Europe/Middle East/Africa 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 SoftServe Used Gong to Adapt and Align Their Teams Enterprise 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 BlueCat Empowers Their Field Team to Understand Their Pipeline Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Business Services

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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 the Datarails team used Gong to develop a whopping 300% increase in ARR Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software Gong Lets HubSpot Sales Reps “Go Back and Watch the Game Tapes” Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Global Software Absorb Software sees 30% revenue boost by adopting gen AI for productivity gains and improving buyer experience Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Education

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How the Datarails team used Gong to develop a whopping 300% increase in ARR

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 16:15:15 +0000

How the Datarails team used Gong to develop a whopping 300% increase in ARR Coaching Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software 300% Increase in ARR The challenge DataRails has a product that exists in a crowded space. Their challenge is to build awareness of the brand and demonstrate how the platform stands out from the competition. The outcome The Marketing team uses Gong to understand their audience and the true voice of customers. They use this uncovered knowledge to construct impactful campaigns that better target their audience and keep them ahead of competition. headquarters New York, New York founded 2015 company size 150+ industry Software Development Written by Jonathan Marciano, Director of Communications at Datarails Do you remember the popular 80s cartoon “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” When Prince Adam transformed into the muscle-bound hero, he shouted, “I have the power!” But did you know that the phrase came from a kid? Market researchers were listening to children playing with their He-Man toys and they heard one of the kids say, “I have the power.” They pulled it into the animated series and the rest, as they say, is history. I experienced a He-Man moment with my Datarails marketing team. Using the Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform, our marketers had the power to listen to our customers and use their words to influence action and guide products — and create an incredibly successful marketing campaign. Even as adults, we form connections with fictional characters and public figures, and we love it when they say what we’re thinking. That was the magic ingredient behind Datarails’s “Hollywood Stars Narrate financial planning and analysis (FP&A) Processes” viral video, and a campaign that put the words of financial professionals in the mouths of popular television stars. It was a He-Man-level moment for our marketing team, and one whose lessons we’ve carried forward with us. We focused on an under-recognized role to build awareness in a crowded space Datarails is a fast-growing company. Our FP&A platform automates financial reporting in Excel. It uses machine learning and AI to consolidate and analyze data in multiple Excel spreadsheets, then transform it into easy-to-understand charts and graphs. It gives financial professionals advanced analytics capabilities without giving up their most trusted tool, Excel. Our product exists in a crowded space. My challenge as Director of Communications is to build awareness of our brand, demonstrate how our platform stands out from the competition, and generate excitement about a potentially dry subject. I wanted to inject humor and humanity into FP&A because the people who use it in their work aren’t often in the spotlight. Their manual processes aren’t as exciting as strategic work, so nobody talks much about their pains and passions or thinks too much about the personalities of these professionals. We wanted to change that. How we started using Gong in our marketing to channel the voice of our customers The “Hollywood Stars” campaign was powered by Gong, an innovative platform that captures customer interactions to gather data that we can turn into strategic insights. Gong integrates with CRM software and uses AI models to analyze calls and trends, determine market dynamics, and suggest next steps. It’s a powerful tool that helps sales representatives and revenue teams increase conversion rates. Buyers offer up a lot of information when they talk to sales reps. They may mention what’s bothering them about a product, but just as often they’ll share that they’re having a bad day, or that their kid scored a home run in yesterday’s Little League game. Analyzing people’s actual words provides deeper insights than having them answer the pre-written questions on a customer satisfaction survey and trying to interpret the results. Given the power of the platform, I thought, “Why not use it for marketing?” It seemed like the perfect solution to help me discover and channel the voice of the customer. In marketing, you have to understand your audience and speak their language. Otherwise, your campaigns will miss the mark. In marketing, you have to understand your audience and speak their language. Otherwise, your campaigns will miss the mark. I’d heard about Gong before joining Datarails in 2021, but this was my first opportunity to leverage it. Gong allows leaders across an organization to capture insights from customer interactions and hear what customers have to say. Marketing professionals like me can use its keyword trackers and Smart Trackers (the latest AI in concept tracking) to spot emerging trends and identify potential thought leaders among our customers. I use it frequently to gain visibility into what our users think, see, and feel when they engage with our product. For example, when I first joined Datarails, I heard a conversation in which a CEO wanted their company to phase out Excel. As a finance person, it was her worst nightmare. This real-life story was sure to resonate with Datarails customers, so I turned it into a social post (with anonymized content, of course) about the anxieties of FP&A professionals who are asked to swap their primary work tool for something “a little more modern.” A campaign using real customer interactions tripled our ARR by 300% That early post led to the “Hollywood Stars” campaign. I thought it would be fun to have television actors reenact customer calls about Datarails and Excel. Whether it’s sports, movies, music, or work, we’ve all had friends’ and colleagues’ eyes glaze over when we talk about something we love or find frustrating. We decided to take complaints that others found dull and transform them by having Hollywood actors express them out of context. This campaign would allow us to share our customers’ pain points in a language our audience understands and appreciates but that is tedious to the outside world — chopping and manipulating data and the kind of stuff FP&A professionals find fascinating. Imagine a hitman talking about spreadsheets or a ditzy teenager who can barely pronounce basic Excel functions, and you get the idea. HOLLYWOOD STARS NARRATE FP&A STRUGGLES We shared the campaign on LinkedIn, and FP&A professionals latched on. The video got more than 150 likes, shares, and reshares from industry professionals and received news coverage in top trade media, including an Accounting Today piece that generated 15 opportunities. We ran the campaign on a shoestring budget, spending $4,000 for television stars from The Sopranos, Clueless, Baywatch, and The West Wing, to act out actual customer dialogue retrieved from Gong. It was fabulous and fun. Those initial LinkedIn shares were the tip of the iceberg. People shared the campaign on WhatsApp and Slack, and that social exposure increased our follower count, further fueling requests for demos. We even heard that Gong’s team was sharing the video with other customers.But the campaign was more than viral fun. Brand content such as this helped Datarails grow our annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 300% last year. Insights let us make smart business decisions that prioritize our customers We also used Gong to create a fun video featuring one of our sales reps. “Days of our Lives with Robert Reis” edits footage of him talking about his wife and kids during customer interactions. It showcases his sense of humor and humanity as he shares personal anecdotes about family life to relate to Datarails’s customers and their professional struggles. This montage got a lot of traction on LinkedIn. Robert’s customers and colleagues commented on the video and shared it with their peers, who thought he was relatable. Once again, we humanized FP&A professionals and our brand using customer interactions from Gong that we knew would resonate. Every customer insight we gather from Gong provides us with more growth opportunities. We recently launched another campaign based on a sentiment that CFOs and finance professionals say in passing: that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what they need to do. The idea came from searching for “clone” in Gong. I found so many people making off-the-cuff remarks like, “I wish I could clone myself,” and “I wish there were more of me.” We built the campaign, “Not a Clone,” around this idea which the media loved and it featured in Fortune and other news sites. It included a video and a portal where people can insert their LinkedIn picture and see five different “clones” of themselves. An online petition to ‘Make finance teams strategic leaders, not poor clones of themselves’ has been signed by nearly 1400 people including CEOs, COOs, and CFOs. A lot of the language from Gong is included in the campaign, and we’re collaborating with 10 other FP&A companies to spread the message. Gong’s direct access to customer concerns allows marketers to analyze and understand the metrics that mean the most to them. Datarails is a small company with only 200 employees, but our growth potential is massive because Excel is entrenched at so many companies worldwide. Despite our limited marketing budget, Gong gives us direct access to customer concerns, allowing us to analyze and understand the metrics that mean the most to them. With this clarity around what FP&A professionals and CFOs need to know about their businesses, we build Datarails automations that allow our users to extract relevant metrics and KPIs from their spreadsheets. Gong provides valuable business intelligence that helps us add these features and target our customers’ needs. Gong-based campaigns keep us ahead of the competition Great campaigns come from listening to customers. Gong has given me and the Datarails marketing team a way to get closer to our customers, allowing us to create content that resonates deeply with them. Our “Hollywood Stars” campaign began as a “wouldn’t it be funny if,” idea and turned into a hit. Gong was at the core of that campaign, and recognized our work with the Golden Gong Innovator Award. As a marketer, I realize that generating publicity and newsworthy stories means staying ahead of the curve, embracing changing markets, and adapting quickly to our customers’ needs. Customer data from Gong helps us spot new pain points before they enter the mainstream conversation — and before our competitors are aware they exist. Thanks to Gong, I can echo the words of He-Man and proudly say, “I have the power!” 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 A Clearer Shot: How I Used Customer Insights to Make Better Decisions at Indeed Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Media & Internet SurveyMonkey takes coaching for customer success to the next level Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Funnel Increased Messaging Adoption by 76% Across Global Teams with Gong Small Business Strategic Initiatives Asia-Pacific Europe/Middle East/Africa Business Services

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A Clearer Shot: How I Used Customer Insights to Make Better Decisions at Indeed

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 20:29:51 +0000

A Clearer Shot: How I Used Customer Insights to Make Better Decisions at Indeed Coaching Strategic Initiatives Enterprise Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Media & Internet The challenge Before Gong, Indeed depended on anecdotal evidence from interviews with individual sales reps to inform their decisions which was not always accurate and took some additional time and resources. The outcome With Gong, Indeed was now able to gather data from multiple interactions, which saved the team time and resources. They were now able to quickly test their messaging and refine their training and rollout processes. Headquarters Austin, Texas founded 2004 customer size 17,000+ industry Technology, Information and Internet Written by Nate Davison, Sales & CS Training and Enablement Manager @ Indeed Perspective matters. In business as in life, it’s easy to see things the way you want to see them. It’s much harder to go into a situation thinking, “How can I approach things differently this time?” Yet, your ability to shift your perspective can directly influence your ability to make good decisions. Take photography, for example. Photography is a great way to literally see something through a different lens. Getting a drone as a gift allowed me to get into aerial photography, which is an ideal way to take something I see every day and turn it on its head. It enabled me to choose new points of view for my photographs and take more interesting pictures. When I take an aerial photo of a beach, for example, I notice striking lines and patterns that I don’t see when I stand on that same beach, even if I’m there every day. I do my best to apply that same philosophy at work. I’ve been at Indeed for nine years and was the first external hire on their learning and development (L&D) team. I know it’s a cliché within the L&D space, but I love helping, mentoring, and coaching people. It means everything to me to see that lightbulb moment when a person understands something from a new perspective for the first time. I fell into L&D by accident, but when I came to Indeed, I bought into the company’s mission, leadership, and global impact. It’s been amazing to see my team grow and shift, but sometimes it’s hard to determine the best way forward. That’s where it’s helpful to look at things from a different angle using technology. I had a chance to do this using Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform, when we launched a strategic initiative across our global teams. Measurement and tracking are a must for sales training In 2020, Indeed launched a new core sales and support methodology focused on understanding the customers’ needs so we could better address them. Since Indeed is a global company, we had to manage a worldwide rollout of the new messaging across various cultures, customs, and languages. We trained thousands of people around the world using this new sales and support methodology, but we needed better data to know whether we were doing a good job. How else could we make good decisions about whether to tweak the current training or our future rollouts? We could see, for example, that some markets were doing well, but we couldn’t definitively say this success was down to our new approach — or if it was despite our recent training. Any evidence was anecdotal or on a small scale. We lacked reliable insight into our customer interactions. Every company needs to connect its efforts with its results so it can decide how to move forward. We had built a great company, but we didn’t have a way to analyze how our initiatives landed in the field or tech that could connect our efforts to our sales and customer lifecycle results. We couldn’t determine a path forward based on our past work. That was a clarifying realization for us.Several of our managers insisted we needed an intelligence platform to give us greater visibility into how our messaging landed, and dozens of us participated in the selection process. Opening Our Sales Training Process to New Possibilities One of the things we found appealing about Gong was its 120+ integrations with other platforms, like Salesforce. Many tools offer great integrations, but Gong has the best reputation among them. Indeed is an industry leader, and working with a startup comes with a lot of uncertainty. We wanted to align ourselves with a company that similarly leads in its category, and Gong is synonymous with revenue intelligence and customer interaction analytics. Its AI-backed analytics capabilities were a massive win for us. My VP has a great mind for decision-making and is always saying, “Show me the numbers.” Gong offered both native analytics and the ability to connect those analytics to other platforms, such as Tableau. When we chose Gong, we chose integrated data (and organizational alignment around that data). We were all going to be able to make decisions based on a consistent view of what happened in our messaging initiatives and subsequent customer interactions. It’s funny how one change can open a world of possibilities. We adopted Gong and immediately uncovered several wins related to our training. Before Gong, we used anecdotal evidence from interviews with individual sales reps to make decisions about whether we needed to create additional support. Using Gong allowed us to gather data from multiple interactions, which affirmed that our new methodology helped teams get our customers closer to their hire. No additional support was needed; our training worked. Take a “win or learn” approach to conversations: Either win using an existing process or learn something to make it better. We also learned that some of our most valuable people weren’t using the new messaging. That’s not to say they weren’t successful — in many cases, they were. But we now had an opportunity to ask what drove this misalignment with our new messaging. That helped us tweak and refine our training and rollout processes.I think of this as a “win or learn” approach to conversations: Either we win using our existing process or we learn something new and make it better. Gong has given us the insights we need into what works, who does it best, and how we might adapt our approach before, during, and after strategic messaging initiatives. A New Way to Measure and Refine Behavioral Change Early in the rollout process, we started using keyword trackers for words and phrases we expected people to say in each phase. This straightforward (and highly accurate) tracking was a big help in getting everyone used to the platform and the insights it delivers with ease. We quickly moved on to flex our Gong muscles and dig into numerous critical elements of our processes. Scorecards, for example, allow us to identify areas of strengths and weakness in calls. We set expectations early that leaders should listen to and score at least one call per rep every week against preset criteria. It’s really improved the effectiveness of their coaching. The Points of Interest panel gives reps everything they need to know at a glance. They no longer have to take as many notes during customer conversations, as they can just go to the Points of Interest panel to see action items, questions asked, and more. It means they can pay more attention to our customers during calls. The Conversations tab is a great jumping-off point to drill down into interactions. We started with some basic filters, but now we’re adding complexity to get even more granular about steering teams in the right direction. Deal Boards allow our leaders to pull up helpful searches, learning objectives that use “what’s in it for me?” statements, and recommendations based on Gong’s predictive capabilities. These boards are often the basis for their decision-making. As expected, the Salesforce integration has been incredibly useful for us, as has the ability to aggregate interactions with a particular customer in one place. Integrated data gives us a more accurate view of our initiatives as they happen, so we can make smart business decisions on the fly. We’ve also changed the structure of our follow-ups using the Deals tab. We can immediately see if there’s a customer who’s changed their spend and a rep who hasn’t called them. By connecting the dots across interactions, reps (and managers) can ensure that no deals fall through the cracks. Many people who weren’t part of the Gong selection process have become big fans of the platform. Our head of marketing mentions Gong in every forum, saying things like, “I realized there are some big opportunities to improve this product based on what I saw in Gong.” Enhanced visibility into customer interactions gives L&D teams insight into what works well, who does it best, and how the company can evolve its approach. I also see the potential to embed Gong in the entire training process as a way to measure behavioral change.. Before training occurs, we can use Gong to outline the necessary learning content and define our objectives. During training, we can use snippets of customer interactions to train our reps on handling those situations. After training, Gong can go well beyond basic measurements of success and provide us with clear assessments of the training’s adoption and how well it worked in terms of our sales and support objectives.It used to be that we could only speculate how our trainees reacted to training and guess what they might have learned. Now we can ask questions that are aligned with the Kirkpatrick Model: What behavioral changes are present or absent? Do those behavioral changes result in increased revenue, product adoption, and meaningful conversations with our clients? It’s an entirely new level of post-training assessment. Analytics That Helped Us Scale We have launched a dozen new versions of our products in the past 18 months, and thanks to Gong, we can now see how product mentions correlate with our launches and sales. You can’t do that with call recordings alone. I knew Indeed was doing incredible things, but when we started using Gong, I saw our efforts through a different lens: that of our customers. We’ve been using their perspective to improve our offerings and it’s clearly working. Our head of products often uses Gong to understand how we can more closely align Indeed’s values with our customers’ needs. We’re constantly using Gong to find specific customer feedback so that we can incorporate make a better experience, and these types of insights give us an opportunity to reframe and reshape our product as well as customer interactions and learn what works best. Today, technology like Gong offers us recommendations and analytics for every customer interaction, every single time, in a matter of seconds. I worked in sales as my first job out of college. I’m an enthusiastic person, and I was genuinely excited to talk to people. But it took me a while to realize that my enthusiasm came across all wrong. Customers interpreted my excitement as being overly “salesy” and were less inclined to trust me. I think about the lessons I learned then from having even a sliver of visibility into calls from audio recordings — a technology that seems so primitive now. Today, in addition to audio, Gong offers us recommendations and analytics based on every customer interaction, in a matter of seconds. Get a new perspective on something familiar I’m an L&D professional, but I’m also a husband and father. If raising kids teaches you anything, it’s to take the time to see things differently so you can chart a good path forward. I’m teaching my young daughter how to fly that drone I mentioned earlier (We named it Zephyr, after the Greek god of the west wind.), and she’s amazed at how different things look from above. She often says, “Daddy, I bet if we looked at this with Zephyr, it would look totally different.” And she’s right.Take the time to consider something familiar, learn from it, and make your decisions based on a new point of view. That new perspective and refreamed decision-making ability is what I get from aerial photography, and it’s what Indeed has found in 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 LinkedIn Achieves Revenue Success with Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet Watch Appen use Gong to onboard CSMs 4 months faster Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Asia-Pacific North America Business Services Plate IQ shrinks ramp-up time from a year to a few weeks Small Business Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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How Funnel Increased Messaging Adoption by 76% Across Global Teams with Gong

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:42:40 +0000

How Funnel Increased Messaging Adoption by 76% Across Global Teams with Gong Strategic Initiatives Small Business Asia-Pacific Europe/Middle East/Africa Business Services 76% increase in new messaging adoption The SUMMARY Funnel, the world’s leading Marketing Data Hub, wanted to revamp how it ran its strategic initiatives — specifically sales process adoption and messaging initiatives — across its sales organization. They used Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform to prioritize better decision-making and pivots during rollouts and improve their alignment and new message adoption across globally distributed teams. HEADQUARTERS Stockholm, Stockholm County FOUNDED 2014 EMPLoyees 300+ industry Advertising Services A 76% boost is a reason to cheer, especially if you’re Funnel’s Sales Enablement team. That’s the astounding jump they experienced in sales calls that mention Funnel’s new messaging, thanks to Gong. It’s the result of a strategic initiative designed to align their globally distributed teams around new messaging. Funnel is a Marketing Data Hub that connects multiple platforms and allows marketing teams to assess their performance. It’s truly a global organization, with headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden; offices in Boston and Dublin; and Australia. When Katie McCullagh, Global Sales Enablement Manager (Dublin), and Angela Baldacci, Global Sales Enablement Manager in the US were asked to run a strategic initiative promoting Funnel’s new messaging to globally distributed — and quickly growing — teams, they leaned into Gong. Funnel was at a critical juncture in its growth and faced some challenges in adopting and standardizing new messaging, all of which are typical of fast-growing and globally distributed teams during rollouts. These included working across multiple locations and time zones and in numerous languages and dialects. Based on past challenges, Katie and Angela’s top priorities were: Gamifying the uptake of strategic initiative rollouts: This would result from tracking the new messaging’s adoption, then pivoting based on adoption-related insights. Greater business efficiency: They would achieve this through global alignment around new messaging that worked. Gong’s Initiatives board and Smart Trackers made tracking adoption easy Gong’s Initiatives board and Smart Trackers made tracking adoption easy Gong had already streamlined and improved Funnel’s coaching, onboarding, and skills development for the sales team. Now, Katie and Angela were keen to test out the benefits of its Initiatives board for rollouts. This feature was built to track the adoption of strategic initiatives like this new messaging rollout, so decision-makers could steer the initiative in real time based on its adoption and results in the field. Gong’s Initiatives board made it easy for Katie and Angela to iterate and pivot quickly during the rollout based on their ability to filter adoption rates for any team, individual, or time zone. Gong’s Initiatives board kept them focused on adoption metrics and helped them bypass the issues that typically result in misalignment on global teams (location, language, etc.). Angela describes the Initiatives board as, “So powerful. Incredible from a data visualization perspective — a single click shows us how our initiative is performing. No exporting. No manual calculation.” They also set up Smart Trackers — Gong’s AI-powered way to pick up on themes or topics within calls, not just keywords — to track conversations that indicated adoption, no matter the language or dialect. “Going through the process of creating a Smart Tracker is really fun for the person creating it, and it’s amazing to see how Gong’s AI constantly learns to detect unforeseen challenges we’d otherwise miss,” says Angela. They had all the adoption information they needed to pivot quickly, in real-time, and in one place. “Gong gamification” helped achieve a 76% boost in new messaging use Katie and Angela added some healthy competition to their strategic initiative. They hoped a little gamification would inspire widespread message adoption and align global team members around consistent use of the new messaging. “Gong helped us drive a strategic initiative and align global teams around new messaging in a way that was engaging and insightful,” said Angela. With a 76% increase in the number of calls using the new messaging in just one month, their plan paid off. Here is how they gamified their strategic initiative using Gong’s Smart Trackers and Scorecards: Goal: They aimed to incentivize new message adoption and align globally distributed teams around a strategic initiative. Process: They created a scoring system using Gong’s Smart Trackers, whereby salespeople earned points by using the company’s new messaging on calls, and managers earned points by assessing those calls using Gong’s Scorecards to rate customized criteria and highlight where calls needed improvement. Results: Within one month, 76% more of the 1,000+ customer interactions across the revenue org mentioned the new messaging. Bonus: New messaging was top of mind for every revenue team member in the org. This approach helped solidify the use of Gong by both managers and reps during new strategic initiatives. The winning team’s manager scored more than 80 calls! Funnel forever reshapes its strategic initiatives “With Gong, there’s infinite flexibility and possibility when we roll out critical business initiatives.” Angela finds that every time the Global Sales Enablement team hits a potential roadblock, there’s always a way to use Gong to solve the issue. She found it wasn’t as easy to remain flexible with other software. “Gong has been an incredible platform … Even the different language versioning has really helped in our tracking.” In short, says Angela, “I love Gong and will advocate for the platform every day.” Kaite agrees. “Even if we weren’t global, Gong has been so pivotal to the success of a sales org to see what team members do, how they excel, and how they learn from each other.” Today, the Global Sales Enablement team relies on Gong during the planning and execution of its strategic initiatives, wherever they take place around the world. 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 Zenefits increased their win rate by 3-5x using Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Apptio keep their field sales team engaged Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software How Gong helped Docebo become an efficient revenue team 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 A Clearer Shot: How I Used Customer Insights to Make Better Decisions at Indeed Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Media & Internet How monday.com used Gong to align revenue teams around customers Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Global Software The future of Fintech: Nasdaq uses Gong to make bullish bets Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Global Financial Services

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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 Focus and Forecast “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.” Customer Video 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 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 LinkedIn Achieves Revenue Success with Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet Gong for BDRs: How Aircall boosted qualified pipeline by 35% in EMEA Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Global Business Services

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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 LinkedIn Achieves Revenue Success with Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet Locking in predictable revenue: Gong takes Piano’s forecast accuracy to 90% Enterprise Deal Execution Global Software Measure the Immeasurable: Remove the Hypothetical and Increase Transparency in Your Sales Process Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Global Software

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ComplyAdvantage uses Gong to decrease ramp time by 50%

Hannah Hapin — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 20:32:00 +0000

ComplyAdvantage uses Gong to decrease ramp time by 50% Coaching Deal Execution Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software 50% decrease in ramp time 20% increase in Gong usage The challenge ComplyAdvantage needed to ramp new hires more efficiently, while the company scaled at lightning speed. The outcome With Gong, ComplyAdvantage had the data and insights it needed to quickly get AEs and BDRs up to speed, while decreasing their ramp time by 50%. With metrics like that, they’ve seen a 20% growth in Gong’s use across the company in the last year alone. Watch video Why ComplyAdvantage came back to Gong Headquarters London, United Kingdom FOUNDED 2014 COMPANY SIZE 201-500 INDUSTRY IT Services Being able to unpack the data — to see the science behind each and every interaction — I was sold on Gong. Jonathan “Jonny” Fianu Head of Revenue Operations “Gamechanger mode.” That’s how Jonathan “Jonny” Fianu replied when asked about life since Gong. “Being able to unpack the data — to see the science behind each and every interaction — I was sold on Gong.” Jonny is the Head of Revenue Operations (RevOps) at ComplyAdvantage, which provides anti-money laundering technology. Founded in 2014, ComplyAdvantage is Regulation Technology (RegTech) organization that “uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to help regulated organizations manage risk obligations and counteract financial crime.” So how does the Head of RevOps at a RegTech organization grow into a raving Gong fan? Gong’s reality-based performance and autonomous insights certainly help. Jonny believes that “Gong has created and defined a category that has now become pivotal in the RevOps solutions stack. It is here to stay.” Since implementing Gong, ComplyAdvantage has: Reduced new rep ramp* time by 50% Increased Gong adoption by 20% across the company — used by 6+ different teams. Successfully launched a new initiative (MEDDICCo sales methodology) and see reps’ use of qualification-specific wording jump from 2% to 17%. Learn why Jonny was instantly sold on Gong, how cross-team collaboration began to form, and what’s next in the Gong-ComplyAdvantage relationship. A note on RevOps Before we dive in, let’s take a minute to discuss RevOps, a relatively new term and role within organizations. As defined by SiriusDecisions, Revenue operations (“RevOps”) is made up of sales operations, marketing operations, and customer success operations teams that work together in accordance with a set of operating principles that align planning, processes, technology, data, and measurement that help organizations maximize revenue and performance. SiriusDecisions recently predicted that B2B organizations that focus on RevOps would be best positioned to thrive in the next 3 to 5 years. We are starting to see this play out with more RevOps leaders implementing Gong to capture activity data from every touchpoint for more accurate forecasting. ComplyAdvantage understands the value of RevOps. They have Jonathan “Jonny” Fianu heading up that team, of course. In his role as Head of RevOps, Jonny supports and works with the full commercial function. “But revenue is not just new business — it’s revenue generation (new customers) AND revenue protection (maintaining existing customers) AND revenue growth (increasing spend of existing customers). RevOps includes a large swath of the organization — BDRs to Sales to Customer Success to Account Management … or as Jonny says, “Lead to Renewal.” “Not just call recording software.” When Jonny first joined ComplyAdvantage in August of 2020, he was tasked with reviewing the technology stack — or “solution stack,” as he calls it. The goal: Keep it as tight as possible while maintaining the required components to ensure the RevOps team would be able to “inform management, leaders, and team members to more effectively reach the goals.” With over 60 sales enablement tools being used by the team, it was no small (t)ask. And so began the “should it stay or should it go” exercise. Luckily for ComplyAdvantage (and Gong), Chip Grossman, Gong’s Manager of Commercial Customer Success, helped Jonny see the complete picture of what Gong could offer. “Honestly,” Jonny shared, “Gong was on the original ‘cut’ list. “We were only using it as a recording tool. Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly power in having calls recorded, but that was just the tip of the iceberg as Chip explained.” Chip proceeded to take Jonny on a “Gong journey,” as he called it. Jonny’s eyes were quickly opened to the fact that Gong wasn’t “just call recording software.” Instead, the solution offered way more. “I began to see Gong as what it truly is: a full deal intelligence solution, an ‘intelligent digital assistant’ that lives alongside you and your team.” “A complete 180” is how Jonny described the end result. “We went from canceling Gong to scaling up with more licenses, expanding from sales to sales + customer success, and product and more.” “Chip’s willingness to take me on the onboarding journey again — to adopt me as a true partner — was a big factor in why I’m all in on Gong.” From recording tool to Revenue Intelligence solution Even from its limited (early) use, “Gong was still considered one of the premier and best tools the sales team had ever encountered,” Jonny shared. Sales reps would often say to Jonny, “I’m not going to go to another Sales job without Gong.” But the team wasn’t using Gong to its full capacity — no coaching, no trackers, just call recording. So with the help of Gong’s Customer Success Manager, Jonny and his team put together an engagement plan. The plan was very methodical, very intentional. The rollout was also very deliberate team by team, starting with Sales, then moving to Customer Success, then Product. This type of introduction of Gong helped better align the entire organization. One of Gong’s core tenants is alignment — ensuring various teams within the organization are in synch, looking at the same data, speaking the same language. We believe organizational alignment creates a sense of connection among the teams by driving reality-based collaboration and communication. As the person in charge of revenue operations, Jonny says his main goal is “to have all revenue-related departments work together efficiently and effectively.” It’s working. Gong quickly became — and still is to this day — the “go-to” solution for ComplyAdvantage. As Jonny boasts, “pretty much every new employee now gets a Gong license.” It’s just par for the course. Adoption of Gong has increased by 20% across the company and is now in use by direct, indirect, Pre-Sales, Customer Success, Account Management, and Product teams. Jonny expects this to increase dramatically in 2022 as Gong is directly provided as standard with all new hires in these key departments. Now THAT is alignment. Inform to Perform: Unlock Reality Jonny is all about data. And reality. His work as the Head of RevOps is guided by the mantra, “Inform to Perform.” He looks at the various data-driven signals to indicate whether or not his team is on the right track. Having true data visibility “from lead to renewal” requires system connectivity, a real understanding of the various processes, and a translation between processes and data. “Gong provides all of this — and more,” says Jonny. “There are certain data points that Gong surfaces that bring reality to the forefront, specifically when it comes to Deal Intelligence: Multi-threaded, competitor mentions, overall activity (visual!) on the deal board, and so on.” The call recordings are a taste of reality for ComplyAdvantage. The team no longer needs to jog their memories to recall conversations or scramble to add notes to their CRM. The call recordings do not lie. Reality. Equally as important, Gong empowers the ComplyAdvantage team to be “free” in their customer interactions because they have the confidence the call is being recorded, and they can go back to parse bits of that conversation. They can be “in the moment” and actually listen (“active listening”) instead of frantically trying to scribble down notes. New to ComplyAdvantage? Here’s Gong. Gong has become an integral part of how work gets done at ComplyAdvantage. Every new employee gets access to Gong. They are paired with one of their colleagues (BD to BD, AE to AE, etc.). Then, they start to listen to calls in the Gong-ComplyAdvantage library — one that is updated every month with key calls spread across its various segments. Specifically, the calls in the library fall into one of 3 categories: The best calls Calls where something was moved efficiently Part of a call that touched on something the team is trying to push for (i.e., qualification area) These calls + peer learning help new employees get up and running quickly. Gong helped ComplyAdvantage reduce new rep ramp* time by 50%. *ramp = product knowledge, confidence & pipeline Now that’s impressive. Coaching made easier with trackers and filters Gong is the ultimate sales coaching platform. Our insights help transform your reps into superstars by replicating what the top salespeople do. When ComplyAdvantage first started using Gong, managers were “consistently immersed in the conversations” reps and customer success members were having with prospects and customers. Side note: The ComplyAdvantage Head of Americas used to listen to a lot of Gong calls while sitting by his pool! And as much as we love hearing that our customers listen to Gong recordings, listening to every call is not a tactic that scales well. You can’t listen to every single call. There is just not enough time in a day. Gong’s AI means you don’t need to listen to every single minute of every single customer interaction. ComplyAdvantage now uses Gong to capture the best-of-the-best calls, as well as some of the more “challenging” ones (ones that didn’t go as planned) and using those as coaching opportunities — for not only new employees but also more seasoned team members. Jonny and team then weave in trackers and filters to better understand the calls management wants to be engaged in from the start. Gong has also been instrumental in tracking new initiatives, specifically the MEDDICC sales methodology for prospect calls. With the implementation of MEDDICCo, ComplyAdvantage sought to “double down” on qualification as that was determined to be a key metric of success. The team added keywords to understand how often the calls include specific terminology that supported this deeper qualification. Thanks to Gong, use of qualification-specific wording increased from 2% to 17% — a “huge jump,” per Jonny. “Gong provided demonstrable data proving that greater visibility and reinforcement could drive positive outcomes and real impact. Gong has been instrumental in helping us understand how well we are doing against the implementation of that strategy.” SIDEBAR ON COMPLIANCE AND SECURITY As we boast on our Security page, Gong “combine[s] enterprise-grade security features with comprehensive audits of our applications, systems, and networks to ensure customer data is protected.” Suffice to say: We take security seriously. Working with a company that works with compliance professionals put the Gong team under extra scrutiny. Per Jonny, “Not only did Gong pass the InfoSec review with flying colors, but it also helped US comply with GDPR. In addition, including the ‘opt-out’ of call recording directly in Zoom-Gong calls was a huge help, something we are not able to do with other technologies in our stack.” What’s Next: Automation and Beyond Even with all of the above already happening in the Gong-ComplyAdvantage partnership, Jonny feels as though they are just scratching the surface. Next on tap is to “start using the platform more to automate how ComplyAdvantage teams work” — using Gong’s trackers to highlight key words and phrases used during a call and then share that out (automatically) with the rest of the teams. This includes bringing Gong insights directly into Slack. Jonny also wants to take advantage of more of the coaching insights Gong helps with. Finally, Jonny is thrilled with the current partnership between Gong and his organization — strong and growing tighter by the day. “We are absolutely delighted to be partners with Gong and can’t wait to learn what Gong has coming next,” says Jonny. Just you wait, Jonny. Just you wait. 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 Winning what’s next: Global capital market research firm PitchBook is 10x more efficient with Gong Enterprise Coaching Global Software TouchBistro used Gong’s insights to lift close rates by 10% Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Andela’s enablement team shortened sales cycle times by 33% with Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet

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A focused forecast: How Filtered increased its ACV by 62%

Hannah Hapin — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 20:59:48 +0000

A focused forecast: How Filtered increased its ACV by 62% Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software 62% increase in ACV 2 months reduction in sales cycle The challenge As a fast-growing startup, Filtered needed a Revenue Intelligence tool so it could better coach its reps and make the most of its pipeline. The outcome Filtered leveled-up its sales team and increased its flagship product’s ACV by 62% using Gong to focus on its most important accounts. Plus, Filtered used Gong’s data and insights to inform a launch that accounted for 20% of the company’s revenue in its first year. Gong also helped reduce that product’s sales cycle by two months. Watch the video Headquarters London, England Founded 2009 Employees 40+ Industry Digital learning software I’m a massive, raving Gong fan. Vinit Patel Co-founder and COO Those are the words of Vinit Patel, Co-founder and COO of Filtered, a UK-based learning technology and content company whose mission is helping customers filter out irrelevant learning content. Filtered’s solution intelligently refines learning content, delivering it to the right people at the right time, using personalised recommendations to help them build the skills they need. When Vinit heard about Gong in late 2019, he wasn’t actively seeking out a Revenue Intelligence solution, but he loved the content the team produced. “The podcasts were incredible. I was drinking the Gong Kool-Aid well before we became a customer.” Though the content was valuable and interesting, his team was still small, and Vinit didn’t yet feel the need for a revenue solution. But then something changed. As the Co-founder and COO, Vinit was always laser-focused on growing revenue. As 2020 approached, he began exploring more ways to help his individual sales reps accomplish that task. He started thinking about how to make adjustments and tweaks to how the sales team operated: their sales approach and how they helped customers. He wondered, “How do we arm our teams—especially our sales team—with the best skills and insights so they can develop as individuals and excel at their jobs?” If he could do that, he knew the company’s top line would grow. In early 2020, the Filtered sales team spent a lot of time sharpening its sales skills and methodologies. It implemented a more deliberate and structured sales framework, began running more internal demos, started a sales book club, etc. This re-focusing effort went well, but the team needed something more to take it to the next level. Enter, Gong’s Revenue Intelligence platform. This is the story of how Filtered used Gong for three things: coaching, deal execution, and hearing the true voice of its market. The Gong experience: Phase #1 As the months ticked by in early 2020, Gong moved from the back of Vinit’s mind to his frontal cortex. (You know, the part of the brain that helps people set and achieve goals.) “Ding ding!” said Vinit. “It hit me. This software could help us put our sales training into motion. It could even enhance it. It was a true ‘a-ha’ moment for me.” Gong could help increase revenue, support individual reps, and arm the entire sales team with the tools it needed to excel. And so, they tried out Gong. Any initial skepticism from the sales leadership centered around whether customers would be comfortable with having calls recorded. The sales team also had a bit of tech fatigue, and wasn’t terribly keen on adding another new technology to its stack. Vinit managed this by enlisting a few key individuals as early adopters. “If I got buy-in from our Head of Sales, Head of Customer Success, and one of the sales engineers, I knew I could make Gong a reality.” He wasn’t wrong. It worked. Any early doubts were washed away within the first few weeks. The initial roll out gave the team the confidence that Gong did work, and that recording prospects and customers would not affect the quality of the relationships they had or ones they were working to build. As Vinit said, “It turned out that 95% of our prospects and customers had no issue with being recorded.” Phase one was a success. The revenue that was essential to Filtered’s growth was quickly becoming a reality. A collaborative coaching culture Vinit’s team quickly realised that having calls recorded meant they had to be on. At their best. Every time. The team recorded everything and everybody. With that much information coming in, Gong empowered Filtered to see which sales folks were excelling and which ones needed to make improvements. The sales leadership at Filtered used Gong to see how struggling reps responded to coaching. The answer was a resounding, “VERY WELL!” Early on, Gong’s insights confirmed some hunches about where (and which) reps needed support. But the data also surfaced what sales reps did that worked. Without Gong uncovering these helpful gems, they would have remained buried forever. “Our time-to-value with Gong was unreal.” In less than two months, the Filtered team “went from a bunch of hunches and a bit of data, to plenty of data and evidence … and no hunches necessary!” Goodbye opinions. Hello, reality. It helped that the Filtered sales team was very willing to be coached. Everyone readily accepted opportunities to learn from the best. They were all in on “cloning the A-players.” “When our salespeople realised that the star players did certain things consistently, and that Gong data backed up their winning formulas, they jumped all over the chance to grow,” said Vinit. There’s also something to be said for learning from one’s peers, which can be less intimidating than taking orders from managers (even nice ones!). Deal execution: A truth serum for Filtered’s pipeline Sales reps are not known to be conservative when it comes to pipeline forecasting. They are apt to be slightly (or quite) overconfident when it comes to predicting deals that will close. Being able to listen to Gong calls has been incredibly revealing for Filtered sales managers. As Vinit says, “When a rep says, ‘This deal will close this quarter,’ we can listen to the sales calls to really unpack what’s going on.” This, in turn, means deal reviews are more grounded in reality, more fact-based. Gong insights help Filtered sales managers understand what’s really happening inside a deal. Vinit knows that Filtered’s pipeline quality has improved. He can, for example, see whether conversations lack activity. “You’re telling me this deal will close in two weeks’ time, but no one has spoken to this customer in the last three weeks? There’s no way this deal is closing in two weeks.’” Fair call, that. And it’s a necessary insight if you want to get the truth from your pipeline. Additionally, “ACV on the company’s flagship product increased by 62% with the introduction of Gong because we qualified customers who were a better fit.” That means the customers’ needs are more aligned with the product’s offering. They’re the right persona in the right market. As a startup, this type of alignment is essential to healthy growth. Filtered was able to focus its small (but growing) team’s efforts on priority prospects and customers, knowing that the solution was a good fit and that the outcome would create raving fans. (We know how important that is!) As we call it here at Gong, they got “truth serum for their pipeline.” A new product line is born Sometimes the golden nugget of truth you’re missing comes from your own market. Filtered gives everyone in their business access to Gong (not just sales people), including the product and marketing functions. They’ve used Gong data to better understand and respond to customer needs The Filtered product team listens to Gong calls to gather relevant market intelligence. And extracting market insights from Gong calls actually led Filtered to prototype—and eventually launch—a new, industry-first analytics tool. “Gong’s data and insights helped our team fast track our new product with conviction and confidence,” said Vinit. This new product accounted for 20% of Filtered’s revenue in its launch year. And while Vinit admits that this revenue can’t be 100% attributed to Gong, he knows that what the team learned from Gong without a doubt had a positive impact. Without Gong, their new product would have been “tentatively built,” or the team would have made mistakes along the way. That would have cost the company real money in both revenue losses and costs sunk into development. Fortunately, Gong gave them visibility into the leading indicators of success for important initiatives: field adoption and a real-time response from the market. Thanks to Gong, the iteration process ramped up as well. Filtered was able to beta-test with several customers, and the “wow” moments were recorded on Gong, again, giving the team the confidence to push the product to market. Once they had a minimum viable product, the team used Gong for market testing. The results were terrific. Filtered even began making sales before the full launch. (Thanks, Gong insights!) As they rolled the product out to market, Filtered used Gong to qualify potential customers for product fit. Without Gong, Vinit says this phase would have relied heavily on “extensive notes” and “emails from customers,” which is less than ideal. “We could paraphrase what customers were saying,” said Vinit. “We could put their words into slide decks. But nothing—nothing—beats hearing specific feedback directly from the end user. That feedback is unvarnished; it’s not been tainted in any way. It gives us clarity.” BONUS: Filtered shaved an entire two months off its sales cycle (specific to this new product). Gong transformed Filtered’s entire business The Filtered team absolutely loves Gong – especially their COO. “Gong has transformed our business, from the way our people manage deals to the way we listen to and meet the market. Our team could not be happier with Gong,” Vinit shared. When the Filtered/Gong agreement recently came up for renewal, Vinit sent a note out to the sales team, seeking feedback, and asking the sales reps if they had any concerns. The team came back with resounding compliments. It’s rare that an entire team sees the value in a software solution, and leadership was pleasantly surprised. “In fact,” Vinit admitted, “there have been few things we’ve invested in as a small business where we’d happily pay more if we had to. Gong is one of them. (Wait, Gong is recording this, right?)” We can’t wait to see what’s next in the Gong-Filtered partnership. 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 Visibility, collaboration, and predictability: LogicMonitor increases CSM capacity by 20% Strategic Initiatives Global Software How Gong Helps Babbel’s Multilingual Sales Team Achieve Their Goals Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Global Software 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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