. By zeroing in on the numbers that drive real results, you’re setting yourself and your team up for success.

Once you’ve nailed down the right metrics, the next step is to make sure you can easily keep an eye on them. That’s where Geckoboard comes in. It lets you visualize your key metrics in real time, so whether you’re doing a quick check-in or reviewing progress with your team, you’ll always have a clear view of where things stand with your sales pipeline.

So, are you tracking the right metrics? Are you visualizing them in a dashboard in a way that keeps you on track? Now’s the time to make sure both are working for you.

As a sales manager, you need clear, actionable data that helps you make informed decisions. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential metrics that keep you on track, and building a dashboard in HubSpot can help you monitor these KPIs efficiently.

Let’s get started with a simple dashboard.

How to build a simple HubSpot dashboard in 5 steps

1. Go to ‘Reports’ and select ‘Dashboards’.
2. Click ‘Create Dashboard’ and name it.
3. Add ‘Reports’ by selecting your key metrics (like revenue or conversions).
4. Organize the layout by dragging and dropping reports.
5. ‘Save’ and ‘Share’ with your team.

That’s enough to get started, but designing a dashboard that evolves with your sales strategy, empowers your team, and provides a 360-degree view of your performance does require some more work.

The rest of this guide delves into some additional steps to help you to create a flexible, dynamic dashboard that scales with your business and adapts to your changing goals.

Step 1: Align KPIs with your evolving sales strategy

Choosing your KPIs isn’t a one-time decision. As your business grows, your KPIs should evolve to reflect shifting priorities and objectives. You may start by tracking basic metrics like revenue and deal volume, but as your team expands, you’ll need more nuanced KPIs that measure efficiency, team performance, and customer lifetime value.

• Early-stage businesses may focus on core metrics like total revenue, average deal size, and lead conversion rates.
• Growing businesses often track metrics like sales cycle length, pipeline velocity, and customer acquisition cost (CAC).
• Scaling businesses need more complex metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV), churn rate, and the percentage of repeat business.

This step is about future-proofing your dashboard. Think beyond your immediate needs and ask, "What metrics will matter six months from now?" By thinking ahead, you’ll save yourself from constantly rebuilding your dashboard as your sales strategy matures.

Step 2: Build a multi-layered dashboard

While many sales dashboards focus on current performance, a well-rounded KPI dashboard offers both real-time insights and historical trends. To get the full picture, your dashboard should balance both high-level overviews and detailed breakdowns that help you identify trends.

A multi-layered dashboard allows you to move fluidly between a general overview and specific data points, creating a dashboard that is adaptable to multiple team members with different roles.

1. Top-level overview: This includes must-have metrics like current revenue, open deals, and conversion rates. These metrics give you an indication on overall performance.
2. Mid-level metrics: Track deal stage distribution, lead source performance, and sales cycle length. These reports highlight how deals are progressing and where potential slowdowns are happening.
3. Drill-down reports: Add drill-down metrics like sales performance by rep, product line success, and geographic trends. These insights help you spot issues and find opportunities for improvement.

Step 3: Automate and update your dashboard in real-time

Static reports can quickly become outdated, and manual data entry has a high risk of error. HubSpot’s automation tools ensure that your KPI dashboard stays relevant by pulling in the latest data without requiring manual updates.

• Set up daily, weekly, and monthly data pulls: Depending on the nature of the KPI, configure automated updates to fit the reporting cycle. Revenue and pipeline reports might refresh daily, while customer lifetime value might be calculated monthly.
• Monitor real-time data through integrations: If you need live updates on specific metrics, partners like Geckoboard can pull in data from multiple systems in real time, offering a more immediate snapshot of performance across your tools.

Step 4: Adapt your dashboard as your team scales

As your sales team grows, your KPI dashboard needs to keep pace. The metrics that work for a five-person sales team might not be enough for a team of 50. At this point, you’ll need to spend some time optimizing your dashboard so it still works for your organization.

• Segment KPIs by team: Create separate views for different sales teams or regions. For example, if you manage multiple territories, create separate revenue reports for each one and track performance regionally.
• Introduce new KPIs gradually: As your business grows, incorporate KPIs like customer retention rates, cross-sell effectiveness, or upsell performance. Avoid adding too many metrics at once to prevent data overload.
• Refine KPI definitions: As sales processes evolve, the definition of success might change. Continuously refine what you’re measuring to match your current goals. For instance, instead of just tracking lead volume, measure lead quality by focusing on leads that reach specific deal stages.

Step 5: Use data visualization to drive team action

The visualization of data can make all the difference in. When KPIs are well-visualized, they not only tell a story but also inspire action. Good visualization can help you and your team spot problems, seize opportunities, and stay on track to meet goals.

• Use heatmaps for deal progress: Use heatmaps to visually highlight deals that are moving through your pipeline quickly versus those that are stuck.
• Use trend graphs for lead generation: Line or bar charts showing lead generation trends over time can reveal patterns, such as seasonal slowdowns or upticks after specific marketing efforts.
• Use goal progress meters: Use goal-tracking visualizations like progress meters to show how close you are to monthly or quarterly sales targets.

Step 6: Build a full picture with multiple data sources

Your KPI dashboard shouldn’t exist in isolation. Often, businesses rely on multiple tools to manage sales, customer support, and operations. Using Geckoboard, you can pull in data from multiple sources like HubSpot, Zendesk, and Zapier, into a single dashboard. This gives you a real-time, 360-degree view of your business operations.

• Geckoboard allows you to display data from various platforms all in one place. You can combine data from HubSpot, Zendesk, Google Sheets, Aircall, and other apps to get a holistic view of your performance.
• Geckoboard pulls in real-time data, so you’re always working with the most up-to-date metrics from all your systems, rather than waiting for periodic updates.

Sign up for a free trial of Geckoboard to bring data from multiple tools into one dashboard.

Step 7: Tailor dashboards for different roles

Different members of your team have different priorities, so a one-size-fits-all dashboard often doesn’t work. Instead, create role-specific dashboards that provide tailored insights for each level of your sales organization.

• For sales reps, focus on individual performance metrics, such as calls made, deals closed, and personal pipeline health.
• For sales managers, highlight team-wide metrics, including total revenue, deal velocity, and lead-to-deal conversion rates.
• For executives, use higher-level KPIs like total revenue growth, sales cycle length, and customer retention to show the overall direction of the business.

Providing tailored dashboards keeps the focus on the right metrics for each team member and gives clarity at every level of the sales process.

Creating a HubSpot KPI dashboard that grows with your business

Remember, building a HubSpot KPI dashboard is more than just assembling reports. Whether you’re a small team focused on lead conversion or a growing salesforce tackling complex pipelines, your dashboard should evolve as your business does.

By following these steps and using tools like Geckoboard for multi-source integrations, your KPI dashboard will become an essential asset in driving success and keeping your team on track.

As a sales manager, your ability to track performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions can directly impact your team’s results. You’ve probably already discovered that HubSpot offers a wide range of reporting tools to help you monitor sales activities, assess team performance, and analyze key metrics. But while these tools are powerful, using them effectively requires more than just pulling standard reports.

The right reporting strategies can help you:

• Pinpoint bottlenecks in your sales pipeline
• Optimize team performance by tracking key metrics like deal velocity and closed revenue
• Align your team’s efforts with broader business goals by tracking progress against targets
• Make better decisions by combining data from multiple sources

But just using HubSpot’s reporting tools isn’t enough on its own. To really get useful insights, you need to know how to customize, filter, and automate your reports so they’re giving you the information you need.

The following tips will help you unlock the full potential of HubSpot reporting, keeping your sales team on track and performing at its best.

1. Customize your reports for clear insights

Every sales process is different, and HubSpot’s ability to create custom reports ensures that you can focus on what matters most. Instead of relying on generic, pre-built reports, take the time to tailor them specifically for your business needs.

Here’s how to customize effectively:

• Start with your key metrics: Identify the core metrics you need to track, such as sales pipeline stages, closed deals, revenue by source, or individual rep performance.
• Use HubSpot’s drag-and-drop report builder: This tool allows you to add and remove data fields, apply filters, and build reports that give you the insights you need.
• Group and segment data: For example, you can create reports that group deals by region, industry, or sales rep, giving you better visibility into performance differences across segments.
• Visualize with charts: HubSpot offers a variety of chart types, such as bar, line, pie, and others. Pick the chart type that best represents the data, making it easier for you and your team to interpret the information quickly.

Customization example: If tracking revenue by industry is a priority for your business, you could create a report that filters your closed deals by industry, displays the average deal size, and shows the win rate for each sector.

2. Use filters to get specific data

Not all sales data is useful in every context. Filters help you drill down to the specific information that matters most. With HubSpot’s filters, you can create reports that focus on particular aspects of your pipeline, teams, or time frames.

To make the most of filters:

• Focus on a specific time period: Use date range filters to review performance over a specific quarter or fiscal year. This is especially helpful for tracking progress against quarterly targets.
• Isolate specific deal types: Want to know how enterprise deals are progressing versus smaller deals? Set up filters that segment the data by deal size or deal type.
• Narrow down by team or individual: If you manage multiple sales teams or territories, create reports that filter performance by team or rep. This way, you can assess the success of different groups.

Filter example: You can set a filter for ‘Deal Stage’ to see how many deals are in the ‘Negotiation’ stage for each sales rep, allowing you to target coaching efforts where deals tend to stall.

3. Track deal velocity to optimize your pipeline

Deal velocity is a critical metric that tells you how fast deals move through your sales pipeline. A slow pipeline could indicate bottlenecks or inefficiencies, while a fast-moving pipeline suggests high sales efficiency. HubSpot allows you to track deal velocity through custom reports, giving you insight into your sales cycle.

To optimize deal velocity:

• Create a deal velocity report: Set up a report that tracks the average number of days deals spend in each pipeline stage. Compare this to your target velocity to identify potential delays.
• Segment by deal type or size: Larger deals may naturally take longer to close, but identifying the stages where they slow down can help you streamline the process.
• Implement follow-up actions: If you notice deals getting stuck in a certain stage (like ‘Proposal Sent’), set automated reminders or tasks for your sales team to follow up.

Deal velocity example: A report showing that deals are spending too much time in the ‘Negotiation’ phase could prompt you to coach reps on how to handle objections faster, ultimately speeding up the process.

4. Set up goal tracking to monitor performance

HubSpot’s goal tracking feature lets you monitor how well your team is performing against set targets. Whether it's for revenue, deal closures, or activity levels, setting up goals in HubSpot allows you to see real-time progress and keep everyone aligned.

To set up goal tracking:

• Define your sales goals: These could be related to revenue, the number of closed deals, or even activities like the number of calls or emails sent by your team.
• Create goals in HubSpot: Navigate to the ‘Sales Tools’ section in HubSpot, and under ‘Goals’, set measurable, time-bound objectives. For example, you can set a quarterly revenue goal of $500,000 for your team.
• Track goal progress on dashboards: HubSpot lets you create dashboard widgets that track real-time progress against goals. These widgets show how close your team is to hitting the target, both individually and collectively.

Goal tracking example: Set up a dashboard that shows your team’s performance toward their monthly call and deal closure targets. This helps you monitor which reps are hitting their goals and which might need additional coaching.

5. Automate report scheduling

You don’t need to log into HubSpot every time you want to check a report. HubSpot allows you to automate the delivery of reports directly to your inbox or your team’s, saving time and ensuring consistent updates.

How to automate report scheduling:

• Choose your report: Any report you build in HubSpot can be scheduled for regular updates.
• Set the frequency: Decide whether you want the report delivered daily, weekly, or monthly. A weekly revenue summary, for instance, can keep you updated on your sales team’s progress without constant manual checking.
• Pick recipients: Choose who should receive the report. You can send it to yourself, the entire sales team, or specific individuals.

Automation example: You can automate the delivery of your ‘Pipeline Overview’ report every Monday morning, so your sales team starts the week with a clear picture of what’s in progress and where they need to focus.

6. Use tools alongside HubSpot for multi-source reporting

While HubSpot’s reporting tools are powerful for tracking your sales data, many sales managers need to pull information from other platforms to get a full picture of performance. Whether you’re working with customer support data from Zendesk or marketing insights from Google Analytics, HubSpot alone may not be able to provide everything you need.

This is where using a tool like Geckoboard alongside HubSpot can make a big difference:

• Multi-source integrations: Geckoboard allows you to integrate data from various platforms like Zendesk, Google Sheets, and Salesforce, and visualize everything in one place. This gives you a more comprehensive view of your business beyond what HubSpot alone can offer.
• Real-time dashboards: Unlike HubSpot, which updates reports every few minutes, Geckoboard gives real-time data updates, so you can keep an eye on critical metrics as they change.
• Customizable dashboards: Geckoboard’s intuitive interface lets you create visual, easy-to-understand dashboards that can be displayed on office screens or accessed remotely by your team. This can be especially helpful for sharing live sales data with the broader organization.

Try a free trial of Geckoboard so you can overcome the limitations of relying on a single platform and get a more complete, real-time understanding of your business.

7. Regularly review and update your reports

Sales processes are constantly evolving, so it’s important to review and update your reports regularly to ensure they still align with your team’s goals and workflow. Stale reports with outdated metrics or irrelevant KPIs won’t give you the insights you need to drive performance.

Here’s how to keep your reports relevant:

• Schedule quarterly reviews: At least once a quarter, revisit your existing reports. Are they still aligned with your business goals? Are there new KPIs you should be tracking?
• Keep your team involved: Ask your sales reps for feedback on what metrics they find most helpful, and update reports accordingly.
• Adjust KPIs as needed: As your team’s goals shift, so should your KPIs. Make sure your reports reflect your current priorities, such as focusing more on lead generation or pipeline velocity, depending on what’s most important for your business at the time.

Review example: If your focus shifts from closing deals to generating new leads, adjust your reports to prioritize metrics like the number of new leads, lead sources, and conversion rates.

Take control of your sales data

By following these detailed tips, you’ll not only get the most out of HubSpot’s reporting features but also ensure your reports are delivering the insights you need to drive your sales strategy. Whether it’s customizing reports, tracking deal velocity, or integrating data with tools like Geckoboard, these strategies will help you stay informed, agile, and ready to hit your targets.