August 2019 Summaries

Customer feedback is crucial for organizations to improve their products and services. Despite its importance, 42% of companies don't survey their customers or collect feedback. Customer feedback can be collected through various channels such as email, social media, and messenger tools like Intercom. The type of customer giving the feedback matters, as loyal customers' opinions are often more valuable. Unprompted feedback is also important, as it reveals issues that might not have been noticed otherwise. The stakes matter when reviewing customer feedback, as high-stakes feedback requires immediate action to address security or privacy concerns. To collect and analyze customer feedback effectively, organizations can use tools like Intercom, chat, short surveys, and social media. Analyzing customer feedback involves coding the data, calculating the popularity of each code, summarizing and sharing the results, and using the insights to inform product roadmaps. A case study on Albacross, a lead generation software company, demonstrates how leveraging customer feedback can help grow a brand by personalizing responses based on NPS scores and encouraging customers to leave reviews. By following these guidelines, organizations can turn customer feedback into actionable insights that improve their products and services.

Today we’re releasing a brand new book, Intercom on Sales, which tackles the challenges of scaling sales at high-growth companies. The author has learned that each inflection point in the company's growth requires evolving sales tactics and strategies. A survey of 300 B2B sales professionals found that 58% reported less effective tactics from last year to this year. The book provides tried-and-true lessons from the front lines of sales, including tested frameworks for scaling sales teams and revenue, highly effective tactics for winning deals, and data-driven insights into the future of sales. It also includes actionable plays, worksheets, and more. With its release, Intercom aims to help readers kickstart their revenue growth.

Five-star advice on dealing with software review sites is crucial in today's digital marketing landscape. With 84% of people trusting online reviews as much as personal recommendations, it's essential for businesses to focus on getting featured on prominent influencer review sites. These sites offer numerous benefits, including increased exposure and reach, building trust in the brand, valuable referral traffic, and helping to enter new markets. To find relevant software review sites, businesses can use Google search terms or conduct a competitor analysis. When selecting worthy review sites, it's crucial to evaluate their honesty, relevance, traffic generation, comment section activity, and payment disclosure. By collaborating with great review sites and maintaining relationships after publication, businesses can reap the rewards of influencer marketing. With 90% of people reading online reviews before making a purchase, getting featured on influential review sites is worth the effort for any software business.

There's been a shift in the role of sales development reps (SDRs) over the past decade, with buyers having more information than ever before. SDRs need to change their approach to capture buyer interest and add value. The ultimate goal of an SDR is to generate more qualified leads for a sales organization, which drives more revenue and shortens deal cycles. However, many SDRs focus on hitting their quota rather than understanding the impact of their work. SDRs should ask themselves if their approach generates more and better-qualified leads, drive more revenue, and shorten deal cycles. Hitting quota isn't the end goal; becoming a consistent top-performing SDR is crucial for career advancement. Most SDRs aren't ready to be successful in closing roles with less than 15 months of experience, so they should focus on skill development and maximizing business impact rather than their "promotion timeline." There's more to achieving success in a closing role than just qualifying opportunities; identifying key skills and shadowing closing reps sets qualified SDRs apart from other candidates. By reframing their approach and focusing on these key points, impatient SDRs can become more successful in the long run.