Flexential was facing a significant challenge in effectively and efficiently following up with leads. The company was primarily using drip campaigns, which only pushed information to inbound leads. However, this method was not providing any data to indicate any other follow-up. The company needed a solution that was not only effective but also scalable, given the large number of leads and the company's growth trajectory. The lack of a robust follow-up system was potentially leading to missed opportunities and inefficiencies in the company's marketing efforts.

OptionsANIMAL, a leading financial education company, was facing several challenges in managing their leads. The sales team was overwhelmed with the number of leads coming from webinars and other sources, leading to many high-quality leads falling through the cracks due to resource gaps and time constraints. The sales team was also missing opportunities with prospects who were eager to buy, leading to a decline in the opportunity conversion rate. Furthermore, the process of managing the pipeline was a manual and time-consuming task, with no consistent email follow-up cadence. This lack of a systematic approach was causing high-quality Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) to stall at the bottom of the sales funnel.

Talend, a leader in cloud and big data integration software, faced the challenge of effectively engaging lower-quality leads to drive customer wins. The company's core business is centered around data, and they wanted to ensure that their marketing technology stack was as rigorous as their core offering. Adam Benitez, Marketing Operations Manager at Talend, was looking for new technologies that could help his team maximize lead generation and conversion. Initially, there was skepticism about Conversica, a new technology, and how it would fit into the company's overall strategy and framework. There were concerns about it being similar to Marketo, their existing marketing automation platform, and whether the investment would be a waste of time and money.

Star2Star Communications, a leader in unified communications, faced a significant challenge in identifying opportunities from their inbound leads. The company used a channel sales model, relying heavily on partners and resellers. Their primary method for generating leads was capturing information from businesses visiting their website. However, reaching the right partners and convincing them to market Star2Star’s offerings was a challenge. The company also marketed through onsite events and cold calling, but this approach was inefficient and failed to provide measurable intelligence regarding which prospects were ready to join or who were at least intrigued versus leads that were not interested. The company recognized that their sales operational model needed to be modified and enhanced to reduce the amount of time it took to get to an answer, be it a positive or negative response.

Coolfront, an innovative mobile application for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors, was facing a significant challenge in managing an overwhelming number of inbound leads. Despite their successful marketing efforts, the small sales team was unable to keep up with the volume of leads, resulting in many potential opportunities falling through the cracks. The sales team was overburdened and unable to effectively follow up with all the leads, leading to a backlog. The challenge was to find a way to sort through the leads, identify the most promising ones, and ensure timely follow-up without overstretching the already strained sales and marketing team.

Stivers Ford Lincoln, a family-owned dealership in Montgomery, Alabama, was facing a significant challenge in improving sales and lead qualification. The dealership was struggling to boost sales during a period when consumers were cutting back on big-ticket purchases like cars. With a small inventory compared to mega-dealers, Stivers needed to work smarter, pursue leads more efficiently, and deliver a customer experience that would convert one-time buyers into lifetime customers. However, with an increasing number of car shoppers requesting quotes online, the Business Development Center (BDC) at Stivers found it challenging to manually capture and nurture these leads until the prospect was ready to speak with a salesperson. The old model of simply adding more people to the BDC was not working, leading to many dead deals.

CAKE, a Sysco company, was faced with the challenge of reaching out to over 425,000 Sysco customers using a 'cold emailing' approach. This task was equivalent to the work of 10 sales development representatives. The challenge was further compounded when CAKE was acquired by Sysco, a $48 billion food services leader. The acquisition necessitated a shift in CAKE's sales strategy from an outside sales approach to a purely inside sales model. This meant that CAKE had to introduce its high-tech offerings to restaurant operators virtually, while emphasizing its relationship with Sysco. The company also had to nurture relationships with potential customers and secure the best time for a CAKE sales representative to contact the customer.

Snohomish YMCA, a part of the larger Y franchise, was facing a significant challenge in re-engaging former and inactive members. In the fitness industry, clubs typically lose 50% of their memberships annually. For Snohomish YMCA, this translated to a loss of 10,000 members per year. Additionally, the club had over 12,000 untouched leads from various programs such as camp, child care, personal training, youth sports, and other a la carte programs. The club's small staff of two was unable to effectively follow up on these leads, resulting in a large pool of potential members that remained untapped.

ESET, a global IT security software and services company, faced a unique challenge in its sales structure. Unlike many businesses, ESET did not have a dedicated sales development team (SDRs). Instead, leads were qualified by marketing programs before being passed on to the sales team. This setup resulted in prospective leads remaining stagnant in the sales funnel, leading to a lower volume of sales qualified leads. The lack of a dedicated team to engage and qualify leads meant that potential opportunities were being missed, and the sales team was not able to focus on interested buyers.

Beck & Masten Buick GMC, a family-owned dealership, was facing the challenge of increasing their outreach volume and engagement. Despite being one of the top Buick GMC dealerships in the nation, they were struggling to effectively engage with their leads and customers. The dealership had a large team of 27 salespeople for new vehicles and 13 for pre-owned vehicles, but they were spending a significant amount of time on tedious outreach activities. This was particularly challenging in the service side of the business, where the team was resorting to cold calling and emails to get customers to come in for service, resulting in a low engagement rate and a frustrated team.

Sutter Shared Services (S3) provides health management and administrative services to physician groups and health systems across the nation. Their target audience includes large-scale healthcare providers who want to build their own contact center and those who are looking to enhance the patient experience by delivering after-hours answering services and clinic access. However, with a steady volume of leads from trade shows, webinars, and interest outreach, it was nearly impossible for the S3 Business Development team to engage with every lead. The team initially experimented with traditional Sales models of hiring Business Development reps to handle incoming leads, but budgetary realities prevented the team from growing at a rate necessary to meet demand.

Zend Technologies, a leading provider of enterprise-grade PHP solutions, was facing a significant challenge in managing and leveraging their incoming leads. The popularity of PHP, with around seven million developers, resulted in a strong flow of new leads. However, Zend found it impossible to follow up with these leads constructively. Their initial solution, a traditional multi-modal multi-touch arrangement, proved impractical to implement and manage. The sales representatives were not able to make the required number of calls and emails, leading to inadequate coverage. Additionally, the quality of the leads varied greatly, ranging from students and hobbyists to large enterprises. This made it difficult to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' leads, especially when the information provided by the leads was not always accurate. Zend was in need of a solution that could effectively engage with all these leads without the need to hire additional sales development representatives.

Mercedes-Benz of Plano, a family-owned dealership in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, was struggling with a low email response rate of 23-24 percent, which was affecting their lead engagement. Despite having a large team of 40 sales associates, 18 service advisors, and 60 service technicians, the dealership found it challenging to maintain personalized, one-on-one communication with their growing client base. Their existing process involved the sales staff contacting new leads three times per day for five days, twice via phone and once via email. However, this approach was not yielding the desired results, with many potential clients reluctant to engage in phone conversations during their initial research phase. The dealership also discovered that the language used in their emails was triggering spam filters, further reducing their response rates.

The Los Angeles Film School, a private college offering career-focused programs in various fields, was facing a challenge in increasing inbound lead conversions. The school's marketing approach was predominantly via paid search and social, accounting for 85% of its leads, with the remainder filled by referrals or traditional media. The first attempts to reach out to a lead were made via phone call, with sales reps given seven attempts or seven days to make a touch before any automation was introduced. However, despite this approach being well received by prospective students, salespeople were only making an average of 1.6 touches per lead rather than seven. This resulted in an annual conversion rate of 2-3%, which the sales management believed could be improved. The school needed a way to have more persistent and consistent conversations with their prospective students.

BombBomb, a company that offers a subscription-based, easy-to-use, and low-cost video email platform, was facing a significant challenge in managing their leads. Their largest customer segment was in a highly seasonal industry, which resulted in a rollercoaster effect on their lead flow. Some months saw tremendous spikes in leads, while others saw deep valleys. This irregularity made it difficult to hire the right number of salespeople; hiring enough for the peaks would leave them idle during the valleys, wasting money, while hiring just for the valleys would result in missed leads during the peaks, wasting opportunities. The primary goal of their sales and marketing outreach was to elicit a firm 'yes' or a 'no' from prospects, but the reality of busy schedules and life interruptions often resulted in a 'maybe'.

Vern Fonk Insurance, an independent insurance brokerage based in Washington, USA, was facing the challenge of engaging and nurturing more Internet leads without the need to hire additional staff. The company had no after-hours sales group, which resulted in missed opportunities to capture and engage interested leads. Furthermore, the agency lacked a scalable process to convert aged leads and past customers who did not renew their policies. The company was also losing customers to competitors with online systems that facilitated overnight or after-hours purchases.

Spring Venture Group, a leading independent insurance brokerage based in Kansas City, MO, was seeking ways to enhance the efficiency of its sales teams and reduce the cost per lead acquisition. The company generates leads from various sources such as direct mail, demand generation campaigns, its websites, and by bidding on leads for purchase from third-party vendors. The vice president of marketing’s primary challenge was to determine the number of leads marketing needed to drive to sales to meet their goals without increasing the cost per acquisition (CPA). The company was already using sales automation solutions like Salesforce, but there was a need for a more efficient solution to manage the sales conversion process.

The Faulkner Organization, one of Pennsylvania's largest multi-franchise automobile dealerships, was struggling to manage the high volume of internet leads it received each month. The company's Internet Sales department was receiving nearly 6,500 leads per month from various sources, including third-party lead aggregators and Faulkner’s own multi-brand website. However, the department's appointment setters could only effectively handle a maximum of 150 leads each day, leading to potential sales opportunities being missed. Consequently, the company's engagement rate consistently hovered around 25 percent. The challenge was to increase lead engagement rates and ensure no potential sales opportunities were overlooked.

CenturyLink, a global communications and IT services company, was facing a challenge in increasing its outreach volume and improving lead flow. The company was particularly focused on 'warm leads', prospects who have shown interest and asked to be contacted. These leads could come from various sources such as the company's website, 1-800 numbers, outbound telemarketing, search engine marketing, and email campaigns. However, the company was struggling to effectively reach out to these leads, especially smaller prospects who did not have an assigned sales representative. The company also faced resistance from its sales representatives who were skeptical about the use of AI in managing their accounts.

Sesame Communications, a subsidiary of Internet Brands, was facing a significant challenge in managing their inbound leads. Despite deploying traditional marketing tactics like drip campaigns and lead scoring, the company was struggling with an overload of leads that were not being followed up on. The Director of Marketing, Todd Martini, noted that many of the high scores from lead scoring were not decision makers, but assistants who were watching a lot of webinars. Furthermore, when a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) was identified, these leads would go directly to territory managers, leaving a large list of untouched leads. The company was in need of a solution that could effectively manage and follow up on these untouched leads.

Purple, a digital platform for intelligent spaces, was facing a significant challenge in maintaining consistency in their lead follow-up process. With a large influx of leads and a goal of a 5-minute response time, the sales team was struggling to meet this target. The response time was largely dependent on the discipline and discretion of the sales rep, which was not a scalable solution. Purple needed to find a way to follow up with all its leads in a timely manner, without overburdening their sales team or compromising on the quality of their customer engagement.

Sunset World, a leading vacation provider in Mexico, faced the challenge of qualifying up to 1 million leads a week, increasing bookings, re-engaging longtime members, and converting one-time resort guests into Sunset Club members. The company's promotional campaigns generated a massive volume of leads, which were difficult to manage and engage effectively. The traditional approach of sending generic emails from a marketing automation program was not proactive enough. Moreover, the delay in responding to these leads often resulted in potential customers forgetting their interest in Sunset World's services. The company needed a solution that could quickly and efficiently engage with customers, making them aware of the offerings and sparking their interest before they interacted with the sales or reservations agents.

Epson America, a global technology leader, was facing challenges in standardizing and optimizing lead outreach and communication. The company generates leads through various channels including its website, trade shows, direct mail, email marketing, social media, print advertising, online banner advertising, and a brand awareness campaign. These activities generate approximately 40,000 to 60,000 leads each year. However, the company was struggling with the issue of sales representatives showing disinterest in leads that did not align with their named accounts, as their remuneration was based on sales on named accounts, not on leads sent to them. This led to a need for a solution that could effectively engage and qualify leads, freeing up Sales Reps to close more business.