The agentic era is here. Leaders are still trying to figure out what that actually means. Platforms like Claude and ChatGPT are becoming more powerful and connected. Protocols like MCP are being pitched as the future of agent integration. The buzz is real, but so is the confusion.
With Salesforce’s core CPQ offering gone and ServiceNow at the helm of an AI-fuelled CPQ breakthrough, Salesforce is relying on the strengths of their proprietary Revenue Cloud. But is it a fully-fledged solution, and can it compete in the future?
Modal was struggling to align their product-led growth (PLG) motion with HubSpot’s inflexible data model, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of visibility into key customer data.
Marketing teams face considerable challenges in engaging customers at scale. As customer journeys become increasingly complex, teams need to deliver personalized messages at the right moments across hundreds of simultaneous campaigns. Keeping up can feel impossible
Although marketers have access to many powerful tools to orchestrate campaigns, it feels harder than ever to keep up with customer expectations. The challenges can seem insurmountable as teams have fewer resources to navigate evolving privacy expectations, a proliferation of channels, and the continued deprecation of third-party cookies.
Two factors are converging to make customer relationship management (CRM) deployments more cost-effective and more customized to the needs of individual businesses. Artificial intelligence (AI) and composable application platforms combine to reduce the costs associated with deploying and maintaining CRM. The ability to better personalize and customize the software can lead to improved business outcomes and increased return on investment (ROI). Zoho’s latest developments with its Zia AI platform, in addition to enhancements to its core applications platforms—making them more composable and consumable for bespoke use cases—make the vendor a compelling choice for businesses seeking a modern, flexible, and cost-effective CRM platform. AI is embedded everywhere, driving user productivity and the effectiveness of the solution. And, because Zoho users can pull from various other composable application components (such as finance, human resources [HR], and collaboration), these users can better orchestrate engagement end to end, improving the customer experience and increasing customer lifetime value.
Funnels are everywhere—but they’re fundamentally flawed for relationship-driven businesses. They treat everyone the same, assume every lead wants to convert, and push people toward a single outcome, regardless of fit.
Traditional marketing and growth channels are in a grim state. They’re crowded and expensive. Consumers and businesses are responding less to traditional marketing playbooks as novelty has waned.
While most people either fear AI or wait for it to do their thinking, savvy creators can use AI as a powerful assistant today while maintaining creative control.
Keeping a plump customer base is a unified goal for all business areas. In this endeavor, customer retention remains the most feasible blueprint, rooted in providing exceptional customer experience (CX) in all stages of the sales process. Uncover what it means to retain customers, metrics and strategies you can implement, expert tips, and the latest trends.
Our industry plays a much more significant role in shaping how people experience the world around them—especially during moments of crisis. As email marketers, we bear the responsibility for a brand’s voice in both good and devastating times. Segmentation isn’t merely a tactic for better engagement; it’s a tool for demonstrating empathy—recognizing that sometimes, the most meaningful message is no message at all.
Explore the common challenge of the disconnect between marketing and crucial customer experience/research efforts. Understand why marketing teams often lack direct involvement in gathering qualitative customer feedback, missing out on rich insights that go beyond quantitative metrics.
Get a reality check for your B2B influencer marketing strategy (or your plans to create one). Discover what works, what doesn’t, and what to do to drive real impact across the funnel.
Despite compelling evidence that companies with a sales process sell more, many don’t have a documented one that is consistently executed by everyone. If you don’t have a sales process, this blog post will get you started.
I sympathize with first-line sales managers, because I have always felt that their job is one of the hardest. They are accountable for a number, have to manage up and down within their own organization, and have to know their customers as well or better than they know themselves.
One of the great joys of being an analyst is having the time to look at new buzzy technologies and form opinions on whether they will be useful for contact centers. Then I get to spend time talking to folks about how the technology will make a difference in the contact center.
People don’t buy gym memberships. They buy fitness. The gym membership is simply the hopeful path to fitness. It’s easy to get confused in what you’re buying… especially in marketing.
Most Sales Leaders must do a much better job attracting, vetting and hiring salespeople who will succeed and they could learn a lot from Shania Twain’s thinking.
Curious how to write a sales email that stands out? In this blog, we’ll break down 5 key elements that every high-performing sales email must have. Think of these like the pillars holding up your sales email strategy. Without even one of them, your message might topple under the weight of all that online clutter.
In modern leadership discourse, "servant leadership" has gained acclaim for promoting humility, service, and team-first attitudes. Yet there is a darker, often unspoken counterpart: serpent leadership. It slithers beneath the surface, driven by ego, fear, and control—resulting in damaged trust, diminished morale and disrupted team outcomes. While servant leaders empower their teams and create safe environments, serpent leaders operate through manipulation and fear, often cloaking their insecurity in performance pressure and ambition.
Have you ever sent what felt like the perfect follow-up email, only to hear absolutely nothing back? It’s eerily quiet, too quiet. You check your email repeatedly, maybe even double-check your “sent” folder. Yup, definitely sent. The harsh reality? Your well-crafted outreach vanished into the digital abyss, swallowed whole by the attention economy.
Closing a sale is the result of earlier actions such as customer discovery, lead qualification, and performance management. Framework IT improved its sales process by better qualifying prospects, understanding key stakeholders, and promoting its differentiators, leading to increased deal sizes and customer satisfaction. In this way, proactive customer selection and lead qualification are crucial for driving profitable growth and maintaining a competitive edge.
