Deal Execution Archives - Gong

Canva’s 6% revenue boost: How using Gong transformed their strategy

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:20:36 +0000

Canva’s 6% revenue boost: How using Gong transformed their strategy Deal Execution Engage Forecast Enterprise Asia-Pacific Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software 6% increase in revenue 60% increase in rep capacity The challenge Reps and managers on Canva’s EMEA sales team found it difficult to get insights into their customers and book of business. That meant pipeline decisions weren’t always market- or data-driven — all of which made it tough to grow the business. The outcome Canva used Gong Engage and Gong Forecast to bring innovation into their sales process, experimenting with messaging, tactics, and strategies that respond to the market. This improved productivity, and secured more accurate forecasting. It enabled a 60% boost in rep capacity and a 6% growth in the team’s revenue. Headquarters Surry Hills, New South Wales founded 2012 company size 5,000+ industry Software Development There’s astounding growth happening at Canva, the global visual communication platform. They’re a “name to know” if you have an eye on powerful and transformative platforms. (And we do!) Behind the scenes, one of the tools Canva’s EMEA sales team relies on to drive growth: Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform. Moving the team into Gong’s unified platform has boosted innovation across Canva’s sales process while also creating operational rigor for their sellers — they can drive predictable revenue and create pipeline growth. Canva’s EMEA sales team adopted Gong after bumping up against the all-too-common frustration of needing better deal, workflow, and customer interaction insights to support productivity and growth. Given the company’s dedication to innovation and creativity, they recognized Gong as a kindred platform — one with the power to transform its users. Gong Engage enables a 60% jump in rep capacity and unleashes revenue growth Jorge Bestard, Canva’s Head of Sales and Success EMEA, wanted his team to easily surface insights from frontline customer interactions. Today, Gong AI insights are critical to multiple functions at Canva — product, marketing, SDRs, account executives, and managers. Since adopting both Gong and Gong Engage — a sales engagement solution that pairs with the larger platform — Canva’s AEs and managers have seen a 60% increase in their capacity to manage their book of business. This is driven by insights that are gathered through conversation intelligence and surfaced using Gong AI. The team now uses Gong and Gong Engage to create efficiencies throughout the sales process: “When our reps speak with customers, it’s very important that we get all the insights from those interactions and use them to give guidance on how to personalize at scale. With Gong Engage, we’re able to do all of that with ease.” —Jorge Bestard, Canva’s Head of EMEA With this type of support from Gong, the team is able to manage more accounts more efficiently, which has led to a 6% increase in revenue across the sales region. Enhanced forecasting leads to predictable revenue “Gong’s insights are incredibly important to our projections.” —Jorge Bestard, Canva’s Head of EMEA With Gong Forecast, Jorge’s team automatically receives insights into what closes deals and what doesn’t, alongside continuous forecast updates. These insights are a foundational part of Canva’s three-pronged forecasting approach. This approach begins with an AE’s sense of a deal, which is important, but can only take Jorge and his team so far. That’s why he turns to the Gong metrics that reflect Canva’s chosen sales methodology, and data signals that Gong surfaces automatically from SDRs’ and AEs’ customer interactions. Jorge says this third aspect, in particular, is what really solidified accuracy in the team’s forecasting. “It’s what makes everything whole,” he says. “We can’t compare it to anything we’ve used in the past.” This predictability and accuracy helps Jorge and his leadership team make smarter, data-based decisions about where to focus their resources, how quickly to scale their teams, and more. His managers also use the metrics and data signals from Gong for highly targeted coaching. “The AI insights our first- and second-line managers get from Gong’s Ask Anything, and the AI insights that come from Gong automatically, allow us to forecast and coach more effectively.” Fueling innovation at Canva with Gong’s insights “Gong’s AI is my chief of staff.” —Jorge Bestard, Canva’s Head of EMEA The teams in Jorge’s sales region connect with customers in more than 20 languages, and Gong captures and translates them all with industry-leading accuracy. Access to these regional market insights has improved the team’s operational excellence across the board. Managers can surface best practices in any language using Ask Anything — a generative AI feature that answers any questions about a contact, deal, or account — then tailor and test those practices in their own region. “Gong has also become the platform where we go to do sales experiments around new messaging, tactics, or strategies,” says Jorge. If the team wants to try out messaging for a CIO versus a CTO, they test it in Gong. Jorge says that before Gong, it was like managers were in a black box, just hoping their new messaging would work. But now they know exactly what their reps say and its effect on win rates. “Our managers used to have to sit in on too many calls to get a sense of where their reps needed coaching. Today, they can easily sift through market trends and manage 60 to 70 deals at once.” These managers use what they learn to shape their team’s sales messaging, go-to-market strategies, and even which products they talk about — leaning heavily on Gong’s customer insights and the ability to surface analytics from their experiments. “Gong has also enabled our product team to get a lot closer to our customers. When they think about a new feature, they actually go to Gong first.” The product team regularly listens to key moments from sales calls — moments where customers talk about their greatest pains and what they really crave in a design solution. That allows the product team to respond directly to customer needs and create moonshots that customers don’t even realize they need. Jorge says it’s clear that the entire revenue team is able to make better decisions. From deciding where to invest human capital, to which markets to go into (and why), to considering price sensitivity in certain countries or regions, Gong AI enables it all. Canva is equipped for a data-driven future “Having our data all in one platform, at each step of the process, means we can make better data-driven decisions to really drive our region into the future,” says Jorge. Gong has become an essential platform in shaping the team’s go-to-market strategy. They’re now able to manage their pipeline 60% more efficiently and are seeing a boost in revenue, starting with a 6% increase on the EMEA team. “Gong has been a great partner because it has gotten us closer to our customers than ever before.” 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 Auvik created Its a-team with Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Business Financing Leader Funding Circle Credits Gong With More Successful Customer Interactions Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Global Business Financing Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software

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Alignment across RevOps and reps brings Frontify a 30% increase in lead conversion

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:43:15 +0000

Alignment across RevOps and reps brings Frontify a 30% increase in lead conversion Deal Execution Engage Forecast Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software 30% increase in lead conversion 20% increase in forecast accuracy The challenge Frontify used a combination of customized business intelligence solutions and spreadsheets — a workflow that was prone to errors. These cumbersome processes had a negative impact on productivity, pipeline conversion, and revenue predictability. The outcome Frontify gained contextualized signals on every customer interaction by consolidating onto the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform. Using Gong Engage, the sales team refined its messaging and increased lead conversion rates by 30 percent. Plus, real-time insights into deal health from Gong Forecast led to a 20 percent increase in the company’s forecast accuracy. Headquarters St.Gallen, Switzerland founded 2013 company size 500+ industry Software Development Building an iconic brand takes a village and — perhaps most importantly — that village has to be on the same page. That’s where Frontify comes in. Frontify bills itself as “the brand for the people behind brands.” The company offers a cloud-based, brand-building platform that combines digital asset management, brand guidelines, and templates into a fully collaborative single source of brand truth. As the Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify, Naya Tsoukala knows a thing or two about building the Frontify brand. “My priorities include fostering alignment between sales, customer success, and all commercial teams, ensuring that we have a streamlined way of looking at forecasting and processes that set us up for success,” she says. However, that had been tough to do when the revenue team had to manage and integrate multiple solutions. Ironically, what the Frontify platform helps brand teams achieve around the world, the Frontify sales teams weren’t able to do for themselves because they had too many tools that didn’t play well together. “Consolidation has been the main driver,” Naya says. “It’s always amazing to have one platform where you can do everything — from pipeline management to forecasting — with productivity and sophisticated insights.” Previously, all data had to flow through Frontify’s CRM. Because the revenue team had other products integrated with the CRM, they encountered integration problems that led to unreliable or incomplete sales data. They had lots of data, but little confidence. To alleviate these challenges, Naya and her revenue team switched to the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform, including Gong Forecast for greater revenue predictability and Gong Engage for full-cycle sales engagement. 30% growth in lead conversion by switching to Gong Engage Before they consolidated onto a unified platform, Frontify was using Outreach to support its sales processes. “What Outreach is lacking is those contextual signals that allow our sales teams to engage more efficiently and intelligently with our prospects,” says Naya. By switching to Gong Engage, reps at Frontify have more detail on every customer interaction right at their fingertips, allowing them to refine their messaging and increase lead conversion rates by 30 percent. “Gong’s AI has changed our approach to sales engagement,” she adds. “We now have actionable insights that we can leverage. We don’t need to add CRM notes — you can just ask AI to give you a summary. Everything is at our fingertips.” Beyond increased win rates, Frontify’s sales team is also seeing a higher quality of leads entering the pipeline. And with centralized workflows and full context across account histories, the company’s reps can spend less time searching for deal insights and more time selling. “We’ve noticed a drastic improvement on our lead conversion rate. We are noticing a 30 percent increase.” — Naya Tsoukala, Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify Forecast accuracy grows by 20% with real-time insights Running a well-oiled revenue machine is about more than just converting leads or generating pipeline (even though those are critical). It’s also about making that revenue predictable. But Frontify’s cobbled-together solutions lacked the real-time data necessary to power the company’s forecasting system. This led to friction between the teams because they didn’t have a standardized approach to pipeline management. “We used to miss our quarterly forecast by 30 or 40 percent,” Naya says. “Since implementing Gong Forecast, we’ve noticed a 20 percent increase in our forecast accuracy.” The real-time insights into deal health and progression that Gong Forecast provides have led to more efficient pipeline management, directly contributing to Frontify’s revenue growth. “It’s a win-win situation for everybody,” Naya says. “It’s a win for RevOps because we get to implement the infrastructure setup we strive for, and it’s a big win for reps because they get the results they’re aiming for.” “Gong’s reliable and precise forecasts are now being trusted and used by our board to inform strategic decisions.” — Naya Tsoukala, Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify Finally, a platform everyone loves The ability to deliver a seamless experience to reps has been game-changing both for Frontify and for its frontline. As Naya says, “They do their jobs better. They convert better. They’re happier. Reps now have a greater ability to accelerate their results.” And with increased alignment across teams, the company’s revenue organization can now enjoy a unified and streamlined experience similar to what Frontify’s own brand-building platform is bringing to businesses around the world. “Working with Gong has helped us stay ahead of competition by providing detailed and actionable insights that drive revenue.” — Naya Tsoukala, Head of Revenue Operations at Frontify 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 Elsevier lands 45% larger deals using Gong across its NOAM sales team Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Global Business Services How Uberflip used Gong to create winning outcomes and push ACV up by 13% Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software How Stansberry Research finally got the info it needed (Hint: Gong) Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet

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How Elsevier lands 45% larger deals using Gong across its NOAM sales team

Hannah Hapin — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 17:59:48 +0000

How Elsevier lands 45% larger deals using Gong across its NOAM sales team Coaching Deal Execution Enterprise Global Business Services 35% boost in deal velocity 45% growth in deal size The challenge Healthcare information powerhouse Elsevier faced challenges in optimizing efficiency in its sales team’s workflows. The company also needed a better way for its managers to access deal information that could help them support their reps — and close bigger deals. The outcome Using Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform, Elsevier’s sales team achieved incredible productivity gains in their workflows. This led to a 35% increase in deal velocity and a 45% growth in deal size when managers were involved in deals in Gong. headquarters Amsterdam, North Holland founded 1880 company size 10,000+ inDustry IT Services and IT Consulting No one understands deep market changes like a 145-year-old company. Just ask the people at Elsevier. Long a powerhouse in the publishing world, Elsevier now specializes in data tools that empower health researchers and clinicians to achieve better outcomes. Internally, Elsevier also uses solutions that help its employees — notably, its sales reps — achieve more. In fact, when Elsevier’s 120 North American sales reps and its managers started using the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform to manage their deals, they became incredibly productive. Reps boosted their average deal velocity by 35% and increased the size of their deals by 45% when managers are involved. Tim McGee is Elsevier’s VP Global Sales Operations, where he equips his teams with the tools they need to do their jobs efficiently. “Gong has become an essential part of our go-to-market operation.” —Tim McGee, VP Global Sales Operations, Elsevier Here’s how Tim and his team use revenue intelligence to get double-digit results. Productivity boosts Elsevier’s deal velocity by 35% “The impact Gong has had on our rep productivity is enormous,” says Tim. “We’re able to close deals 35% faster today because of it.” Gong has boosted Elsevier’s productivity and deal velocity simultaneously, through workflow efficiencies. The sales team Tim supports is more efficient now that their reps are using key insights identified by Gong’s Call Spotlight to shape how they tackle deals. They can easily clarify pain points, outcomes, and next steps, and create effective offers faster to keep deals moving. The managers on the sales team also use Gong to quickly understand key data about their reps’ deals, including risk factors that might jeopardize those deals. “Gong has enabled managers and reps to be closer to our deals, which ultimately results in their being more effective in closing those deals, driving win rates, and closing larger deals. Ultimately, they attain sharper conversion rates.” —Tim McGee, VP Global Sales Operations, Elsevier Sales managers no longer have to ask for updates about deals — they’re empowered to go right into Gong’s Deal Board and immediately understand what’s happening. They can share key information with relevant people at Elsevier and remove the barrier of asking reps for deal updates. Pairing that with reading Gong AI-generated summaries instead of listening to dozens of phone calls means significant time savings. That time saved enables managers to do what they do best — coach reps to move the right deals forward, quickly. Plus, with Gong’s insights, managers know exactly who needs coaching, when, and why. It’s all added up to a 35% improvement in deal velocity. AI optimizes pipeline conversion and enables a 45% increase in deal size Tim says that Gong AI plays a major role in giving Elsevier faster and more accurate updates on deals. Reps are also closing larger deals thanks to better coaching from their managers, stemming from Gong AI. “When managers get involved in a customer engagement within Gong, we see a 45% increase in the deal size.” —Tim McGee, VP Global Sales Operations, Elsevier (With results like that, it’s not surprising that Tim’s managers have a 95% engagement rate with the platform!) The feature managers will use the most is Ask Anything, where they can input any question — say, “Is this deal going to close?” — and immediately get a reliable response from Gong AI. Managers can use Ask Anything and Gong’s Deal Board to get insights into customer interactions, and “identify the yellow lights,” as Tim puts it. That is, they’re spotting risks that can affect any deal, whether it’s for a new buyer or a renewal. Managers use this information to guide deals back on track and focus reps’ efforts where they’ll be most effective. It’s made for a “cleaner and more active pipeline,” according to Tim. Workflow: Customer-centric innovation and alignment “The biggest impact Gong has had on our business is removing the subjectivity of the voice of the customer.” —Tim McGee, VP Global Sales Operations, Elsevier That statement is explained by two enhancements across the team: The ability to shore up their incredibly important renewal base. Using the voice of the customer in other areas of the business beyond sales, including the product and go-to-market teams. Elsevier now uses the voice of the customer to build new products and enhance existing ones stemming from customer feedback shared across teams via Gong. “We have more than 200 global users outside the sales team. The inputs they get from Gong inform product decisions and help us build our commercial strategies and market to our customers more effectively.” —Tim McGee, VP Global Sales Operations, Elsevier Access to the voice of the customer has also heightened organizational effectiveness around account handoffs. No one drops the ball when a customer moves from sales to customer success. It’s easy for everyone to get fully briefed on the history of a deal, account, or contact — and in a fraction of the time it used to take. Elsevier reimagines work using Gong AI “Gong’s AI is powerful, accurate, and frankly, a game changer.” —Tim McGee, VP Global Sales Operations, Elsevier Elsevier’s team has expanded their use of Gong from conversion rates and deal size to its entire ecosystem. “It’s fully integrated into the way that we work at Elsevier.” The company is getting the most out of Gong, and will continue to make improvements on top of its 35% boost in deal velocity and 45% increase in deal values. Gong is Elsevier’s key partner in bringing efficiency to the forefront of its global sales team’s workflows and ensuring the success of its go-to-market initiatives. The end result is greater success — and higher revenue — at Elsevier. 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 Virgin Pulse used Gong to achieve a 4x jump in its top-of-funnel conversions (in this economy!) Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Global Software Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Zappi focus and forecast during an uncertain time Small Business Deal Execution Europe/Middle East/Africa Software Round the World in Many Ways: How Mimecast Secured a Successful Global Messaging Rollout with Data Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Business Services

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Gong’s revenue intelligence fuels a 141% surge in Paycor’s client sales success

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 19:52:49 +0000

Gong’s revenue intelligence fuels a 141% surge in Paycor’s client sales success Deal Execution Enterprise North America Software 141% increase in deal wins The challenge Paycor’s client sales team found it difficult to manage the thousands of deals in their pipeline each month and forecast them accurately. The outcome The client sales team got an incredible 141% increase in deal wins when they started using Gong’s AI-powered platform to manage their pipeline. They were also able to forecast more accurately and improve their sellers’ productivity. Headquarters Cincinnati, OH founded 1990 company size 3,000+ industry Software Development Gong is the most monumental technology to come along since the CRM itself. Jeff Weaver VP of Client Sales That arresting statement came from Jeff Weaver, the Vice President of Client Sales at Paycor, after his team experienced a 141% sales bump — unheard of these days. How did they make it happen? Paycor is an enterprise-level, SaaS Human Capital Management (HCM) organization that used Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform to improve its pipeline management, forecasting accuracy, and productivity workflows. These AI-powered improvements boosted the number of closed-won deals per seller on their client sales team and improved their revenue forecast for the year ahead. Pipeline management brings on a 141% boost in upsell deal wins Paycor is a high-velocity sales organization. They have 54 reps who upsell into Paycor’s existing client base and close approximately 1,000 deals a month. The team has around 3,000 deals in the pipeline at any given moment. As Jeff noted, tracking 3,000+ deals simply isn’t feasible; the number of data inputs is beyond human scale. His sales leaders didn’t always know which deals to focus on, and couldn’t get a clear sense of where their pipeline stood at a given point in time. Plus, everything in the CRM comes from sellers’ gut instincts about which information is important, so CRM information isn’t always accurate or relevant. That’s why Jeff’s team started using Gong — to identify priority deals and track the entire pipeline’s progress accurately. Gong summarizes massive quantities of data and makes it consumable so his team can focus on winnable deals in a very manageable way. With Gong’s insights, the team stays focused on the right upselling opportunities, pinpointing deals that are stuck and suggesting the best next steps to get them moving again. “The platform helps my leaders decide where to focus their attention and where to place their bets. And the payoff has been massive. We’ve seen a 141% increase in the number of upselling deals closed per seller across the team.” —Jeff Weaver, VP Client Sales, Paycor They now operate at full velocity and are managing their pipeline to incredible effect. Holistic pipeline visibility means more forecast accuracy CRM data alone isn’t a good foundation for reliable deal predictions, month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter. The information Jeff needs to craft accurate forecasts is scattered across multiple systems, including CRM, email, and call logs. Gong aggregates and distills this data, so rather than experiencing information overwhelm, Jeff, his sales leaders, and his reps get an accurate picture of what’s happening across the pipeline and in each deal. Everyone can quickly understand Gong’s digestible insights — including the percentage likelihood that a deal will close — and use that information to make better decisions and keep every deal on track. Today, Gong’s holistic view of Paycor’s client sales pipeline drives the team’s forecast accuracy. It gives them the data they need to understand which deals are most likely to close, and which need immediate attention. “With Gong, we’re able to create a much more accurate forecast, because we’re not relying on what a seller thinks is going to happen — we’re drawing on CRM, call, email, and historical data.” —Jeff Weaver, VP Client Sales, Paycor AI enables more efficient and productive selling Now that customer interaction data and insights are available to everyone on the revenue team in Gong, their workflows and cross-team communications operate more efficiently and smoothly. Everyone stays up to date more easily and can serve customers with more productive and engaging offers. “With Gong, we can share important snippets from customer calls with our product development, implementation, service, and marketing teams. They all benefit from hearing the voice of the customer.” —Jeff Weaver, VP Client Sales, Paycor His reps also use Gong’s Call Spotlight as part of their pre- and post-call planning, which enables even more efficiencies. With AI-generated call summaries, reps can quickly review deal highlights and hear the voice of the customer, saving hours of time in prep work each week. They enter conversations well-prepared, offering customers more timely and thoughtful interactions. Gong’s AI has also allowed Jeff’s reps to be more attentive on calls because they don’t have to take notes. Gong does it for them, then summarizes their customer interactions, and even provides AI-backed next best steps to keep reps on task. Reps can easily follow up on every call with a personalized email drafted by Gong’s generative AI. These capabilities have reduced the administrative burden associated with each call reps make, and increased their efficiency. “Gong’s AI features, like ‘Ask Anything,’ call summaries, and recommended next steps, makes our sellers and leaders much more productive. It saves everyone a ton of time.” —Jeff Weaver, VP Client Sales, Paycor Upsell wins are on the rise with Gong Jeff has never seen a transformation like the one his team experienced after adopting Gong. As he puts it, “I couldn’t be more sincere when I say that Gong’s AI is truly game changing.” How else can you describe a solution that helps a revenue team go from struggling to oversee their pipeline to one that manages it effectively, forecasts more accurately, and ultimately upsells to win 141% more deals? 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 BlueGrace’s reps got an 88% lift in reply rates using Gong Engage Coaching Deal Execution North America Business Services Pendo Implements Methodologies to Improve Win Rates Using Gong Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives North America Software Shortening the time to success for new sales reps Small Business Coaching North America Media & Internet

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How BlueGrace’s reps got an 88% lift in reply rates using Gong Engage

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 17:53:33 +0000

How BlueGrace’s reps got an 88% lift in reply rates using Gong Engage Coaching Deal Execution North America Business Services 88% Increase in reply rates 52% Increase in calls and email execution The challenge BlueGrace needed to boost its pipeline and conversion rates in a competitive market. When “spray-and-pray” outreach tactics didn’t work, they turned to Gong Engage — a full-cycle sales engagement solution — to fully transform their sales engagement workflows and improve coaching. The outcome BlueGrace sellers now use Engage to create higher-quality outreach that gets 88% more responses. Engage’s workflow efficiency gains and AI-backed, prioritized to-do lists help those same reps execute 52% more calls and emails, and touch 49% more accounts. headquarters Riverview, FL Founded 2009 Company size 700+ industry Transportation & Storage Self-driving vehicles aren’t the only groundbreaking innovation happening in the transportation space. Something astounding happened this past year at BlueGrace Logistics, a logistics technology, freight management, and customized transportation management company with more than 10,000 customers across the United States. BlueGrace Logistics used Gong Engage to transform their selling motions and boost pipeline flowthrough and conversion rates. The increase they received in outreach reply rates was outstanding: “Since we launched Gong Engage, our outreach response rates have increased from 16% to 30%. That’s an 88% boost.” —Bryce Williford, SVP of Sales, BlueGrace Logistics It was exactly what BlueGrace needed, but couldn’t achieve without the right sales engagement solution. Before Engage, BlueGrace’s full-cycle sellers worked in legacy tools that forced them into disjointed sales engagement workflows. Critically, the workflows didn’t support the personalization that’s essential to winning deals in this sector. Sellers wasted time on admin tasks and tool switching, and struggled to prioritize revenue-generating activities. Despite their efforts, they ran low-quality engagement and got poor response rates. Making matters worse, BlueGrace’s sales leaders had limited visibility into their sellers’ onboarding and performance, so coaching was a guessing game. That opaqueness was only compounded by siloed teams and fragmented data, making it so sales leaders couldn’t access the analytics they needed to run day-to-day operations or make critical business decisions. BlueGrace’s sales engagement system was broken… until they consolidated their people, data, and workflows in one unified platform: Gong. Streamlined workflows enable 88% more replies Bryce Williford, SVP of Sales at BlueGrace, was ready to eliminate the often-used but rarely effective “spray-and-pray” tactics that were a mainstay on his team. It was time to shift from quantity to quality engagement. That meant leaving the team’s legacy tools behind. Today, his full-cycle reps manage their entire lead-to-close sales process in Gong. “We live in Gong. It’s our sales team’s primary solution for their day-to-day work. All our outreach, daily planning, Scorecards, metrics, and performance management happens in Gong.” — Bryce Williford, SVP of Sales, BlueGrace Logistics Bryce’s teams now use streamlined flows for activities, events, and key industries, all of which include email templates and phone scripts that can be personalized. The workflow is more efficient and the customer journey is tailored and cohesive from first touch to close. These workflow improvements moved BlueGrace’s reply rates by 88% (from 16% to 30%). The sales (and revenue) teams see their Salesforce data in Gong’s “Deals” board, which helps with precise pipeline management. Everyone updates their opportunities and revenue predictions directly in Gong, so there’s no platform switching. This gives BlueGrace’s customers a smooth, high-quality experience that helps close more deals. Improved productivity drives 52% more actions and 49% more accounts touched Today, Bryce’s sellers spend more time selling. (Good thing too: According to Forrester, sales reps usually spend 77% of their time on non-selling activities.) Since adopting Engage, BlueGrace sellers execute 52% more sales calls and emails, and touch 49% more accounts. How are they achieving such outstanding results? With help from Gong’s proprietary AI models. Gong’s AI-powered workflows help users save time while staying up to date on their key deal activities. With generated call summaries and prioritized daily to-do lists, for example, sellers spend less time on administrative tasks and more time making calls and sending personalized emails. With Gong’s full visibility into the highlights and next best steps in each account, sales leaders have the insights they need to coach their teams to more closed-won deals. Plus, leaders can quickly review call summaries and key performance metrics for any individual or deal. They’re covering more accounts than ever before, and getting great results. “Our recent class of new hires is getting 2x the expected revenue productivity, even in a challenging market. And we’re continuing to hire, which not a lot of companies can say right now. The only thing I can attribute that to is Gong.” —Bryce Williford, SVP of Sales, BlueGrace Logistics A single source of truth unifies the entire team The distributed nature of BlueGrace’s workforce previously made it hard to confirm that every team was using the same data. That’s not an issue anymore. Since Bryce brought his nine geographically dispersed teams and their data into a unified platform, everyone — from the frontlines to executives — is on the same page about pipeline health. They all have access to a single source of truth that provides them with the complete context of their customers’ and prospects’ accounts. That includes all of BlueGrace’s interactions and past actions with each account. Historically, Bryce’s teams struggled to get good front-end data about their sales activities. This made performance management and pipeline predictability very difficult, as everything was based on anecdotal or self-reported information. Now, BlueGrace’s sales teams have coachable insights at their fingertips. As Bryce says, “Gong has become our single source of truth for performance management.” Having everyone in one platform also means Bryce can build flows for sales teams or pursuit groups, with leaders in different departments and locations contributing to those flows. “That’s been critical. As we scale our sales team in multiple locations, we need a place to collaborate. Gong is the community for my sales teams. We can be anywhere in the world and still be part of that community.” —Bryce Williford, SVP of Sales, BlueGrace Logistics BlueGrace relies on Gong in a challenging market BlueGrace has had so much success transforming their workflows and coaching with Engage that, even in the current market, they’re growing their business and hiring new reps. With an 88% lift in reply rates, they understandably need more sellers in their roster! In fact, they now use Gong as an incentive in their sales rep recruiting campaigns. Bryce even plans to build his upcoming sales KPI processes entirely on the platform. As he says, “The success is evident from at all levels of our organization, from the CEO down to our entry-level sales reps. We wouldn’t have the success we’re having today — in a very challenging market — if it wasn’t for our partnership with Gong.” 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 a Google sales team got hours of its time back using Gong Global Software Learning and transforming: How Gong helps Udemy make critical revenue decisions Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Education How Uberflip used Gong to create winning outcomes and push ACV up by 13% Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software

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Fast-growing Rootly sees 67% increase in rep productivity thanks to early investment in Gong

Hannah Hapin — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 19:41:01 +0000

Fast-growing Rootly sees 67% increase in rep productivity thanks to early investment in Gong Deal Execution Small Business North America Software 67% increase in rep productivity 13% increase in competitive win rates The challenge Up against ambitious goals, JJ Tang, CEO and Co-founder at Rootly, needed to onboard reps faster. With a growing team, JJ wanted a better way to share information and facilitate strategic decision-making across the organization. The outcome The Rootly team turned to the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform to improve rep productivity. As a result, they’ve seen a 13% increase in competitive win rates, and a 67% increase in deals per rep. Headquarters San Francisco, CA founded 2021 company size Small Business industry Software Development F1 drivers aren’t the only ones picking up speed. Last year, the team at Rootly, an incident response management platform, stepped on the gas and grew the business by 500%. Today Rootly has hundreds of customers like Tripadvisor, Squarespace, and Figma. “In the last year, we’ve been focused on scaling the business, and a lot of that comes down to bringing on new people, and new people need to be ramped quickly,” shares JJ Tang, CEO and Co-founder at Rootly. JJ and the Rootly team rely on the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform to drive faster ramp times and better business outcomes. In fact, using Gong to streamline productivity has increased the team’s competitive win rates by 13% and deals per rep by 67%. As a CEO, I’ve been focused on how we accelerate and scale. Gong is essential in ramping my growing team faster, getting deeper marketing insights, and making informed business decisions. JJ Tang, CEO and Co-Founder at Rootly Breaking down silos to build efficiency Looking for a better way to share information across the growing organization, JJ turned to Gong. Using the revenue intelligence technology, the Rootly team records and stores all internal and external conversations in one place. Having a single source of truth drives alignment across departments and enables the team to better serve their prospects and customers. “Gong has really helped us cut across silos,” shares JJ. Team members are no longer reliant on their memory or notes to execute critical business initiatives, leading to more effective work. “We don’t make errors at the same rate as we used to. Now everyone from product to sales to customer success can prioritize the tasks that will bring the most value to the company,” shares JJ. The team’s implementation of Gong has made a major impact on knowledge sharing, especially as early-adopters. “You have to invest in Gong early to pay dividends later,” shares JJ. He believes the platform is foundational to any high-growth business. Fast-growing companies should invest in Gong before they invest in Salesforce. It’s essential for getting the business insights leaders need. JJ Tang, CEO and Co-Founder at Rootly Competitive insights increase win rates by 13% In the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity and incident response management, access to timely competitive intel is critical. With insights from all conversations in one place, the Rootly team brought their competitive strategy into a new age and increased competitive win rates by 13%. JJ and his team use Gong’s market insights to track competitor mentions and learn who they’re up against. With access to in-depth conversation summaries, Rootly’s teams are able to learn about competitors’ features and functionality, and how their products are perceived in the market. These data-backed insights fuel the creation of go-to-market playbooks, and keep the team one step ahead of the competition. Reps are able to plant landmines against the competition and handle any objections thrown their way during prospect and customer interactions. A more equipped team has led to more closed deals, and more money for the business. More efficient processes lead to a 67% increase in deals per rep In addition to capturing competitive insights, the team at Rootly uses Gong to make new and existing sellers more efficient. By using Gong’s library of insights and snackable, AI-generated summaries, Rootly onboards reps 3x as quickly, which has helped them achieve their ambitious growth goals. “We’re not in the type of business where a person can ramp over four or five months. We need them to be doing their job in the first three weeks,” says JJ. “Gong AI does a great job of summarizing key points, so it makes onboarding super, super quick.” – JJ Tang, CEO and Co-Founder at Rootly Access to a deep repository of customer interaction history enables all reps, regardless of tenure, to see what’s working well and what isn’t. Rootly reps rely on Gong AI to help them quickly identify pain points and next steps so they can close more deals. The Rootly team also uses Gong to turn trial users into happy, paying customers. Using insights from past interactions, the Rootly team puts together a “brag document” for each trial user. They reference positive sentiments mentioned during their trial to help push the deal forward when it comes time for the final evaluation. This data-driven approach has led to more productive conversations and more revenue. The results speak for themselves: using Gong to gather insights across the buyer journey has resulted in a 67% increase in deals per rep. Rootly is off to the races Using Gong to share information, gather competitive insights, and onboard reps faster has helped JJ and the team bring on exciting new customers. And they’re just getting started; the Rootly team is still gaining momentum and finding new ways to streamline operations and enhance productivity with Gong. JJ is confident in his decision to bring Gong into their tech stack — his only regret was not doing it sooner. Gong is the best piece of software I bought last year. It instantly changed the way we worked and supercharged our productivity. My only regret was not switching from Otter.ai earlier. JJ Tang, CEO and Co-founder at Rootly 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 BlueCat Empowers Their Field Team to Understand Their Pipeline Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Business Services TIBCO has Mastered the Art of Closing Huge Deals Faster, Thanks to Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software Hear.com used Gong to generate a 45% increase in its close ratio Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Hospitals & Physicians Clinics

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Locking in predictable revenue: Gong takes Piano’s forecast accuracy to 90%

Hannah Hapin — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 19:40:52 +0000

Locking in predictable revenue: Gong takes Piano’s forecast accuracy to 90% Deal Execution Enterprise Global Software 90% Forecast accuracy The challenge Before Gong, Piano grappled with a critical hurdle—data fragmentation. Disjointed systems scattered vital insights essential for informed decisions. This lack of reliable data severely compromised global accuracy and revenue predictability. The outcome Piano’s team achieved 90% forecast accuracy and has significantly enhanced overall business decision-making. The team is saving several hours every week on reporting and pipeline inspection, allowing them to shift from reactive to strategic and confidently communicate their forecasts to the CEO and the board. Headquarters Amsterdam founded 2005 company size 800+ industry Software Development In revenue operations, you face an existential question: Does our company know with at least 90% certainty how much revenue is coming in, and when? If you can’t answer yes, it’s hugely challenging to make strategic decisions. Peter Lastowski, the VP of Revenue Operations at Piano knows this intimately — and he needed a way to confidently pinpoint Piano’s forecast. Piano is a rapidly scaling global software company with offices across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Piano’s platform helps major brands like Air France, the BBC, and LinkedIn to understand and influence their customers’ behavior. Piano experienced a tremendous transformation with Gong. Piano started with Gong’s Conversation Intelligence in 2021 to tighten sales processes, coaching each rep toward reliable commits and faster closes. As it matured, and acquired new companies, it added Gong Forecast to improve pipeline management and get forecast accuracy to 90%. Read on to see what you can borrow from Piano’s push toward revenue excellence. Delivering precise revenue forecasts Before Gong, pipeline info was everywhere: in Salesforce, spreadsheets, Google Drive, Slack — even on literal napkins! If Piano’s lean revenue team was going to ‘work smarter, not harder,’ Peter needed technology to increase revenue predictability and speed up deal-making. Today, Piano’s CRO and sales leadership team use the Gong Revenue Intelligence platform to track plan performance and lead weekly forecast calls with zero prep time. Everyone on the call operates from a single screen providing efficiency and transparency. No matter who logs in, they see the same numbers for ‘closed’ or ‘commit’. The group leverages AI-driven insights like Deal Likelihood Scores and Deal Warnings to dive straight into forecast risks. They decide exactly where to focus their efforts to ensure deals close. It’s easy to present a clear, defensible forecast to the CEO or the board, even at a moment’s notice. Before Gong Forecast, quarterly revenue projections could vary by millions, causing significant decision-making hurdles. Now, Piano is at 90% forecast accuracy. “The progress we’ve seen from what the CRM, sales managers, and even the CRO used to tell us was going to land is astronomical. We’ve closed the gap by millions. With Gong, our end-of-quarter forecasts are solid.” – Peter Lastowski, VP of Revenue Operations at Piano Driving better GTM decisions with customer interaction data For Peter, streamlined workflows were essential. He wanted a platform to match Piano’s own robust AI capabilities and innovation — one that people would love to use every single day. Piano first applied Gong to its sales workflows by capturing every customer interaction. Then, it used Gong Revenue AI to understand customer and rep behavior from data points across systems like Salesforce, email, and calendars. Immediately, Gong’s guidance ensured reps and managers stayed on message and improved their win rates — they loved it. By flagging deal risks, Gong insights helped the revenue team better manage its pipeline. It got much clearer on the numbers it could commit each month, and forecast accuracy significantly improved. “Gong brought data cleanliness to our entire pipeline. When everyone started living in Gong and managing activities right from the Deal Board, it brought us an amazing level of visibility and accountability.” Gong enables global revenue workflows and collaboration Gong’s influence spread fast. Marketing started using Gong for market insights and showing pipeline gaps for specific segments. This clarity allowed it to shift tactics and messaging to stay on target. Gong was more than a tool, it became a platform to power critical revenue workflows and collaboration at every level. A year into partnering with Gong, Piano welcomed a new CFO, igniting a drive for greater precision in forecasting new business. Given the team’s comfort with Gong’s customer insights, Gong Forecast was a natural add-on for more predictive capabilities. “What’s most exciting about Gong — and what I can’t get anywhere else — is the combination of Forecast with all the other guidance Gong offers us. Ingrained in the forecast are all the deal updates we’ve made based on Gong’s suggestions and prompts around risk. This means I can trust it. It’s all pulled together intelligently into one source.” When Peter assessed implementation time, he said it was a no-brainer. While other solutions could have taken six months, Gong Forecast was up and running in less than a week! The rapid setup and ease of use for reps allowed Piano to dive straight into optimizing forecasts instead of onboarding software. Using data to deliver even more value and scale Piano’s transformation is remarkable. Gong Forecast reclaims five hours weekly for the RevOps team. With streamlined workflows, it has shifted focus from reconciling numbers to driving impactful strategies across the business. Peter directs his saved time towards future planning and refining RevOps workflows for amplified value. He’s excited for Piano’s future and we’re thrilled about its trajectory too. With Gong’s mounting AI capabilities to predict revenue more accurately, Peter expects Gong will give Piano even greater predictive insights in the coming months and years—all fueling its ability to scale. Gong is driving continuous revenue optimization, ensuring a successful future—a journey we’ll proudly follow. 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 Gong Forecast is helping Tackle.io shave 40% off forecasting time Small Business Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software Alignment across RevOps and reps brings Frontify a 30% increase in lead conversion Small Business Deal Execution Engage Forecast Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software How Gong Helps Babbel’s Multilingual Sales Team Achieve Their Goals Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Global Software

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Absorb Software sees 30% revenue boost by adopting gen AI for productivity gains and improving buyer experience

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 19:34:16 +0000

Absorb Software sees 30% revenue boost by adopting gen AI for productivity gains and improving buyer experience Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Education 30% Increase in revenue The challenge Before adopting Gong, Absorb’s leadership team made many decisions based on the info that sales reps entered into Salesforce. They had to trust that the reps added the right info in a timely manner. Execs didn’t have functional visibility and the time it took to mine for insights was untenable. All this impeded Absorb’s growth trajectory. The outcome Absorb’s sales team is closing more deals by using Gong’s gen AI to power training sessions and refine sales strategies. They halved the time from a rep’s hire to their first sale. Best of all, total revenue is up by 30%. Headquarters Calgary, AB founded 2003 company size 500+ industry E-learning A whopping 77% of a rep’s precious time gets devoured by non-selling activities, as reported by Forrester. That’s a startling reality and it has repercussions for everyone in revenue-focused roles. Generative AI (gen AI) addresses this by delivering remarkable productivity and automated support to sales teams, so they can spend more time on selling activities. Absorb Software revamped its sales workflows by adopting Gong’s gen AI (purpose built for revenue teams), thus increasing the coaching time available to sales reps and propelling productivity gains. We talked with Absorb’s Senior Sales trainer, Kerry Heilskov, to hear about these wins first hand and how they increased revenue by 30%. Let the highlights spark ideas for how you might use AI to improve win rates in your role. Turning limited visibility into actionable insights Absorb Software is a global leader in learning solutions, and their learning management system (LMS) revolutionizes onboarding and learning engagement. Kerry oversees the onboarding and ongoing development of Absorb’s sales professionals. She’s devoted to ensuring that Absorb reps have the training they need to improve the buyer’s journey and quickly drive new and recurring revenue. Before Gong, Kerry says “life wasn’t good.” Senior managers made decisions based solely on the info that reps did or didn’t put into Salesforce. There was “no real visibility.” Tasked with significant growth, Absorb’s sales team hit pause to find a platform that could help them save time and enhance decision-making. Absorb adopted Gong, a choice Kerry credits with contributing to a 30% increase in revenue. The Call Spotlight feature has been the real standout for the team — they can’t imagine going back to not having it. Call Spotlight focuses your attention on the critical aspects of a call, helping you understand all the key details without listening to an entire conversation. Plus, it delivers actionable insights instead of basic summaries. Unlocking sales excellence in workflows Gen AI has fully reshaped Absorb’s sales workflows, resulting in stronger communication and high performance. Here are the top ways the sales team is closing more deals using Call Spotlight: Meeting mastery and coachable moments Preparing for meetings now takes 80% less time. Sales leaders review three times as many calls in less time. The best part? They hone in on the key parts of a call to deliver timely spot coaching, which has accelerated high performance. Crafting compelling follow-ups Sales reps use the AI’s suggestions for impactful follow-up emails. Call Spotlight integrates pertinent details from the discussions into the emails, guiding buyers towards action, then team members simply customize the email to align with their individual style and tone. This eliminates the challenge of figuring out what to say, and prevents deals from slipping through the cracks. Collaborating to close deals Call Spotlight facilitates seamless collaboration between account execs and solution engineers. Call synopses pinpoint customer pain points and show exactly what to cover in demos to improve the buyer’s journey. Teams use Call Spotlight’s Ask Anything feature to uncover the business problems behind a customer’s tech problem. Asking straightforward questions like, “What business problem is the customer trying to solve?” can provide deep insights into the customer’s needs and culture. With that knowledge, the team sells a wider range of solutions grounded in value. This approach leads to more and larger deals closed. Adoption and getting results If you want to unearth AI’s full potential, Kerry recommends “showing your team the power of the tool.” She devised an activity that requires reps to document a call’s highlights and next steps. This activity takes them more than one hour to complete manually, but only two minutes with Call Spotlight. Once a rep experiences this time saving, they quickly incorporate the tool into their workflows. It’s a no-brainer. The best part? Now, you can enrich your CRM with Call Spotlight data and insights. This means your reps won’t spend countless hours on manual data entry instead of selling to customers. “Throughout my sales career, sellers have always asked for an assistant. Well, Gong is your assistant! Call Spotlight reduces our follow-up and documentation time by as much as 96%. Experiment with it. Those who use it will always outperform the rest.” If you want to harness the time-saving power of gen AI with your team, we’d love to show you Call Spotlight. 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 LinkedIn Achieves Revenue Success with Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet Gong’s revenue intelligence fuels a 141% surge in Paycor’s client sales success Customer Stories Sales Leadership Videos Enterprise Deal Execution North America Software How a Google sales team got hours of its time back using Gong Global Software

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BairesDev is 7x more productive at strategic decision-making with Gong.

Hannah Hapin — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 17:04:15 +0000

BairesDev is 7x more productive at strategic decision-making with Gong. Coaching Deal Execution Enterprise Global Software 7x more efficient reporting The challenge Having insights related to its prospects’ objections, customer satisfaction, inefficiencies, the competitive landscape, market trends, and more is critical for BairesDev’s growth and longevity. Finding these meant wading through a sea of disconnected Zoom recordings, Google Sheets, and dashboards — a manual, weeks-long process. It was impossible to deliver real-time guidance to reps and client services. It was also impossible to quickly respond to shifts in the market. The outcome BairesDev responds to market insights in record time. Gong is helping drive efficiency, revenue growth, and better decisions. It makes constant tweaks to onboarding, training, and sales processes. Ops leaders and customer-facing teams now see keyword trends and outliers daily in one place. They know what top performers do better and how to nudge others toward the same results. Experiencing Gong’s value, BairesDev now uses it for innovative use cases in areas like talent acquisition and sourcing venture capital partners. headquarters San Francisco, CA founded 2009 company size 3,000+ industry IT Services and Consulting If you’re a senior leader in revenue operations, your brain is always running scenarios. You’re constantly considering how to grow revenue with existing customers while locking in new ones. Monika Owczarek is the VP of Strategic Sales Processes at BairesDev and she’s just like you. “My job is to look across the entire business to drive growth. Gong is an essential part of that by helping us understand the interactions we’re having with leads and clients.” See if you can steal a page out of BairesDev’s RevOps playbook. Innovative tech companies need cutting-edge systems BairesDev is a global software development and staffing company with over 4,000 engineers in 50+ countries. It matches software developers with clients all over the world and supplies the top 1% of tech talent in the Americas. But it couldn’t get automated data-backed insights from all its customer interactions, in one platform. With more clarity around a prospect’s unique pain points and objections, it suspected it could significantly improve win rates. Similarly, it felt that automating analysis of calls with existing customers would reveal opportunities to improve quality and therefore, drive better retention and growth. It wasn’t wrong. Choosing to always be at the front of the AI wave Like everyone, these days Monika is paying close attention to what’s happening with AI. She knows it will help BairesDev solve challenges in ways it can’t even predict right now. Part of her company’s competitive advantage will come from adopting and experimenting with the new tech. So, when Monika decided to bring on revenue intelligence software, it had to be with a company that’s always been AI-first. BairesDev chose Gong for its powerful automation, AI models, and exceptional support. As the industry leader in revenue intelligence, Monika says BairesDev felt Gong would always be ahead of the rest. “Gong is at the forefront of AI development. It’s innovating and adapting the product and capabilities to fit the needs of different businesses. We know this will shape our processes and define how we operate in the future.” Mountains of manual reporting? Gone with Gong BairesDev’s sales and client services teams were the first to praise Gong’s benefits. Before adopting Gong, leaders manually reviewed transcripts from Zoom calls to uncover business insights. This was hugely time-consuming which meant sometimes, other priorities took over. Moreover, each leader’s distinct approach meant that gauging team performance and sizing market opportunities lacked consistency. Monika credits Gong with helping to more accurately predict revenue by capturing comprehensive insights in an automated way. Gong also reveals what BairesDev’s top performers do differently. Every week it finds trends in calls by team and by rep. These shape the types of training it delivers and how it adapts to market forces. “The data from Gong helps us make strategic decisions about our processes, our people, and how to adapt to the marketplace. We now see trends and what’s happening in the economy as a whole in terms of what’s important to our clients or our prospects and then being able to react based on that information.” Thanks to Gong’s rich, unified data, BairesDev’s revenue team is 7x more efficient with reporting. Better handoffs mean better client retention and growth One of the more impactful outcomes of BairesDev using Gong is the customer interaction dataset that supports cross-team visibility, collaboration, and alignment. Why? A pivotal moment in a customer’s journey is when they transition from sales to client services. Built over many conversations, sales intimately understands the customer’s unique situation — their pains, fears, and goals. It’s easy for this understanding to get lost during a handoff. Not anymore. Gong’s generative AI gives everyone understanding of customer context with at-a-glance summaries in every conversation. Teams can start acting on critical insights from customer interactions right away. Monika says sales and client services are working more closely together and the result is clear! BairesDev proves the benefit of using Gong across their business. By replacing manual effort with automation using Gong and gaining 7x the speed of finding insights, BairesDev started asking “where else can we use this software?” It quickly applied Gong’s power in unexpected ways. Now, it’s proving that you can even use Gong to hire your next superstar. Today, BairesDev’s talent acquisition specialists rely on Gong to unearth valuable insights from interview calls with potential employees. Gong has helped them drive consistency in interview quality to create a better quality hiring experience. In its venture capital arm, Gong delivers AI-driven insights to improve investment outcomes. For example, Gong captures interactions with potential partners and provides insights into the quality of conversations, leading to informed decision-making, faster due diligence, risk mitigation, and improved portfolio management. What a win! Once you have Gong, you’ll unleash its power across every facet of your business too. 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 ThoughtSpot Leaves Behind “The Telephone Game” Small Business Coaching North America Software How Gong empowers Clearbit to be more proactive around customer needs Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software BlueCat Empowers Their Field Team to Understand Their Pipeline Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Business Services

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How Temp Staffing Firm Kelly Services Got a 36% Lift in Placement Rates and 50% Faster Ramp

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 22:16:04 +0000

How Temp Staffing Firm Kelly Services Got a 36% Lift in Placement Rates and 50% Faster Ramp Coaching Deal Execution Enterprise Global Staffing & Recruiting 50% Decrease in ramp time The challenge The surge in remote work put Kelly Services’s people-oriented approach in jeopardy. It needed a solution that could reconnect its internal teams around advanced insights for coaching and onboarding and provide them with a unified view of buyers’ accounts so customer journeys (and sales) remained strong. The outcome Thanks to Gong, Kelly Services ramped up its self- and manager-led coaching. This resulted in 50% faster ramp times and a 36% lift in the number of placements made with customers. headquarters Troy, Michigan founded 1946 company size 10,000+ industry Staffing & Recruiting “Everyone is competing for the same talent. We need to stand out.” That’s not a throwaway statement from Brad Sibbald, Senior Vice President, Science Domain Leader at Kelly Services, a global leader in HR and staffing services. He means it. The HR and staffing industry has faced seismic shifts in recent years: 2x more jobs than talent available, increased competition across the 25,000 staffing and HR firms in the US, and a move to remote work. All three changes impacted Kelly Services, but the move to more digital interactions affected the team the most. It had the potential to really disrupt their organizational effectiveness, particularly where pipeline management was concerned. That’s because it happened at a time when the industry was moving from having an influx of business to requiring highly polished sales skills to win new clients. If Kelly Services was going to stand out from the competition, its leaders know they’d need to focus on upskilling talent and retraining sales skills based on the current market and macro economic state. And they’d need to do it while facing increased pressure to find efficiency gains and win business faster. That’s why Kelly Services went all in on Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform — to lean into better, more connected insights and more unified selling. Gong provided actionable insights to grow pipeline and drive higher margins Gong’s AI-powered insights transformed how Kelly Services managed their pipeline. The team even called it their “Sales Excellence Platform” for the noticeable change in selling behavior it created. Reps began to source and develop pipeline around higher margin services and products. Initially, Kelly Services used a Gong Smart Tracker to better understand how well (and frequently) reps were pushing for conversations to open the door to “higher authority” people. The data didn’t lie — the behavior wasn’t happening as often as expected. This insight helped inform a need for more coaching on multi-threading (i.e., connecting with multiple people inside the buyer’s organization to help drive the deal). It worked and eventually led to more growth with high-margin services. The move to Gong also helped Kelly Services leaders gain more real-time visibility into deals in flight. Kelly Services had long used the industry standard of a CRM backend coupled with an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) database. Gong’s front-end technology helped separate Kelly Services from the rest of the crowd. John Giseburt, VP of Strategic Enablement, said, “We needed to upscale our sales team … we needed the visibility to ‘watch’ them talk.” Pre-Gong, Kelly Services used “old” sales coaching, i.e., role-playing. “Gong flipped role-play into ‘real’ play. We have actual game tape to review now,” said Brad. While slightly skeptical initially, sellers quickly went all in on Gong as they began reviewing their own game tape. Suddenly, a lot of introspection was happening. Sellers also reviewed their peers’ game tapes and started mimicking the top reps, incorporating valuable moves into their conversations. Increased efficiency: 50% faster ramp and 36% higher placement rates John said it best: “With Gong, we’ve seen a 36% lift in fill rate, with shorter times to close. That means we’re placing more talent in our accounts and creating a better experience for our customers.” This resulted from using Gong’s platform to manage pipeline more efficiently. For example, with increased visibility into customer interactions across every account, sales leaders know exactly who each rep is talking to, about what, and when, and whether they’ve discussed the right topics. Having this information across multiple sales reps in different territories who are all selling into the same account means both reps and managers are better able to collaborate without relying on subjective or biased notes in the CRM. Sales leaders were also better able to track how much pipeline was at risk because of poor qualification. If reps aren’t asking the right qualifying questions, leaders are able to identify how and when to de-risk, before it becomes too late. In a rapidly changing industry, this meant Kelly Services could overcome critical shifts and set their revenue teams up for success to stand out from the competition. Moreover, with key information available to everyone in one place, there was less friction during internal knowledge transfers. That helped teams move clients more smoothly between delivery and sales. The tighter candidate experience meant a faster time to close. Recruiters also used Gong to accelerate the intake process, which took at least one or two hours off both the reps’ and recruiters’ calendars. Gong helps recruiters better differentiate between roles, write better job descriptions, and sell candidates into those roles. (And analyze and understand their losses if there are any.) These same capabilities in Gong also contributed to a 50% faster ramp time for new reps. Before Gong, getting new hires — with no previous knowledge of the staffing industry and limited technical knowledge — up to speed took at least six months. Gong’s insights cut that time in half. Today, new reps, “know how to effectively do their job, how to speak their clients’ language, and how to talk to them about their job specification needs in under 90 days to close business sooner.” Reps are also receiving up-to-date information about what works on calls, so they can incorporate those winning moves into their processes. The connectedness and ease with which information is now shared benefits internal teams as well as the customers they serve. Pay it forward: Advice for other industry leaders The team at Kelly Services is thrilled with Gong. The leadership team is certainly reaping the benefits of advanced visibility into its pipeline and AI-backed insights into what goes on in customer interactions. Gong’s consolidated platform keeps everyone up to date on what’s working, which makes it easier to achieve consistently positive behaviors. (This consolidated approach is also very helpful in terms of business continuity and creating an accurate database of every client interaction.) Whether it’s on their own or with support from a manager, employees are tapping into Gong’s AI-backed insights to onboard faster and hit higher fill rates. The team is excited to expand its use cases for Gong while focusing on the people-centered approach at the core of the company’s mission. As a fully-fledged Gong user, Brad had some words of wisdom for other industry leaders: “Get comfortable with this new technology. Embrace it, and take advantage of the AI workflows. Just remember, you still need to be personal and have a human touch.” As John said, “Don’t underestimate your team, your culture. Some of our earliest detractors of Gong are now its biggest advocates. Once they ‘saw the light,’ they went all in.” 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 Greenhouse reaped a 281% surge in new product ARR using Gong’s AI Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software Gong Lets HubSpot Sales Reps “Go Back and Watch the Game Tapes” Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Global Software Leveraging Revenue Intelligence to Drive Conversions and Build a Growth Mindset Small Business Coaching North America Software

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