Increasing Team Communication and Building a More Collaborative Culture with Chorus.ai

“It takes a crowd to defeat a crowd.” At least, that’s Bugcrowd’s thinking on how companies can navigate today’s cyber-threat landscape and defend against the crafty army of adversaries operating within it. Bugcrowd is the world’s leading crowdsourcing security company, and its award-winning platform connects companies that want to proactively manage their security programs with third-party, “white hat” hackers who can help them find and fix vulnerabilities. Bugcrowd pays the hackers “bug bounties” when they find bugs.

Bugcrowd, based in San Francisco, provides security solutions for a range of industries, including financial services and healthcare. It also works with hundreds of leading brands, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense. Bugcrowd has seen its revenue increase by 650% over the past three years. It has also doubled its workforce to more than 200 employees in the past year. And it’s anticipating further expansion in headcount in the near term — including in its sales and marketing functions.

Recordings in Chorus.ai Help Bugcrowd’s Teams Stay Attuned to Customers’ Needs #

Bugcrowd’s rapid growth makes it challenging for the company’s sales, marketing, product marketing, business development, and other teams to stay on top of customers’ needs and concerns and ensure the business is delivering consistent messages about its solutions and crowdsourcing model. So, they now rely on the Chorus.ai conversation intelligence platform to help them stay attuned to Bugcrowd’s diverse base of customers — and in sync with each other, too.

“A core challenge in marketing is understanding what’s happening in customer conversations — what they’re saying they like or don’t like,” says Michael Schultz, Vice President, Marketing, at Bugcrowd. “We love that Chorus.ai gives our team the ability to join essentially every sales conversation, get transcripts, map that information back to how we’re doing, and then use the insights to make smart marketing decisions that help move the business forward.”

He adds, “Other marketing leaders ask me all the time why I love Chorus.ai. It really comes down to two things: First, it allows marketing to be a part of every sales conversation. And second, I can use insights from Chorus.ai to be a better marketer and make sure our company is more successful.”

Developing New and More Streamlined Processes #

Jason Edgar, Manager, Demand Generation, at Bugcrowd, says Chorus.ai is also helping to enhance communication between the company’s sales and business development teams.

“Business development reps (BDRs) used to set up meetings with account executives without providing much context before the call,” he explains. “But now, we’ve developed a streamlined handoff process, where BDRs can provide full call details from Chorus.ai to account executives to review in advance of the call. It’s helped us to improve the conversion between the first meeting with business development and moving a deal into the pipeline.”

Edgar adds, “I would recommend Chorus.ai because it’s easy to set up and for account executives to use. I’ve also seen how it provides a great opportunity for account reps to learn from each other, identify successes and failures, and use that information to improve their own performance over time."

Using Data-Driven Insights from Chorus.ai to Show Reps Exactly How They Can Improve #

Chorus.ai is also an invaluable tool for coaching sales reps, says Lauren Craigie, Senior Manager, Product Marketing, at Bugcrowd. “One of my first projects at Bugcrowd, when I joined the company last year, was to prepare for a product kickoff. I used Chorus.ai to gather data on what was being said in sales calls so that I could understand how we were pitching to customers and how it was impacting the sales cycle. I presented that information back to the sales team to show areas where they could improve, and it had a real impact because it wasn’t just me telling them — it was the data.”

She continues, “Chorus.ai has really helped me in my relationship with the sales team because it provides actionable data that reps can use to perfect their pitch. Now, they are coming to me proactively and asking how they can improve their sales conversations.”

Dustin Stuflick, Director of Sales, at Bugcrowd, says he’s also seen his team’s hunger for more timely and specific feedback grow now that the company is using Chorus.ai. “Now, a lot of my reps will send me the Chorus.ai recording directly after completing the sales call to ask me to review the conversation and give them feedback,” he says.

Stuflick recalls once instance when he reviewed such a call and spotted a missed opportunity for a rep to close a deal. “I noticed that the customer’s use case was very similar to an existing case study we had but that our sales rep hadn’t referenced during the call,” he says. “I pointed that out to him, and he then sent the case study to the customer. They had a quick conversation about it, which allowed the rep to move forward in the deal and eventually, close it.”

Increasing Sales Reps’ Confidence — and Sales Velocity #

“I like Chorus.ai because it allows me to be omnipresent with my reps,” says Jason Pitzen, Senior Director, Account Management, Customer Success and Sales Strategy, at Bugcrowd. “I can give them a lot of coaching and feedback that I wouldn’t be able to provide otherwise.”

Pitzen points to one of his favorite coaching success stories: “We had a new rep who wasn’t confident about asking customers for renewals. So, we listened to the Chorus.ai recordings of some of her early attempts to understand where she was struggling. I gave her specific feedback, and now she’s killing it!”

Craigie says, “I think one thing that I didn’t expect from Chorus.ai was how it would impact our culture, even outside of sales calls. It helps us to embrace a more ‘get comfortable, be uncomfortable’ mentality. Sales team members are now asking each other to listen to one another’s calls to help perfect their pitch and improve how they are framing the product.”

“Bugcrowd is definitely realizing some great benefits from our use of Chorus.ai,” says Schultz. “Just one example: Because it helps us to coach our sales team more effectively, we’ve seen an increase in velocity in our sales cycle of somewhere between 10% and 20%.”