What’s the point in spending vast sums on expensive advertising and marketing campaigns if the promising leads that you generate go to waste? That’s the question asked by sales-focused start-up RevenueHero, which is today announcing a $5.1 million seed funding round.
The problem, RevenueHero co-founder Sudharshan Karthik suggests, is that companies take far too long to process to sales inquiries – and therefore far too long to respond to these potential customers. “The sales team is sitting there ready to receive leads, but they have to wait far too long,” he says. “It’s a technology problem – for any given lead, it’s time-consuming to identify the right sales representative to allocate them to, and then to book a time with that agent.”
Research from the customer experience specialist Zendesk confirms Karthik’s analysis. Just 7% of companies respond within five minutes of receiving a sales lead – and 50% fail to respond within five days, it says. The cost of that delay is enormous because 35% to 50% of sales go to the company that responds first, Zendesk adds.
“Many businesses are effectively making life impossible for their sales teams,” Karthik argues. “By the time the sales agent is given the customer’s details, the customer has already gone to one of the businesses’ rivals.”
RevenueHero’s solution to this issue is deceptively simply. Its technology sits behind the form that a business asks potential sales leads to complete; the tool analyses the lead in order to understand which sales agent is best-placed to help – by geography, size of customer or product required, say. The customer is then able to book a slot with the right agent on the spot, rather than having to wait for someone to come back to them.
Providing that solution requires some heavy lifting on RevenueHero’s part. The technology must make an accurate analysis of the prospective customer’s needs in order to identify exactly the right customer; it must also synchronise with sales agents’ diaries to get a meeting time that works. Making a mess of either of these tasks is likely to alienate the customer before the relationship has even had a chance to get going.
Nevertheless, Karthik insists RevenueHero’s software can deliver against these challenges. Since its launch earlier this year, the company has already signed up 40 customers and arranged more than 10,000 meetings with sales leads on their behalf, he says. The average client is generating 50% more sales meetings and reducing junk meetings by 45%, the company claims.
That could be crucial for revenues, Karthik points out. “Buyers have way more information at their disposal to do their research, compare, and evaluate before they make a purchasing decision,” he argues. “When they finally come knocking on the door, they’ve mostly made up their mind and are only looking for answers to a few critical questions before completing the purchase. At this stage, winning the customer is really about how well and quickly the company can respond to the prospect.”
For cash-conscious businesses nervous about their rising advertising spend, that warning feels particularly resonant. In the US alone, business-to-business advertising spending is on target to exceed $30 billion according to data from eMarketer; if 50% of companies aren’t able to respond to leads generated by that advertising within five days, billions of dollars are being wasted.
The opportunity for companies such as RevenueHero is therefore significant. But with rivals such as Chili Piper also targeting this market, the race is on to capture share. RevenueHero’s fundraising could therefore prove crucial, with the cash earmarked for an expansion of its go-to-market activities, including the launch of a US operation, as well as further product development.
The fundraising is led by the technology-focused venture capital investor Stellaris Venture Partners. Alok Goyal, a partner at the firm, thinks RevenueHero is targeting exactly the right problem.
“The workflow of lead conversion needs to be reimagined – losing high-intent prospects can be a significant setback for businesses, leading to a loss of opportunities, time, and money,” Goyal says. “With a deep understanding of the problem statement and razor-sharp focus on the B2B buyer journey, the team has built a solution that demonstrates value to its customers.”
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