Close.io (YC W11) Raises Funding To Improve Communication For Salespeople
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For technical details about how we built it, check out http://blog.close.io/post/45202900854/the-tech-stack-behind-...
1) Integration with something like Full Contact so that folks can get social data about prospects. Having that makes it easier to personalize outreach and stay up to date with what folks are doing.
2) Outreach tracks. For a long time I've wanted a CRM to have adjustable sales tracks. So the way that might work is there's an initial outreach, and then the next step changes based on what the outcome of that was. If I get no reply, then remind me to follow up in a week or so and let me add a template for that follow up. If I get a reply, then let me note what happened and then go down a different path to closing. If I get an objection, then let me choose from a list of objection options with a template that I've already developed for each of them.
I'm a single data point, so don't take it as gospel. I really do love the email integration. It's amazing to me that so many sales efforts rely on email these days, but that so few CRMs handle email with anything close to something that works. I think you guys get that right more than most other options.
To give you some thoughts/comments/feedback:
1. Sales people definitely hate doing data entry. So I get why this is useful. However, what does become a challenge is deciding what events require logging. Did the 2 min call I just made to the client where I asked him where his office count as a sales call? etc
2. I know very few people who will rely on the internet and VoIP to conduct their sales calls. The worst thing that can happen is that you call someone and the connection goes out. Your biggest USP (no data entry) is predicated on the VoIP technology being rock solid. I'm still wary of this technology. Anything you can do on the website to build more confidence would helpful.
3. To go along with point 2, how do you log a cell phone convo into your system? This isn't really clear and would be a deal breaker for a lot of sales teams.
4. I know sales forces who swear by SalesForce (I also know some that despise it). You're going need to do everything SF does + more in order to compete.
5. Are you targeting inside or outside sales? First, this should be more clear, or at least market it for both parties. Second, for an inside sales team, this solution seems amazing. And if so, it would be interesting to see how this could reduce costs or increase sales. None of the customers case studies told me (as a potential customer) how this increased sales. It just sounds like it's an easy, new, fun tool to use. Great, but I'm a Sales Director -- I have 1 job, hit or exceed my target in a specific time frame. Tell me how your tool is going to do that for me.
6. Who's the customer here and who does it benefit most? Sales director or individual sales person? For your own sales efforts, it would be helpful to see "Close.io helps Sales Directors manage their sales teams and meet/exceed their targets" or something like that. The platform reminds me of time tracking systems -- the individuals that do data entry hate them, but the managers love them. Even though you remove a lot of the manual data entry, the reality is, just like time tracking software, people lie. Especially sales people. Manager: "Whats the latest on ABC Client" Sales Person "I called them last friday, no answer". It would be good to see who's risk you're reducing and who's life your making better and at what cost.
Good luck!
#1 - everything is logged automatically but our goal will be to highlight the more relevant items in the timeline (longer calls or calls where notes are taken, etc.) above the rest of the noise.
#2 - good point. our website could communicate this better (the fact that we have good call quality, though not sure how could we could "prove" it besides allowing people to try it), but it has been a top priority and is the reason we're using native apps for calling instead of web-based calling (+ using Plivo rather than just sticking an Asterisk box in EC2) -- to get the best possible call quality.
#3/#5 - we're targeting inside sales people. agree could be communicated better. though we do have call forwarding to your cell phone so we've got customers who use it even if they aren't at their desk all the time.
#6 - unlike Salesforce it's very much designed to make the individual sales people happy and as productive/efficient as possible. we've got some reporting and tools to help managers/directors, but our primary pitch is that we'll increase a team's efficiency by saving them time in data entry, finding leads, dialing phones, tracking emails, etc.
Jorge