Deal Execution Archives - Gong

Gong gives Reachdesk the gift of alignment during rapid international growth

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 15:05:22 +0000

Gong gives Reachdesk the gift of alignment during rapid international growth Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software The challenge Without Gong, Reachdesk’s EMEA sales teams couldn’t unearth details about which rep behaviors won deals or why customers made purchases. That led to inefficient sales practices and difficulty aligning CS, account managers, product, and marketing around the customer lifecycle. The outcome Reachdesk now uses Gong to gain valuable insights into rep and customer behaviors so they can keep global teams aligned and focus on efficient sales processes and customer lifecycles. This approach kept the sales team connected throughout a period of rapid growth. Headquarters New York, New York Founded 2018 Employees 500+ Industry Software Development If anyone knows the power of a good gift, it’s Reachdesk. Reachdesk is a global direct mail platform that helps B2B companies build deeper connections with customers through gifting. Reachdesk was listed as one of the fastest-growing software companies by G2 in 2021 and has been an established G2 category leader since. After a record year of growth and a $43M Series B in 2021, Reachdesk grew their global sales team across US and EMEA. It’s an impressive feat, but one primed with risk. Periods of major growth can bring misalignment and poor communication to globally dispersed teams, which often results in inefficient operations across the customer lifecycle. Reachdesk wanted to improve these issues prior to expansion, and was eager to solve them quickly before they became ingrained in the next growth phase. The company decided to use Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform to surface customer insights that could bolster alignment, communication, efficiency, and decision-making. Gain efficiency by aligning teams in EMEA and the US Previously, Reachdesk’s global teams lacked alignment and dealt with poor communication about customer-related issues. Today, Gong makes it easy for the EMEA sales team to stay aligned with their global counterparts and share lessons learned across CS, marketing, and product teams around the world, at any point in time. They often do so on the go, using Gong’s mobile app. The sales team relies heavily on Gong’s Call Libraries to bring the most effective tactics and talk tracks to everyone’s attention. Wherever they are, EMEA sales team members can contribute full calls or call snippets to best-practice Call Libraries, sharing their lessons learned for training purposes. Teams anywhere in the world can easily listen to each other’s calls, learn what works, and provide each other with feedback. “Being able to share snippets globally has been a huge benefit of using Gong,” says Alex Olley, Reachdesk’s co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, “It has helped with my biggest pain point during this growth by getting alignment between the US and the UK teams.” This alignment has resulted in heightened training efficiency, as well as increased collaboration and consistency in messaging across the distributed teams. Spot risks and keep deals on track At one time, Reachdesk found it hard to tap into its customer interactions to determine which deals carried hidden risks. With the adoption of Gong, reps on all its global teams turned to Gong’s Deal Boards to spot warning signs and risks inside deals. Deal Boards give them the full context of a deal’s progression, so they can collaborate with AEs to address those risks and get deals back on track. Deal Boards surface risks that managers and reps would otherwise miss. Olley also wanted to know what top-performing reps did that worked. “I really wanted to solve that problem,” he said, “getting intelligence from all the reps, and particularly the top performers, so I could make sure we pushed the right talk tracks through to the rest of the team.” He wanted to know what their message adherence was like and which winning behaviors the top reps used. With Gong’s ability to analyze customer interactions and highlight what works and what doesn’t, Olley was able to get Reachdesk’s reps singing the same winning tune, wherever they worked. Today, they use Gong’s advanced visibility and smart guidance for ongoing coaching and training initiatives and keeping deal execution moving smoothly. Olley says these same deal insights are “also useful for forecasting.” Gong surfaces reliable information quickly, saving them at least two hours each week on forecasting and pipeline activities. Make data-backed decisions that get customers to say yes While his EMEA sales team grew, Olley also wanted to clarify why customers made purchases so he could base future decisions on that information. Olley says, “There are three things we now look at using Gong’s keyword trackers: customers’ use cases, the challenges they face, and what success looks like for them.” Whenever a deal closes, he gets an alert and listens to the call to further clarify why the customer said yes. This — along with Gong Insights’ analytical abilities — helps Olley and his teams make informed business decisions. Most recently, he used Gong’s initial analysis of customer interactions to update Reachdesk’s messaging and align it with their customers’ stated needs. The revenue teams also use Gong Insights to act on opportunities in the market and map their product roadmap. Gift your entire company a solution it loves Today, Reachdesk uses Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform across the entire revenue organization. Olley says, “It’s embedded into a lot of what we do as a company.” Gong supported Reachdesk through a period of rapid growth, while it cemented its sales messaging, designed efficient processes, and aligned its global teams. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How Paycor uses Gong for improved onboarding, coaching, deal strategy, and pipeline forecasting Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Pendo Implements Methodologies to Improve Win Rates Using Gong Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives North America Software Gong Gives Genesys Sales Managers The Ability to “Ride Shotgun” With Any Deal Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Global Software

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Learning and transforming: How Gong helps Udemy make critical revenue decisions

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 15:12:53 +0000

Learning and transforming: How Gong helps Udemy make critical revenue decisions Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Enterprise Global Education The challenge Prior to Gong, Udemy was faced with the difficulty of trying to form, understand, and track its strategic initiatives without any formalized system in place. The outcome When Udemy implemented Gong, it instantly helped the team make informed decisions about strategic initiatives, so they could link enablement projects to their business goals. Headquarters San Francisco, CA Founded 2010 employees 5000+ industry Education 44+ million. Per day. That’s the number of learners Udemy serves daily as the world’s largest online learning marketplace. Eric Stoddard, Head of Global Sales and Customer Success Enablement at Udemy, is tasked with driving change through informed decision making, using a programmatic approach. The biggest historical challenge? Understanding whether his team’s strategic initiatives actually drive the business forward and create change, as intended. “Before we had Gong, that was tricky to measure with confidence.” When Udemy implemented Gong, it instantly helped the team make informed decisions about strategic initiatives, so they could link enablement projects to their business goals. Nearly overnight, Eric and his team gained confidence in their initiatives. Most companies have a hard time assessing whether their strategic initiatives are working. Here’s how Udemy figured it out… Move from uncertainty to total clarity No matter the organization, new hires need to get up to speed as quickly as possible. The faster they learn the product, the sales methodology, and best practices, the faster they generate revenue. Before using Gong, Udemy’s new reps learned by listening to live customer conversations while sitting next to a veteran … in a cubicle. Hours (and hours) evaporated without an opportunity to really show them how the best performers talk to customers, and what customers say across a sales cycle, at scale. Back then, Udemy also struggled to understand what was happening during customer conversations. Too often, the “squeaky wheel got the grease.” “We used to focus our resources on whoever screamed the loudest, not necessarily what the data showed.” Gong changed that. It gives Eric the insights he needs to train his new reps efficiently and monitor their selling skills, as well as gain insights into which customers really needed attention. “I don’t know how I used to do my job before Gong,” shared Eric. “Gong brings deep customer understanding, clarity, and insight into my world.” Turn instant visibility into revenue growth with Gong’s AI Today, Eric knows which reps struggle to get up to speed, and which deals are actually a priority. He spends his limited resources on the right reps and the right customers. That’s all thanks to Gong. The platform’s AI allows Eric to dive deeper into understanding what his new hires learn and the value they provide to customers. “If they’re not helping our customers drive change within their businesses, we pivot,” says Eric. Gong captures and harnesses the voice of the customer and gives Udemy insights into trends that happen at an account level. “What separates Gong are the insights I can grab from customer interactions at scale. Our teams can turn those insights into actions that improve pipeline management, drive successful outcomes for our key initiatives, and help us make better revenue decisions.” Gong has the largest data set of customer interactions in the industry. Gong’s AI engine as analyzed over 1 billion customer calls and tens of billions of emails, bringing value to the data by understanding what is really happening within customer interactions and identifying revenue risks and opportunities with unrivaled accuracy and relevance.. Eric particularly loves Smart Trackers which allow customers like him to quickly and easily train Gong’s AI to identify concepts and topics specific to their business. Smart trackers mean Udemy can take immediate action as soon as Gong surfaces trends. Those actions lead to stronger revenue growth. Gong’s “Initiative” board is also a favorite of Eric’s. “If you’re not taking advantage of this board, you’re really missing out.” The Initiative board gives Eric instant visibility into how all his initiatives are being adopted. He can see who participates in an initiative — and who doesn’t — by team. That also means he spots trends over time. All these capabilities enable Eric and his team to assess and adjust their coaching and training strategies… and inevitably, win more often. Tip: Leadership can subscribe to Deal Boards to get a weekly update email, rather than rely upon Eric for their enablement data. They can quickly see how initiatives stack up. Udemy hits a winning streak with Gong Gong has helped Eric’s team — and Udemy in general — make great strides in several aspects of its revenue operation: Deal execution and forecasting: Managing your pipeline is no easy task. Gong gives Udemy insights about each deal by immediately (and automatically) surfacing risks in Deal Boards using proprietary & patented AI models. Managers use those Deal Boards to understand relevant risks so they keep deals on track and have more accurate forecasts each quarter. Sales productivity: Gong has become Udemy’s central repository for new skills training. Eric makes sure his new hires listen to a curated set of calls so they get exposure to different sales-related approaches that work. From there, the new hires can take what they heard from top-performing reps and make it their own. Business alignment: Gong has helped Udemy align its sales, marketing, and enablement motions. “We now operate as one cohesive team,” boasts Eric. In particular, it can be challenging to understand what the competition’s up to and where they show up. Gong data highlights this competitive information for managers when it happens on calls, and also allows sales reps to pressure test competitive messaging. Smart guidance: With Gong, managers can quickly and efficiently coach and provide feedback on many calls … not just the ones they attend live. “We fill out scorecards to track whether a rep is progressing on a particular skill,” said Eric. Gong has been a powerful AI platform to elevate coaching within the organization. A new (and sane) way to operate That’s a pretty exhaustive list, but it’s not the end of changes Gong has brought to Udemy. Sharing lessons learned and asking for feedback; picking up tactics you may not have thought of; leveraging Gong’s call analysis and metrics to improve a skill. There’s a constant (and virtuous!) cycle for all of it now happening at Udemy. Everyone wins. Eric and his managers, reps, the rest of the revenue team, leadership, and Udemy customers. Understandably, Eric could not be happier. “I truly feel those who don’t leverage technology like Gong will be left behind. Gong brings us sanity because we can see the data behind our actions. Gong is confidence. Gong is insight. Gong is the ability to truly understand what’s going on inside customer conversations.” Don’t get left behind. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Gainsight’s CEO uses Gong to better understand the true market Small Business Coaching Global Software How Paycor uses Gong for improved onboarding, coaching, deal strategy, and pipeline forecasting Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Intelex enhances onboarding and collaboration to strengthen sales strategy Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software

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How Gong Helped Quinyx Digitally Transform and Scale Faster

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:29:21 +0000

How Gong Helped Quinyx Digitally Transform and Scale Faster Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge Quinyx was making decisions without the data to back them up, and managers were spread thin trying to listen in on sales calls so they could get a more accurate picture of their pipeline. As the company scaled rapidly, these issues were scaling with them. The outcome By adopting Gong, Quinyx was given access to all the data they needed to make pivotal decisions supported by facts. They could more easily guide their growing team by coaching calls after the fact, and leaders including the CRO were able to create accurate forecasts the company could rely on. Though they’ve continued to scale at a fast pace, their win rates are up since using Gong, and every team in their 11 offices is on the same page. Learn More Headquarters Stockholm, Sweden Founded 2005 Company Size 400 Industry Technology Getting a global team on one page Workforce management tool Quinyx wanted to scale their teams faster, and get better insight into their deals. But with 11 offices across three continents, it wasn’t easy. With clients like McDonalds, IKEA, and Starbucks, salespeople needed to learn what was and wasn’t working quickly, and leadership wanted to be able to forecast with trusted data. CRO Andreas Sjölund brought Gong onboard to provide that bird’s eye view. “Prior to having Gong we had a really hard time accessing the right data to make decisions,” he says. “We wanted a way to show how we sell successfully and also use the AI to learn what’s really working and what’s not when we sell to our customers and prospects.” Since adopting Gong two years ago, making decisions that move their business forward has never been easier. The power of accurate forecasting Sometimes gathering the data you need in order to create effective and accurate forecasts can feel like a wild goose chase. You shouldn’t have to hunt down where deals are in the pipeline and where they’re likely to end in order to make the best decisions for your business. Using Gong, Sjölund and his team have access to more data than ever before and a better understanding of where deals fall in the pipeline. “I can go in and look at key deals—either read the transcript or look at the videos and really get the tone right from the customer instead of calling around to salespeople to figure out how things are going,” he says. “It’s really helping me as a CRO forecast better, which is better for the whole company.” Having a handle on pipeline means not only understanding what’s going right and what needs to change but also achieving your high-level objectives. “Keeping me up at night is our growth,” says Sjölund. “We’ve been growing year over year 50%, so it’s all about how we can scale, get bigger deals, more deals, faster.” Gong also helped Quinyx successfully implement MEDPICC. Since using Gong, forecasts are trending up, despite challenging market conditions. At a time when most companies are doing what they can to weather the storm, Quinyx increased their deal size (ACV) by an incredible 50% and their win rates by 2%, significantly impacting their bottom line. “We’ve seen great improvements after implementing Gong,” says Sjölund. Let the voice of the customer be heard As a business, understanding the true voice of the customer is one of the most integral parts of sales and marketing. Nothing is more clear than a customer’s feedback in their own words. But who has the time to sit in on sales calls all day, especially when those calls cross three time zones? “What Gong has helped us with is giving me and our sales leaders the opportunity not to have to be in each meeting,” says Sjölund. And this benefit of Gong has been beneficial across Quinyx’s departments, helping not only the Sales team but Product, R+D, and Marketing as well. “It’s a benefit for any department to hear from the customers themselves what they’re looking for,” says Sjölund. For example, the marketing department can take a look at trending words in different markets and use that data to inform their next campaign, and the product team can improve their roadmap. Gong also helps Quinyx’s sales team take the “voice of the customer” literally. “Usually as a salesperson, one of the biggest mistakes is speaking too much,” says Sjölund. “One feature of Gong I’m almost addicted to is the Deal Overview, where you can see how much your team is interacting with the customer and how much they’re interacting with you. It gives you a great overview of where you are in the deal cycle, and you can see if it’s about to close or not.” Having the resources you need to really listen when your customer is speaking—and then being able to share snippets of your learnings to any department that could benefit—is what being customer-centric is all about. Onboarding and acquiring made easy With over 400 employees serving 11,000 customers, there’s a lot to learn when onboarding at Quinyx. Sjölund and his team believe that watching real customer calls is the key to success. “You don’t need to sit in on a lot of sales meetings at the beginning, but learning from hearing what the customer’s saying is the best way to learn,” he says. “So we created different folders in Gong where we keep sales calls we want new employees to look at. It’s really helped to get all the customer meetings in one place and make it really easy for new salespeople being onboarded.” Once onboarded and beginning their own sales calls, Gong also helps with coaching by giving leaders an eye into a salesperson’s process and making it easy to provide feedback. “The way I use Gong is I listen to it every morning, on the way to work or to the gym, so I get a feel for the meetings the previous day,” says Sjölund. “Then I give feedback right in the call, either in notes or with the microphone functionality. It really gives me better insight into the deal, and it also helps with coaching.” Quinyx acquired two other companies in the last year, which required not only a wave of onboarding needs but also an integration of systems and processes. When everything is scattered across multiple platforms, getting on the same page takes longer, slowing down your growth. But using Gong meant that every acquired employee and process was centralized, minimizing overlap and confusion. “Gong has really helped us with our digital transformation,” says Sjölund. “We can see everything in one place, so it’s been a great help for us to transform faster as a company.” Scaling sustainably all comes down to having the right data to help you make informed decisions. “By getting this info I can share it with other parts of the organization that helps with winning the deal faster,” says Sjölund. Revenue intelligence helps teams by getting them better data so they can scale faster—all while giving leaders the control they need to focus on steering the ship. “We now have control over our deals, over our forecasts, and I know we’re selling Quinyx the right way.” “Gong is making me sleep better at night.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How Tray.io’s RevOps team uses Gong to win business Enterprise Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software SurveyMonkey takes coaching for customer success to the next level Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 20:44:32 +0000

How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge After a period of hypergrowth—7x in one year—Pigment needed a new way to get teams on the same page in order to better communicate the kind of messaging that led to real impact. This meant learning to collect and share information more efficiently, onboarding employees in the most effective way, and leveraging insights to make business decisions that met the customer where they were. The outcome Adopting Gong has meant bringing disparate teams onto one level playing field. Information is easily shared across departments, teams that aren’t customer-facing have a direct line to the customer voice, and the company can make more accurate forecasts and coach their teams to win deals. Watch the video Headquarters Paris, France Founded 2019 Employees 200 Industry Technology We can’t see a future without having Gong anymore. For our company it would be the same as having our CRM in Excel. Alexis Valentin Head of BDR, Pigment Tools that get you closer to the customer Pigment is a business planning platform for Finance, Sales and HR teams that’s rapidly scaled since their inception in 2019. Every team, from Sales, to Marketing, to Product was in need of a way to better communicate relevant messaging in order to make business decisions that were based on real customer feedback. “One of our values at Pigment is ‘go direct and to thrive together,’ and I really see Gong as a way to bring people together and to be more customer-obsessed,” says Pigment’s Head of Business, Julien Lesaicherre. “Gong definitely helped to accelerate this change in the organization.” From onboarding, to forecasting, to communicating across departments, here’s how Gong helped change the way Pigment works for the better. Building a collective memory Creating transparency between teams is one of the keys to maximizing feedback and creating a more seamless customer experience. “In the old days, we would waste a lot of time asking people questions, collecting information, trying to make sense out of the information,” says Lesaicherre. Moving all teams onto one platform made sharing information easy and natural, and each team could get what was needed from a call or a product demo to move forward with their goals. “With one way of doing things, we can move faster to execution,” he says. Creating a collective memory for the entire company to work with doesn’t just improve internal relationships, it makes work more productive and more relevant and keeps everyone aligned with the needs of the customer. “It has really helped us close the gap between our internal teams—we got closer to sales, closer to Customer Success, to our BDRs, to our Account Executives,” says Regina Croda, Head of Product Marketing. And because adoption was swift across the board, transparency increased right away. “I knew that Gong was working well for us when people started tagging me on things they thought I might be interested in listening to without me explicitly asking,” she says. “Everybody across the organization started better understanding what our company’s priorities were.” Alexis Valentin, Pigment’s Head of BDR sums it up nicely: “It gives a chance to non-customer-facing employees to really understand how people use our product and what they expect from such a tool. I think you know a tool works well when you get requests from different teams to access the platform, even if you didn’t think of giving them access in the first place.” Getting a reality check With the voice of the customer now moving freely between teams, Pigment was able to plan with greater accuracy and prioritize the voice of the customer. “We know the reps don’t always have time to capture everything because they should really focus and interact with their customers as much as they can during a call.” said Valentin. Because reps and managers can use Gong to review calls, all the data you could collect is available to anyone who wants to listen in. “We are now capable of capturing market signals that are not possible to capture by humans at scale,” says Valentin. For the marketing team, Gong was an effective tool in helping them pressure-check their messaging. “It really allowed us to have a reality check,” says Croda. “Our ambitions are really large but we also need to meet buyers where they are. You have to move fast to be able to bring that signal that you’re hearing directly from your customer base, and utilize that to advance faster in business and product goals.” From supporting marketing efforts to influencing the product roadmap, Gong provided a single source of truth that always keeps the customer at the center and business decisions grounded in reality. Onboarding many teams onto one page In the last year, Pigment experienced multi-fold revenue growth, and with that kind of growth comes the need for change. “One of them was the challenge that comes with bringing the best people in and making sure they’re onboarded in the right way,” says Lesaicherre. “Gong is actually a fantastic solution for that as you can learn about your own mistakes and wins, but you can also learn from all the people around,” he says. “Each time they have a meeting it’s like you’re sitting next to them, even if you’re not actually in the meeting, which is an increased value, especially for new joiners.” Pigment uses Gong to create a directory of the best calls and demos so new hires from any department can access real-life relevant examples, make comments, and get answers to their questions in a self-serve way. The method has proven invaluable to Pigment’s onboarding process. “Metric-wise, I can see a direct correlation in terms of Gong usage and adoption,” says Valentin. “That is, a correlation between people who watch Gong videos in the first 90 days and their performance as a new joiner—it’s incredible. They are just learning faster than the others and can deliver above expectations.” When a tool exists to serve many teams, it not only brings departments together, it clarifies purpose, goals, and future plans. “Gong is clearly the crossroads of many teams,” says Lesaicherre. “At the end of the day, it’s all about the customer, it’s all about the product, it’s all about how we can help them to fix those issues.” “It’s not the sales topic. It’s a company topic.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Egnyte Streamlines Customer Success Management Small Business Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Gong Helped Quinyx Digitally Transform and Scale Faster Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software Visibility, Insights, and Outcomes: The Secret Sauce to Sustainable Growth at Kustomer Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software

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Hello, new reality: How WalkMe uses Gong to add visibility around their deals

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:40:56 +0000

Hello, new reality: How WalkMe uses Gong to add visibility around their deals Deal Execution Small Business North America Software The challenge WalkMe wanted to get visibility around their deals in the remote-first environment unique to 2020. The outcome Gong provided WalkMe with an additional level of visibility and assurance that the company’s AEs are doing what they’re telling their leadership team and that they’re still providing best practices to customers. Watch video Headquarters San Francisco, CA Founded 2011 Employees 860+ Industry Digital Adoption Software WalkMe was founded in 2011 as a guidance and navigation tool and has since grown rapidly to meet the enormous demand for next-generation digital learning. And then suddenly in 2020 — much of the world was forced into a remote work environment due to a global pandemic — and WalkMe was no exception. Regarding the big shift, Aliisa Rosenthal, VP of Sales at WalkMe admitted that initially she “didn’t feel as looped into the deals” as she normally did. The remedy? “I actually found Gong’s new Deals feature really helpful for that.” “I’m using Gong from a pipeline perspective, primarily using the Deals tab. It’s how I started my morning probably every day for the last week leading up to the end of the quarter— just opening up deals,” shared Aliisa, “Now that we’re remote, Gong has provided me with an additional level of visibility and comfort that my AEs are doing what they’re telling me and that we’re still providing best practices to our customers.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Shortening the time to success for new sales reps Small Business Coaching North America Media & Internet How Gong Helped Proposify Cut Their Sales Cycle In Half Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software

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Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Zappi focus and forecast during an uncertain time

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:19:20 +0000

Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Zappi focus and forecast during an uncertain time Deal Execution Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge With the 2020 global pandemic plunging the economy into uncertainty, Zappi wanted to ensure that they were forecasting accurately and focusing on the right deals. The outcome Gong helped Zappi give their pipeline a haircut where it was “happy ears,” so that they could prioritize the most impactful deals. Watch video Headquarters London, United Kingdom Founded 2013 Employees ~200 Website www.zappi.io Industry Consumer Testing “It’s not like you learn how to plan for a pandemic in business school,” quips Ryan Barry, the Chief Revenue Officer of Zappi, a company that helps organizations run consumer testing through all stages of advertising and innovation development. With the market being turned inside-out due to the Coronavirus, Ryan wanted to understand the health of his pipeline and the potential impact to the business … and he wanted to do it fast, as the quarter was almost over. “I just think so much time is wasted in deal management on just getting up to speed,” Ryan points out, “If we could spend our entire time being all up-to-speed — then we’re spending our entire time moving the needle and coaching our people — which is what we need to be doing as sales leaders.” By using Gong, Ryan was able to give his sales team’s “pipeline a haircut — where it was happy ears” in a much quicker way than if he had exported spreadsheets from his CRM or messaged his sales people individually. By quarter-end, Ryan was satisfied with the clarity that Gong’s Deal Intelligence capabilities were able to provide. “Gong has helped me create context for my organization of what matters to our customers and [has shown] what’s actually happening in the marketplace.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Learning and transforming: How Gong helps Udemy make critical revenue decisions Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Education Hear.com improves high volume sales call effectiveness with Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Hospitals & Physicians Clinics How Gong Forecast helps Crayon create accurate and reliable forecasting Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet

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Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Apptio keep their field sales team engaged

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:12:22 +0000

Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Apptio keep their field sales team engaged Coaching Deal Execution Small Business North America Software The challenge With the 2020 global pandemic forcing everyone to work remotely, Apptio sought to keep their field sales team engaged as they adjusted to an inside sales structure. The outcome Gong gave Apptio the ability to coach their teams and to re-circulate best practice to reps in spite of the adjustment to a remote work environment. Watch video Headquarters Bellevue, WA Founded 2007 Employees 1,100+ Website www.apptio.com Industry Cloud-based applications “I think one of the hardest things about having entirely remote sales force is it’s hard to maintain that sense of peer sharing and camaraderie,” admitted Mitchell Matsuo, a Revenue Enablement Consultant at Apptio. Apptio is a software company that is purpose-built to help organizations cut costs, budget faster, and forecast continuously. While it already had a great system in place for remote employees, the global pandemic of 2020 made things more challenging. Apptio’s field sales teams, accustomed to traveling to customer sites, had been forced to truly work remotely. However, Apptio was able to better adjust by leveraging several features in the Gong platform, including comments, snippets, and the activity tab. While the year has certainly been a rollercoaster, Mitchell is glad he has Gong to help out his team. “Gong is hands down the quantum leap in sales enablement. It’s the ability to identify the best practice. It’s the ability to identify room for coaching. And it’s the ability to re-circulate best practice to reps who need it the most.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Leveraging Revenue Intelligence to Drive Conversions and Build a Growth Mindset Small Business Coaching North America Software How Stansberry Research finally got the info it needed (Hint: Gong) Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet How Gong Helped Proposify Cut Their Sales Cycle In Half Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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Hear.com improves high volume sales call effectiveness with Gong

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:06:31 +0000

Hear.com improves high volume sales call effectiveness with Gong Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Enterprise Global Hospitals & Physicians Clinics The challenge As Hear.com was growing quickly, they wanted to have a greater understanding about what their sales team was really talking about and the ability to analyze their customer interactions. The outcome With Gong, Hear.com has improved their coaching and has “gotten smarter” about how they approach their sales calls. Download PDF Learn More Headquarters Coral Gables, FL Founded 2012 Employees 1,200 Website www.hear.com Industry Medical Technology Hear.com is the fastest-growing hearing care company globally. They are driven by their belief that every person should hear well to live well. But aside from hearing, Hear.com wanted to improve their sales team’s listening. With Gong, their sales leadership is able to better listen and analyze their team’s calls to look for ways to improve coaching and the way the team approaches the market. Veit Albert, the VP of Sales at Hear.com says, “If you want to get smarter about what your sales reps are saying on the phone — how you want to improve — you need Gong to get these insights.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software How Paycor uses Gong for improved onboarding, coaching, deal strategy, and pipeline forecasting Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Sprout Social creates a customer-first culture using Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Software

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Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 07:55:53 +0000

Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge Without visibility into customer conversations, Cognism missed out on valuable insights that could improve onboarding, coaching, up-skilling, and close rates. The outcome Gong’s platform gave the company the data it needed to improve everything from its product and messaging to close rates and customer success. Having access to calls — the most important part of any deal — improved Cognism’s processes across departments. Download PDF Headquarters London, UK Founded 2015 Company Size 201-500 Industry Computer Software I think that with remote work, platforms like Gong are really, really important for sharing, collaborating, and getting visibility into discussions. Jonathon Ilett Global Head of Sales at Cognism Keep your eyes on the prize (and ground) Visibility is becoming increasingly important to people like Jonathon Ilett and his team at Cognism. The fast-growing company, headquartered in London, UK, specialises in global sales intelligence, helping customers identify and surface new prospects. It was named one of LinkedIn’s top startups of 2021. Having eyes on the ground (i.e., the frontlines) across his own distributed workforce has been key to improving his team’s sales techniques and broadening everyone’s knowledge base across the customer journey. Jonathon needed to ensure that his reps followed approved processes and that every opportunity he had for coaching would, in fact, improve their close rates. Launch a transformational tool “Gong initially started as a sales technology for us,” says Jonathon, “and now it’s an organisational technology that has an impact on multiple departments.” Throughout the pandemic, technologies that enabled collaboration replaced face-to-face interactions. Once the team saw how well Gong integrated throughout Cognism’s entire organisation, it found a permanent place in the company’s sales processes. According to Jonathon, “It’s changed our messaging, improved products, and helped with customer success. Even if things go back to normal and field sales become standard again, I really think that software like Gong will play a massive role in the future of sales.” Discover reality-based insights for coaching, onboarding, and rolling out strategic initiatives So, how does Cognism use Gong to improve performance of its distributed team? Namely, it improves coaching for reps. That’s only possible because Jonathon has reality-based (not opinion-based) insights from what’s happening on reps’ calls. Gong captures actual customer interactions and analyzes them to provide insights, rather than relying on hearsay from the reps themselves. He has the team do a weekly core review in which they select a call from a rep and offer up positive feedback as well as notes for improvement. Obviously, the benefit is that the top reps can suggest best practices. The role Gong plays in this process is in selecting the right calls for review — ones that include a topic with which a rep (or multiple reps) struggle. Gong acts as a filtering system that makes the most important calls and issues visible. That might mean selecting a call that highlights objection handling, or one that focuses on pricing discussions. For Jonathon’s part, he can also track high-priority calls to improve how he coaches on them. If he’s focused on improving win rates in competitive deals, for example, he can track relevant calls using Gong’s alert notifications, learn what works (and what doesn’t), and coach his reps accordingly. He can also sift through closed deals where a competitor was mentioned in the deal cycle, to look for trends in those calls and their talk tracks. He takes specific lessons from these deals and turns them into actionable coaching opportunities for his reps. “You can really find and dissect calls that you might otherwise lose. And you have such limited time with the team, so making sure you select the right calls, ones that will up-skill your team, is huge. Gong plays a really, really key part in that.” Just like coaching, onboarding and ongoing training on strategic initiatives can make or break a sales rep’s effectiveness. You need to know that your onboarding or new message training worked, so you can trust reps to deliver your story and messaging appropriately. “We want to make sure that what we preach to the reps lands in terms of training, narratives around battle cards, product positioning, and the product itself. We need to know they have the correct demo flow,” says Jonathon. Gong gives Cognism the clarity it needs to make sure reps follow the proper processes and use the right messaging. Being able to filter calls, find coachable moments, and act on them using Gong data makes onboarding and subsequent training on new initiatives fast and easy. Product marketing and sales enablement can also easily access insights into what’s being adopted, what lands well in the market, and what doesn’t work for customers and prospects. It’s an across-the-board solution that aligns your sales and go-to-market teams and gives them new information on a regular basis. Improve deal execution with automated intelligence “Gong’s now integral to a lot of the processes we have in place for sales,” says Jonathon. The sales team at Cognism quickly realised that leveraging Gong to get data-backed insights and actionable next steps from sales calls made it easier to understand why some deals closed and others didn’t. Today, that means Jonathon can coach on deals that are at risk and stop others from going sideways in the first place. It makes deal execution easier across his entire pipeline. Jonathon isn’t alone when he laments the fact that, “Prior to having a solution like Gong, we relied on data inputted by reps and customer success managers to determine the fate of opportunities and potential renewal. Having a platform that lets us dig into calls right away or at a later date, means we can act quickly when it’s needed or reflect on an issue over the long term. It means I have better and more relevant discussions with my reps. That was the first reason we decided to adopt Revenue Intelligence.” Align your teams around customer interactions Gong hasn’t just helped Cognism’s sales team, it’s boosted the entire organisation. As Jonathon puts it, “The juicy stuff is in the conversations. Marketing and customer success now have access to all our sales calls, and we can easily share snippets from important calls. They can really see what resonates with our prospects, where their challenges are, and what the market’s asking for.” That ability to discern the true voice of the customer improves the customer journey, and that boosts customer loyalty and revenue. Jonathon’s experience reflects that of so many sales leaders: “Before, there was no real visibility into conversations that had taken place. Why did someone actually purchase from us? What problems did they really want to address? Now that the customer success team is on Gong, we know that when we sign a client, we’ve got a catalog of all the conversations that took place with their sales rep. CS doesn’t have to ask the customer to repeat their entire story, because the person assigned to that account already knows the backstory. The buyer experience has been a lot better since we adopted Gong.” Next steps (They’re big.) With Gong now providing reality-based insights, time-saving automation, and a renewed sense of alignment, the sky’s the limit for Cognism. Cognism’s teams are refining their messaging, planning further product developments, improving customer experiences, and more, all with the help of insights from its sales team’s customer interactions. Rapid growth is in full swing at Cognism. The Gong team couldn’t be more excited to smooth the path ahead to keep their teams and customers connected. Learn more about Gong here. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Gainsight’s CEO uses Gong to better understand the true market Small Business Coaching Global Software How monday.com used Gong to align revenue teams around customers Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Software The Gong GOATs: How Demandbase grew its market presence and hiked win rates Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution North America Software

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TouchBistro gains next level sales insights with Gong for deals

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 07:44:08 +0000

TouchBistro gains next level sales insights with Gong for deals Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software The challenge TouchBistro wanted a solution that could help them coach and provide great feedback to enable reps to be better. They were also searching for an AI-driven solution that would help surface trends and other elements in calls. The outcome By using Gong to enhance their sales processes, TouchBistro gained a dramatic lift in their lead-to-opportunity conversion rate and improved their attainment rate for reps. Watch video Headquarters Toronto, ON Founded 2010 Employees 500+ Industry Restaurant Software TouchBistro is an iPad POS and integrated payments solution built for restaurant people, by restaurant people – with every feature designed to meet the unique needs and fast pace of the foodservice industry. Used in more than 100 countries, TouchBistro has powered over 25,000 restaurants worldwide. They were experiencing a “black box of selling” in which they didn’t have any clarity around their sales process — what was working or not, or what they could focus on to optimize messaging. Paul Snelson, TouchBistro’s VP of Sales, wanted to turn things around, and ultimately selected Gong for a “coaching-first approach.” After making the most out of several of Gong’s features, such as trackers, topics, and libraries, what really provided Paul with “next level insights for sales and sales managers” is Gong’s Deal Intelligence. “Deal Intelligence has been completely game-changing for us to be able to get the view of pipeline and activities,” he shares, and is proud to state that TouchBistro has seen “a dramatic lift in our lead to opportunity conversion rate” and “consistent improvement in our attainment rate for all the reps.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How SoftServe Used Gong to Adapt and Align Their Teams Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Impact Cultivates a Sales Culture of Collaboration and Improvement Small Business Coaching Global Software Gong for BDRs: How Aircall boosted qualified pipeline by 35% in EMEA Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Global Business Services

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