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No BS news about B2B Go-To-Market.
This is GTM News Desk - the show that keeps you ahead with marketing and sales strategies that win and clarity on the experience buyers want.
Mark Kilens and Natalie Marcotullio give it to you straight - what you’re doing wrong, what you’re doing right, and how to level up your GTM game. They dish out the latest trends, buyer behaviours, and proven plays you can put into action now. From aligning sales, marketing, and RevOps to closing deals at a clip you didn’t think possible, this podcast gives you B2B’s greatest playbooks and lays out the ‘tactics’ to avoid like the plague.
Mark and Natalie take their decades of collective experience working with top B2B brands like HubSpot and Drift and combine them with the GTM expert insights you need to create an impactful GTM strategy for your business.
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius - we handle full-service media production: managing the process, people, and growth. Find our more at www.shareyourgenius.com
Rachel Elsts Downey (00:00):
It really comes down to that idea of how are you creating that connection between your brand and the people that you want experiencing and buying your brand? And that's the challenge in today's world.
Mark Killens (00:11):
When you think about the results, the outcome of all of this hard work to help them truly feel like you are there as a partner. The outcome that we all want is the customer to recommend us.
Kirsty O'Sullivan (00:24):
A lot of companies get to a place where each, whether it's customer experience, product marketing, they're kind of all doing the right things on paper, one could say, but they're not United.
Mark Killens (00:38):
Real Talk backed up with real action. This is GTM News Desk.
Rachel Elsts Downey (00:43):
I'm Rachel El Downey.
Mark Killens (00:45):
And I'm Mark Killens.
Rachel Elsts Downey (00:46):
Let's see what's trending.
Mark Killens (00:55):
What's up? Welcome to another GTM News Desk. Today is a special episode. You will notice there is a new person sitting next to me in the studio. Miss Rachel,
Rachel Elsts Downey (01:07):
Doing the most awkward dance ever. And not Mrs. Rachel to be confused with the YouTube or no, it is Miss Rachel on YouTube. So no, miss Rachel here, please.
Mark Killens (01:18):
Alright. All right, well, welcome, welcome, welcome. So excited to be partnering with you. Had a great almost 20 episodes with Nick. You're now the host though, and you're already disrupting some of the show. I can't wait to hear your second segment today. You're like, Hey Mark, I'm coming in. I'm going to make changes, which I love because the status quo. Folks, this is related to your go-to-market. This is related to life. Do not let the status quo get you
Rachel Elsts Downey (01:42):
Deep words from Mark this morning.
Mark Killens (01:44):
Oh yeah. Alright, so segment number one. This is a link that's going to be in the show notes. Of course, there's a lot of great content in this link. It's interesting website. Regardless. They obviously built an SEO page for some use cases of companies, mostly like Fortune 100, fortune 500 companies, doing some very interesting types of marketing. I called out two of them. There's one from Microsoft, there's one from Dell. Both of these stories are about how large companies, again, these are huge companies, have partnered with people to create remarkable marketing. And some of these stories that are in this link are more like partnering with subject matter experts, partnering with people that their buyers trust, respect. I know you're big on the trust thing, Rachel, pretty big. Some of them are more partnering with customers. And we're going to talk to Kirsty from ZoomInfo and Sigma Number three, all about voice of customer and customer obsession. Stay tuned for that. But the one that I wanted to call out specifically, Rachel Dell did this interesting thing where they found that decision makers of this particular type of solution they were selling to were very skeptical. One out of two were pretty skeptical
(03:02):
And their traditional advertising wasn't working as well. Company first approach, Rachel
Rachel Elsts Downey (03:08):
Corporate brand, blah, blah, no one cares.
Mark Killens (03:11):
Pretty boring stuff. So they built this thing called the IT squad I never saw because obviously I'm not one of these buyers. So good for Dell to keep this targeted and contained. But they did this in a few different channels. Reddit being one of them, which by the way, folks listening, Reddit is a hundred percent probably a untapped channel for you. It is hard though. I will give you a caveat because I've explored it and looked into some case studies of companies doing it. You really have to take a long-term approach. Racial to
Rachel Elsts Downey (03:42):
Rent. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure.
Mark Killens (03:46):
They will eat you alive if you're promotional.
Rachel Elsts Downey (03:48):
Honestly, there's other use cases, Reddit, but one of the use cases for Reddit, not to tangent too far, and we'll get back to this, is sourcing for topics that your audience cares about when you're creating content. That's the simplest thing. Also, can I just say this Dell Tech example, IT squad, it totally gives me capstone in college vibes. They partnered with some college and marketing department and was like, please fix our problem. And the team that put it together was correct. I'm not hating. I'm just saying it gives me college vibes.
Mark Killens (04:22):
No, it does. A hundred percent does. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, they did AMAs on Reddit. They built this IT squad and they saw a tremendous success. I mean, it was a huge change in performance from what they were doing before, which is traditional paid search, paid social, very transactional type advertising, and they needed a way to connect much more deeper and more authentically with this audience. And then Microsoft. I mean, that's probably one of the biggest companies in the world, Rachel, right? I have
Rachel Elsts Downey (04:51):
No idea. Bigger than me. Just kidding.
Mark Killens (04:54):
They were trying to figure out how to resonate more. I think one of the keywords that you'll hear Rachel and I talk more about is this idea of resonance and how do you find the right depth of resonance with your audience? And one thing that Rachel, you really believe, given that you run and are the CEO of share, your genius is it's less about the message these days. It's more about the messenger.
Rachel Elsts Downey (05:22):
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I hear where you're going there. I think the thing that's both obvious with what Dell is doing and what Microsoft do in this example is what they are really trying to do is get people to care about their company and their product. And it's like nobody inherently cares about what Microsoft is touting. Nobody inherently cares about their IT provider. Those aren't, if you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, those aren't the things that are solving your problems. They can, but you have to get into the meaning behind things can't just be a transaction. And I think that's the big movement that people are so hungry for right now, is they don't want to just transact with your company anymore. They need to attach meaning to it. There needs to be a relationship, there needs to be trust. And I think that's the thing that with both of your examples that Dell and Microsoft really were leaning into with their marketing campaigns is what can they do to create that? Because what they were doing just wasn't doing that.
Mark Killens (06:22):
Exactly. So if the big folks are doing it, you folks listening
Rachel Elsts Downey (06:25):
Better be doing it.
Mark Killens (06:26):
Yeah, maybe aren't as big, whatever. Who cares about that? Honestly, Microsoft, Dell, it's fine. Sorry if you're listening and you work there, I'm not throwing shade.
Rachel Elsts Downey (06:33):
No,
Mark Killens (06:34):
I'm just saying pay attention to what they're doing. And last thing before we go to the second segment, you're segment here now you said meaning it's feelings, it's impact. Those three things are what I think customers care about.
Rachel Elsts Downey (06:51):
And not even to go again too tangential, but if you think about the juxtaposition of Microsoft versus Apple. Apple historically has done the best job of evoking feeling around their marketing and they have a ton of loyalty. I don't have the data in front of me, but I would garner to guess that the loyalty and the vibe around people touting a Microsoft product versus an Apple product is out of whack completely. It's all brand and it's all built on this idea that you see yourself as an Apple user versus a Microsoft user. And there's a whole story around that. So I think to your point and what you did here with pulling these stories together, it really comes down to that idea of how are you creating that connection between your brand and the people that you want experiencing and buying your brand. And that's the challenge in today's world.
Mark Killens (07:38):
Yep. And Kirsty's going to unpack that. We have questions specifically about this for her in segment number three.
Rachel Elsts Downey (07:43):
And I'll say you're going to want to stick around to the very, very, very end, which you can only get in tack insider because she's going to give you essentially a cheat sheet for the questions you need to ask to uncover those opportunities. Okay, mark, my nobody in B2B wants this today is the nobody in B2B wants this topic on my mind is that nobody in B B2B wants more signals. What do you say?
Mark Killens (08:10):
Oh yeah. I mean it used to be intent. Then intent became signals. Rachel, I think it's almost like rev ops and GTM engineer by the way, right? Rev, rev ops manager versus G TM engineer. That's kind a side thing. But we as marketers, you know this to create new words for things that already exist. So great signals, you need signals now, which is really just a type of intent if you want, if you want to call it that or fit. There's intent and fit when you think about your ideal customer profile. But signals can be very noisy. Just think about back in the day, marketers or account executives, were always dealing with more noise thanks to the digitalization of the marketing and sales funnel right now. You have signals at a first party, second party, third party, they're freaking coming all over the place. How do you manage it all?
(08:57):
Rachel? How do you manage it all? You need to focus on the quality signals and use the right intelligence to help you find the right signal that matched to two things, in my opinion. Well, I'm pointing three, sorry, two too excited. It's two match to your go-to market motion. So I'll talk about that for a quick second. So if you have a PLG first type motion product like growth motion, you can maybe be using more product type signals with your account executives, right? So you have PLG with a sales assistant motion to kind of latch onto that PG. So I'm not saying it's pure PLG, but you have PLG with a sales assistant motion. You're going to be giving signals to reps that are product related signals. That's an example. So it's go to market dependent. The other one is around the ICP. You have your ideal customer profile and you might say, okay, in this example, I am going after, let's use EZ lama, I'm going after heads of hr, heads of legal compliance, and I'm going to want to use a pretty classic signal, which is the job change signal.
(10:05):
But I want to make sure that signal is matched correctly to our target accounts. If you could see a job change of a head of hr, but it actually is from a company that doesn't fit our account profile definition, you serve that signal up to someone, it's not going to be that valid because it'd be like, wait a minute, that's not an account that's in my name, or that account doesn't even fit or ICP definition. So signals need context, signals need intelligence, and you need to give those signals the time and day to help you understand what matters when it comes to then actioning the signal. Because if you just flood your account executives or your CSMs with signals, they will stop paying attention to them, Rachel,
Rachel Elsts Downey (10:48):
So what are we supposed to do?
Mark Killens (10:50):
You're supposed to figure out how to make your signals more actionable by giving them the right intelligence layer that's taking into your account, your go-to-market motion, your ICP, right? Something like ZoomInfo is great for this and help you better understand what to focus on to then action to then get to the right outcome.
Rachel Elsts Downey (11:13):
Love it. Well, nobody in B2B wants more signals. Maybe we need more ZoomInfo. So speaking of ZoomInfo, we're going to move into our conversation with Kirsty where we really dig into how to understand your customer better, and she's got some amazing frameworks and ways to think about it that I think challenges both of our thinkings.
Mark Killens (11:33):
Let's do it. Welcome to segment number three. We have a great guest, as you heard during segment number one and number two, we have someone who is customer obsessed. She's from ZoomInfo, an executive on the ZoomInfo leadership team, Kirsty O'Sullivan, what is going on? Welcome to GTM News Desk.
Kirsty O'Sullivan (11:58):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Mark Killens (12:00):
It's great to have you. Rachel and I are pumped for this conversation. I spent a lot of my time at HubSpot. Rachel, you've worked with how many customers now? At this point,
Rachel Elsts Downey (12:11):
I can't tell you all my secrets, but we have worked with hundreds of brands that is for sure.
Mark Killens (12:17):
Hundreds. Hundreds. So Rachel and I are customer obsessed. I learned that from my time at HubSpot. She's learned that from being a big time CEO. Share your genius and Kirsty, let us know. Tell us about yourself. How long have you been at ZoomInfo? What brought you down to this customer success team leadership position? Give us the background before we get into the questions.
Kirsty O'Sullivan (12:41):
Yep, absolutely. So I'm also customer obsessed, so excited to be here with you both today. I'm Kirsty o Sullivan. I am the senior Vice President of customer experience at ZoomInfo. So I oversee our post-sale teams who are responsible for customer onboarding, implementation, training, and enablement customer support. I've been with ZoomInfo for almost five years now. It'll be five years this summer. So I've been here for a lot of growth, both as I think about the business overall, as well as thinking about just our investment in our customer experience organization and motions for our customers. I'm hoping most folks are familiar with ZoomInfo since this is a go-to-market podcast. But for anyone who's not, our mission at ZoomInfo is to provide all businesses go-to-market intelligence that accelerates revenue growth. So we've spent over 20 years helping our customers grow by delivering the most accurate and UpToDate account contact and signals data. Today, as our product continues to evolve, our go-to-market intelligence platform integrates across our customer's tech stack, combining first and third party data. And then on top of that, we're able to deliver real-time signals, AI insights and automation on top of that data foundation with the ultimate goal of helping all of our customers improve rep productivity, deliver net new logos, and ultimately drive their own customer growth.
Mark Killens (14:00):
Love that. I mean, I love ZoomInfo views did in through three, maybe four businesses. I'm a partner, TAC is a partner of ZoomInfo. The reason why we're a partner is because GTM intelligence, everything you just said is so important to building a true people first go to market motion. You need to understand through data
(14:21):
What's going on in the minds of your customers, in the businesses of your customers, their day to day, the trends you can understand from that data. So there's so many things to impact there and it actually leads us really nicely, Rachel, into our first question. This is the GTM News Desk podcast, as you said, Kirsty. So talk to us about how you help your customers, how you would ZoomInfo do it when it comes to measuring the maturity of your go-to-market, and why is that important? Going back to the point you made around the shift from a lot of workflow based non-intelligent systems to now agentic very, you could call it generative systems that have reasoning capabilities, which I know ZoomInfo is very big on developing and have a lot of products coming out around that. But again, zooming out from the tech side, just the GTM strategy, the maturity of your GTM, how do you think about that as ZoomInfo?
Kirsty O'Sullivan (15:22):
Yeah, absolutely. So I guess starting with the why it's important piece, ultimately you can't improve what you don't understand, I think is the simplest statement. So understanding the current state and maturity of your go-to-market motion helps you really identify what those gaps and challenges are, prioritize how you should think about resourcing and investment, and then ultimately move towards a state where you can enable more predictable revenue growth. So when we think about a more mature go-to-market motion and what that looks like, there's a well-defined ICP, there's segmentation, there's a clear value prop and messaging, strong product market fit. There's usually strong motions around rev ops and enablement being really thoughtful about how integrated your sales and marketing motions are. There's a tech stack component. There's so many things that go into it. So taking some time to really take stock of all those different areas allows you to be eyes wide open on what you can and want to impact as you work towards that more well-defined and repeatable motion.
(16:21):
We actually have an amazing resource that's free and available to anyone if you just Google ZoomInfo Modern Go-to-Market index. It's a free online assessment that takes just a few minutes to complete and it allows leaders to really evaluate the effectiveness of their go-to-market strategy to again understand how they're doing, what are the weaknesses, and really take informed and actionable steps to improve. So I highly recommend doing that. It actually only takes a couple minutes and then when we think about how we see go-to-market, maturity levels play out for our customers. If I use our customer onboarding team as an example, we're working with thousands of customers at once and we see so much variety in where they're at within their own go-to-market journey. Us gaining an understanding of what their motion looks like today, whether that's very simple or very sophisticated, it allows us to better define how ZoomInfo can really plug in, how we can drive value and how we should be thinking about more short-term wins and what we should be targeting there, as well as that longer big picture vision that we want to evolve towards.
(17:28):
For example, we have some smaller, slightly less sophisticated customers. Maybe they're just purchasing ZoomInfo to really leverage our data for prospecting. They don't want or need all the bells and whistles, and we don't want them to be overwhelmed or lose sight of really getting that first value from the platform and why they bought. And then on the flip side, we have very sophisticated enterprises where we're focused on integrating across their full tech stack, leveraging really robust signal data and then developing these full front to back workflows that are deeply embedded in their go-to-market motion. So a wide variety. We want to make sure we understand where our customers are at, and we're now actually leveraging AI to do some base level analysis as we think about their go-to-market maturity and what we're kind of calling go-to-market readiness for our new customers coming on board so we can better tailor their ZoomInfo journey and really set them up for success.
Mark Killens (18:21):
As Rachel knows, Rachel can make fun of me on this one. I love maturity models. I love, I've built many maturity models. I built one at Drift, I've built one with sugo, an event tech company. I've advised many customers on how they're building their own maturity model. So everything you're saying is highly resonant to me, and it's all about how you can help someone pre-sale to post-sale, understand the expected value and help them see that value through really honing in on the problems they need to solve right now and not overwhelming them. If I kind of replay some of that back to you
Kirsty O'Sullivan (18:53):
A hundred percent, and it's all about the value to your point, which I think we'll get into more, but fully agreed.
Mark Killens (18:58):
Yeah, I mean even you Rachel, right? You have customers of all sizes. You use a similar kind of maturity type of mindset.
Rachel Elsts Downey (19:06):
Yeah, I just don't know. I'm doing it because I'm not quite as a kid to the business acumen as you all. But one of the things I wanted to lean into a little bit, if I could with you is this idea of being customer obsessed. And so the way I'd love to hear from you on what that really means and how this maturity model and the way that you are thinking is kind of bringing that obsession to life in a way that's adding so much value to the people that you do serve.
Kirsty O'Sullivan (19:31):
Absolutely. And I can kind of talk about it through the lens of how we're leveraging it operationally and our handoff motion as we think about. And Mark, you mentioned that presale, the post-sale journey. How does that all come together as we think about the customer journey, the full journey that presale to post-sale handoff? It's so important to ensure the customer's really set up again to see value from the platform and when it comes to just providing a high quality experience over overall. So we put a lot of effort from people, process, technology to make sure we're really intentional about each part of the journey, but we'll focus in on that kind of firsthand off to start. And we're leveraging AI in a pretty big way there, which pairs back to that go-to-market maturity and go to market readiness, which I can touch on. So one of the first things we're doing in the spirit of being customer success as customers come in is we're using our own account AI summaries, which is part of our ZoomInfo copilot platform.
(20:26):
What those AI summaries do is they combine first and third party data about each one of those accounts coming into our onboarding team. So we immediately know not only the firmographic details, so who they are, what they do, their size, their industry, but we also have all of the summarized data from their conversations with our sales team. So who the buyer, why did they buy, what are their pain points, what's their use case? And it allows us to be really prepared, get off on the right foot and reduce the manual effort for the sales rep to pass out all of that info along to us. And then that way, instead of the rep spending time summarizing the sales cycle and working on that very manual handoff, that information transfer is very streamlined and very automated. But then for the majority of our customers, they are expected as the rep to join us on the kickoff, help with that warm introduction and really make sure the customer feels heard and taken care of, and they feel that continuity that they're looking for.
(21:26):
The other thing we're doing during that handoff period is again, understanding what that level of maturity and readiness is that we just talked about. So we're leveraging our data and conversational intelligence to look at things like their tech stack. So simple example, are they using a very robust CRM, like a Salesforce or do they have a much lighter system? Maybe they don't have a CRM implemented yet at all. We're looking at what can we infer about their go-to-market motion from all these conversations. So do they have a name book of business? Do they have a well-defined ICP? Are they doing segmentation? Do they have a rev ops function? Some foundational questions like that. And we're combining all those data points together with what their pain points are, what their use case is to really create a much more tailored onboarding journey for that customer specifically. And that's where the customer obsession really comes in. So all of this data and automated analysis allows us to be really well-informed about them coming in, which is something every customer wants. They don't want to have to repeat themselves and answer the same line of questioning. And it helps us drive a more impactful dialogue on what the right path is for them in the various, what we call our success plays are that we recommend partnering with them on to really show value based on the information that we know.
Rachel Elsts Downey (22:46):
But one of the things that I think is really powerful about what you're saying is that what I'm hearing is that you're doing an amazing job listening, and instead of just coming in and moving people, there's a ton of intentionality with everything that you're doing. And when we think about the brands out there that are winning today and they're going to continue to win over the next decade, it comes back down to those first principles of just being a human first and listening really well, and then leveraging technology to help accelerate that. And so I think it's fascinating the way that you all are really building that into your process. And I think also that tension between sale and onboarding, I mean, that's when you really can actually lose the relationship
Kirsty O'Sullivan (23:23):
Because
Rachel Elsts Downey (23:23):
They're like, if there's friction here, what's coming up for me next? So I love, again, just that idea of the intentionality that you're building into the system. Well,
Kirsty O'Sullivan (23:33):
Yeah, no, and I think I get spoiled working at ZoomInfo sometimes because a data company, we love leveraging and harnessing data and insights and using that, to your point, Rachel, to streamline a lot of the foundational work. And then our people can spend more time building relationships and having an active dialogue with the customer and being a strategic partner rather than preparing briefs and summaries and recaps and prep and all this stuff. And so it's been this really cool kind of transformation over the past couple years.
Rachel Elsts Downey (24:03):
You can just feel, and I know we'll get done back on the talk track, but I just have visceral secondhand embarrassment meetings where you know that people are asking the same questions that that person has already answered and everyone's already fatigued by it, and you're just like, but they still have to ask because they don't know. But you just feel the pain of that. Those memories feel the most potent sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. So Mark, I don't know where your head's going, but my head's going into just this idea of we're all on the same page around alignment and those things, but I'm curious, what are some of the things that you all are thinking about in terms of getting the alignment across all of the revenue departments, even though they're not all technically revenue, but the CX marketing product? What are you thinking there to ensure that seamless journey?
Mark Killens (24:50):
Well, before you answer that, I am sorry. I was on mute and I was like to build off of what you both just said, I do not actually, I'm going to use the word hate, the term alignment. I've been in marketing for almost 20 years. Why? Oh, don't even. So we don't have time to unpack the why. I'm just going to propose a solution. And in curiously, everything you're saying is what should be the solution or is the solution which is being united. You need to be united as one team when you're trying to take a customer from helping them understand their problem better, to recommending the right set of solutions to then implementing those solutions with the right technology. To your point, Rachel, to then helping them figure out what to do next based off of what they've been able to solve, their level of maturity, where their business is at, and then what the future holds. So you need to be united and handoffs create a lot of friction in being united, but there's a lot of other things that create friction from being a United team. So yes, Rachel, go back to your question, but I hate the term alignment.
Rachel Elsts Downey (25:48):
I mean, I'm here for United because that feels like team, it feels like commitment. It feels like we're not trying to convince each other anymore. We're all on the same page. So I think that we can firmly align to the word United well played. Okay. So going back to this idea of getting your teams united around that customer journey, what are the ways that you're thinking about that to create that seamless experience for everybody regardless of the use case?
Kirsty O'Sullivan (26:18):
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I think we've already touched on it at a high level, but when we think about customer journey, customer onboarding, all these different touchpoints, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is highly cross-functional, both internally and as you think about just the experience for the customer, I think a lot of companies get to a place where each, it's customer experience, product marketing, they're kind of all doing the right things on paper, one could say, but they're not united. They're working in silos. And ultimately that creates a disjointed experience for the customer. So we've been really intentional about getting teams united across those functions and really using this new onboarding motion that I've sort of mentioned a little bit as a catalyst for driving, sorry, mark. But that alignment. So in this new framework, we're tailoring onboarding based on each customer's go-to-market readiness and their use case.
(27:11):
And we're really focused on specific success plays for each customer that align to their needs. So as an example, maybe we really want to focus on harnessing buying signals from your target accounts, and we want to help you build a motion to support personalized outreach when those accounts are researching your product or they're on your website, or maybe they have a new executive in your buying group. In that example, not only will our customer onboarding team tailor all of our meetings and our kickoff or implementation, our trainings around that specific play for you, but then all of the customer marketing touch points they're getting in their journey are tailored to that play and the setup features they needed to achieve it. And then we're partnering with product on what the in platform experience is for guiding that customer towards those same outcomes as well. So every single touch point the customer is getting regardless of the medium or the channel is working in unison to really drive towards that best value realization for them specifically, I think it sounds obvious to do like you should get alignment, you should be united.
(28:19):
It's a lot of work behind the scenes to really align on what are those value pillars and use cases, what are those success plays and how do you actually operationalize all of those touch points across distinct functions? We've spent a lot of time with those teams also on how we measure success for this new approach that we have, making sure we're all using the same KPIs and we're looking at the same product usage data and we're speaking the same language. And at this point, we're coming together biweekly to review how this new motion's going and driving constant iteration and improvement. So one of the things I've learned is it's often a bigger lift to work across so many orgs on what that overarching strategy is, but you cannot think about it through the lens of your internal org design. You have to think about it through the lens of the customer and making sure you have that strong partnership and buy-in is the only way to truly make the experience seamless for the customer and to actually drive personalization at scale.
Mark Killens (29:20):
Well said, well said. I mean, this is going to tee up the last topic, which we're going to unpack halfway. You'll find the rest of the content on TAC Insider, but when you think about the results, the outcome of all of this hard work to get your teams united, to get the customer to see fast value, to exceed their expectation when it comes to value creation, to help them truly feel like you are there as a partner, not a vendor, even a strategic partner for some of your bigger customers, the outcome that we all want is the customer to recommend us and then obviously stick around. But look, if we're doing our jobs and the customer feels and sees what they were promised in the sales process, the chance they're going to recommend and promote ZoomInfo, any of our businesses goes up. So as we were preparing for this conversation, you had some interesting thoughts on this net promoter score type idea. And I think most listeners know what net promoter score is, so we're not going to go into that. But you at ZoomInfo, Kirsty have a methodology that's kind of just beyond the standard net promoter score. That's like feedback loop, if you will, pulling in voice of customers and insights from the voice of the customer. Tell us more about that, if you don't mind.
Kirsty O'Sullivan (30:40):
Yeah, absolutely. So this is something we've done, I'd say a variety of workaround. And the problem we're trying to solve is how do we gather that NPS type data, both at the individual account level as well as at the macro level across our customer base without needing the customer to actually fill out a survey for us to understand where they're at, but instead by leveraging all these different touch points that are already happening across our customers and across the business every single day. So we've partnered very closely with our data analytics team on leveraging conversational intelligence to analyze the high volume of customer touch points and doing sentiment analysis across a wide variety of topics. So similar to how you categorize an NPS survey, which we also do, we're looking at and analyzing how customers feel about our product, our service, our data, our pricing value, and so on. And then we're looking at this both at the individual account level as well as the macro level where we're then able to operationalize different actions based on the data from there. And I know we'll dig in further in the bonus content, so I don't want to give too much away.
Mark Killens (31:49):
I appreciate it. Rachel, any final thoughts that you want to wrap up with before we get to the more bonus exclusive content?
Rachel Elsts Downey (31:56):
I want the bonus exclusive content right now, but I think the theme that comes to mind for me, and I said it at the beginning, is what you've done so brilliantly is you've gone back to the core of what it takes to be a great brand, which is build relationships and listen, and then create intentionality around everything that you're doing. And the other thing that I wanted to call out is everyone thinks that all the things you're talking about around getting United should be so easy and quick, but it always takes longer than you think it's going to take. And I think you just taking the time to be like, we're taking our time to make sure that what we're picking up is actually correct, and we're all on the same page and we all know what we're doing and we all know what success looks like. Those are the key metrics in my mind of what actually creates a successful program like this and not program, but you know what I mean? That's what it takes. And so I just appreciate your thoughts on that and I'm excited to hear the how on this customer voice piece.
Mark Killens (32:47):
Yeah, no big thank you folks. Head over Attack Insider to get the, how Kirsty is building this. I mean, I love it. This NPS methodology, voice of customer methodology without you necessarily having to ask the customer, because survey response rates, they're never that good. So it's like,
Rachel Elsts Downey (33:06):
And they're swayed. They're all over the place. Yeah, literally I'm sitting here going, I honestly need to know now because I'm like, how do I not send out another survey and actually get the insights that I need?
Mark Killens (33:16):
Alright, everyone, hope you enjoyed this week's episode of GTM News Desk. See you on Tac Insider. Thank you so much, Kirsty.
Kirsty O'Sullivan (33:22):
Thank you.
Mark Killens (33:26):
Thanks for joining us on this episode of GTM News Desk, presented by Tac Insider. To dive into the exclusive content with our guest today, head to the link in the show notes to subscribe to Tack Insider. Until next time, I'm Mark Killens.
Rachel Elsts Downey (33:40):
And I'm Rachel Elsts Downey, let's keep it people first, everybody.