Uncovering new leads in a changing market

In 2012, Genesys began to see their primary buyer shift from the IT department to C-level decisionmakers. This fundamental change in audience forced Genesys to reconsider their entire approach to sales, as the traditional selling methods that worked for IT were no longer effective. “C-level buyers don’t answer emails, and their phone calls are screened,” says Diane Demeester, Vice President of Global Sales and Service Operations at Genesys.

The Genesys sales teams were also fairly unfamiliar with this new group of buyers, who have completely different criteria, concerns, and behaviors. “This audience isleveraging social tools, and they’re doing a lot more research before we even interact with them,” says Danielle Hall, Director, Global Sales Enablement. “As a result, there were several opportunities we came into very late in the process. We needed to figure out how to identify leads sooner and keep them engaged throughout the sales cycle.”

Results driven by Sales Navigator:

Introducing social selling to a global team

To better reach executive-level audiences, the Genesys sales operations team implemented a social selling program using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. "We introduced the new program,” says Hall, “by embedding training materials into all our other sales processes – things like account planning and whitespace analysis. This really helped sales reps quickly integrate social selling into their daily workflow.” Genesys also incorporated Sales Navigator into their CRM, enabling sales operations to measure the health of their program and discover best practices.

A platform for any kind of seller

As the sales team embraced Sales Navigator, their interactions left a trail of data that gave Genesys insight into how different people benefit from the platform.

For some users, Sales Navigator is great for uncovering leads. Sales reps like Michelle Tarkowski identify new prospects – and new ways to connect with them –through Sales Navigator’s suggested leads list. “If I save a lead,” says Tarkowski, “I can see what they post, learn about their current initiatives, and determine whether it’s a good time for them to consider our solution.” Tarkowski also uses Sales Navigator to leverage her common connections. “I use my existing relationships to create warm introductions to new leads so I’m not going in cold.” 

For others, Sales Navigator helps deepen existing relationships. Leveraging content from the Genesys marketing team to share with prospects via the platform, sales reps have new reasons to get in touch and new ways to engage in more meaningful conversations. “One seller worked a LinkedIn connection for three months, logging over 200 selling motions and social listening activities,” says Hall. “Sales Navigator helped keep his connection warm and Genesys at the top of  the buyer’s mind.”

Better leads, bigger deals

Over the past four years, the Genesys sales team has realized impressive gains. Today, reps who use Sales Navigator increase pipeline growth 2.2X faster and achieve a 16% higher win rate compared to those  who don’t.

Perhaps most surprising, though, has been the increased size of the deals influenced by Sales Navigator. Team members who use Sales Navigator to post content, follow profiles, and connect with buyers via InMail have increased deal size by 42%. “Buyers are willing to spend more with us,” says Hall, “because we’re using Sales Navigator to research their needs and connect with multiple decisionmakers per account. It really helps strengthen deals.”

With activation rates near 100%, nearly everyone on the Genesys sales team has caught on to the value of social selling with LinkedIn. “Sales Navigator is the best thing that’s ever happened to my career,” says Tarkowski. “You shouldn’t be in sales if you’re not utilizing it, period.” The rest of the team agrees – with Sales Navigator, Genesys now has the tools and capabilities they need to reach every kind of buyer – IT, executives, and beyond.

About Genesys

Genesys® powers 25 billion of the world’s best customer experiences each year. Our success comes from seamlessly connecting employees and customers across channels, on-premise and in the cloud. Over 10,000 companies in 100+ countries trust our #1 customer experience platform to drive great business outcomes and lasting relationships.