How To Harness Customer Conversations In Real-Time To Drive Results

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Understanding how customer conversations drive sales is a requirement in today’s data conscious business climate. With changes in technology happening daily, keeping up with what is and is not working in sales conversations is a must. Listen in as Bernie chats with Udi Ledergor, VP of marketing at Gong, about how customer conversations reveal key data points every business can and should use to increase the efficacy of their salespeople’s daily conversations with prospects and customers. 

Two Israeli entrepreneurs founded Gong after searching for a solution to a sales dilemma and being unable to find it. After a challenging quarter in one of their former companies, they sat down to listen to sales calls in an attempt to understand what’s changed in the current quarter sales activities versus previous quarters. The call information that they found was an ineffectual data source because the recordings were poorly housed, labeled, and interpreted. To fill the gaps in the sales call data collection process, they created Gong, a conversation intelligence platform for sales and service personnel.

Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com.

Why CRM Systems Fail The Modern Salesperson

When a salesperson is conducting a sales call, they usually speak upwards of 6,000 words in a single conversation. The number of those words that make it into the CRM system for future conversations is typically closer to 60. This is because salespeople choose the words and they do not have the time to properly update and manage their CRM data. 

Not only is the data provided in a CRM system an incomplete picture, but it is also inherently biased. Udi candidly notes that he has yet to meet a salesperson who willingly notates their CRM data with information regarding a poor performance on a call. The CRM was created to help sales managers and marketing leaders understand the sales activities within their company, but it is not helpful for the salesperson in the trenches who needs real-time data on their customer conversations. 

How Does Conversation Intelligence Solve The CRM Dilemma?

Gong is a conversation intelligence platform that records sales conversations and then mines the data found in those conversations to identify trends, areas of opportunity or threats, as well as success factors. The goal is for every sales representative to be able to learn from the top sales performers:

• What are they doing right?
• What are they doing wrong?
• Where are the areas of opportunity in changing the conversation from a maybe to a yes? 

Udi reveals the process that Gong takes to record customer conversations and then label, house, and mine the recordings. Rather than creating extra steps for the salesperson prior to a call, Gong interfaces with their Google calendar and records any customer conversations noted on the calendar. Those calls are then identified, labeled, and stored for easy access and use. 

Salespeople Have Found Tremendous Benefit In Using Gong

One of the biggest concerns going into the creation of the offering was determining how the average salesperson would react to having their calls recorded. While the practice of recording calls is fairly standard, the feeling that one is being recorded by “big brother” is hard to overcome. This has not been an issue with Gong users, however, because sales teams recognize the value that the conversation intelligence represents to their sales performance. 

The training opportunity that the recorded calls represent is extremely advantageous both for new and experienced sales representatives and can be an important part of a digital sales strategy. Additionally, the calls are automatically transcribed and documented into the CRM system, so the representative no longer has to take that extra step of documenting a call in CRM. Additionally, Gong can set reminders on promised activities and alerts when sales reps set follow up activities on sales calls. 

How Customer Conversations Affect Marketing Practices 

Marketing leaders can now use conversation intelligence to get closer to their market in real-time. They are hearing the voice of the customer as they discuss pain points and objections and can use that data to design campaigns. The marketing leader can also verify that the sales teams are using the most current brand messaging and confirm that the message is being conveyed as intended. Marketers can get real-time customer feedback on the viability of their messaging.

Using Gong’s conversation intelligence technology provides an endless supply of training material, real-time market information, and trend dynamics. The ability to pinpoint what works in a sales conversation versus what doesn’t is extremely valuable in today’s fast-changing sales landscape. Listen in as Udi provides insights into how measuring sales conversations in real-time can boost your sales and marketing results.

Featured on This Episode

• Udi on Twitter: @ledergor
• Udi on LinkedIn
• Gong.io
• Gong on Twitter: @gong_io
• Gong on Facebook
• Gong on LinkedIn

Outline of This Episode

• [01:02] Welcome to the show Udi Ledergor, VP of Marketing at Gong.
• [01:37] Listen as Udi shares the origins, history, and purpose of Gong.
• [03:09] What does marketing at Gong look like and focus on? 
• [04:11] Udi shares why CRM systems hinder sales conversations and training.
• [06:02] How machine learning and customer conversations enhance sales.
• [08:05] Udi shares the feedback they’ve received from salespeople regarding call recording.
• [15:40] Gong reveals success metrics at the people, deal, and strategy levels.
• [17:08] How integration with CRM, emails, and other platforms equal success.
• [18:24] What is the role of marketing in customer conversation and machine learning? 
• [21:02] Bernie begins his summary of the conversation.
• [25:14] Udi’s final thoughts and contact information. 

Resources & People Mentioned

Get the Vengreso State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn 2019 report to learn how sales professionals stack up on requisite modern selling skills. You’ll hear from 15 executives with their insights and key recommendations. You’ll also learn how you can arrange to get your own custom digital selling benchmark for your sales team. Just go to stateofdigitalselling.com.

• State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn Report
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine

• https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://instagram.com/bernieborges
• https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

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