ZoomInfo Technologies Inc.
07/13/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 07/13/2021 05:43
ZoomInfo to Acquire Chorus.ai and Deliver Conversation Intelligence through its Modern Go-To-Market Platform
We've had some big moments at ZoomInfo over the years.
In just the last 12 months, we launched ZoomInfo Engage to automate sales outreach. We acquired Clickagy and launched Streaming and Custom Intent. We acquired Everstring, a leader in Data-as-a-Service for the enterprise. We launched Workflows to activate market insights, buyer intent, and website activity. We announced the acquisition of Insent last month (now called ZoomInfo Chat). And just a few weeks ago, we launched ZoomInfo Recruiter, which is rapidly gaining traction among corporate recruiters and staffing firms.
But there are only a few milestones in ZoomInfo's history that have had a game-changing impact on our trajectory and transformed how businesses everywhere go to market.
Today is one of those moments. I couldn't be any more excited to announce that ZoomInfo has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Chorus.ai, a leading provider of Conversation Intelligence solutions.
Creating New Possibles
At ZoomInfo we talk of creating new possibles: achieving a goal and raising the bar. Finding new ways to do things that have never been done before. Unlocking possibilities through innovation and technology that were never possible before.
Chorus creates new possibles every single day. With Chorus, the entire organization can make better decisions by surfacing insights and analytics that you would only get if you sat in on every sales or customer success call.
It's impossible to listen to every sales call, every support call, and every recruiting conversation. Nor is it possible to read every piece of correspondence - but Chorus does all of that. It's impossible for any single person to process all of that content, capture and record every word spoken, listen for and flag hundreds or thousands of key moments where keywords or phrases are mentioned, bucket them into specific categories, and convert hours and hours of interactions into searchable metadata - but through advanced AI insights, Chorus does that, too. It's also impossible for humans to analyze all of the behavioral cues and sentiment captured during a meeting to predict outcomes with any degree of consistency - but Chorus can.
And that's just Chorus alone.
Combined with ZoomInfo's intelligence data and go-to-market motions, Chorus will change how go-to-market teams search for target accounts, monitor account activity, trigger automated workflows, and expand buying committees. In short, it will allow salespeople to enter meetings with complete intelligence about each participant and company. Together, ZoomInfo and Chorus will open doors where no doors existed before. The acquisition of Chorus will create new possibles for go-to-market teams everywhere.
Why Conversation Intelligence?
Chorus captures and analyzes phone calls, video meetings, and emails to unearth insights that enable revenue teams to deliver tailored coaching, replicate winning behaviors, and target with greater precision throughout the buyer journey. Coupled with ZoomInfo, Chorus will surface deep insights about deal participants and buying committees and execute automated campaigns based on keyword mentions. These plays will then be scaled to strengthen your entire go-to-market engine and drive your team's success.
Research by Gartner shows that Conversation Intelligence is the sales tech solution category with the highest impact and highest satisfaction rates. Combining Chorus' leading conversation intelligence solution with our insight-driven engagement platform meaningfully accelerates our vision for a modern Go-to-Market platform by giving us insights from top-to-bottom of the funnel that shine light on new business, renewal and growth motions.
The acquisition of Chorus will support our aim to be a champion for sales professionals, helping them to identify, connect with, and sell to decision makers at the companies who are most likely to buy their products and services. Sales reps will be able to replicate the winning behaviors they hear and see, develop skills modeled by others in their organization, ramp quickly, and receive ongoing coaching for continual growth and improvement.
Both Zoominfo and Chorus believe in delivering technology solutions that are easy to use, scalable, and deliver extremely high customer ROI. Chorus is backed by industry leading transcription and AI-driven analytics with a robust patent portfolio. It is consistently ranked as one of the most-loved software products, and it was recently named the number one provider in Conversation Intelligence by Trust Radius.
PART I: How the Acquisition of Chorus.ai Advances our Vision
A Modern Go-to-Market Platform
We are building a modern go-to-market platform where intelligence, workflow and engagement technology combine to deliver pipeline and revenue generation through insight-driven automation. Chorus will vastly broaden and deepen the types of insights that power ZoomInfo's workflow and engagement applications, unlocking new and powerful motions for go-to-market teams everywhere.
This is a vision that we've been shaping and refining for many years. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered an informal poll of over 1,400 Go-to-Market professionals on LinkedIn conducted by Adam Schoenfeld, a former executive at Drift. The poll asked participants which sales tech platform they would be most disappointed to lose (proactively leaving CRM aside). (ZoomInfo did not participate in or collect data for this poll.) The top 4 categories were Data Platform (e.g. ZoomInfo); Sales Engagement Platform (e.g. ZoomInfo Engage); Call Recording (e.g. Chorus); and Online Scheduling (now provided through ZoomInfo Chat). Each of these categories has either been built, acquired by and integrated into, or core to ZoomInfo for decades.
Applications Married with Intelligence
Every piece of software that we build or acquire sits firmly on top of our world-class data foundation. Signals we generate come from all over: intent from research on the B2B web, executive changes, funding alerts, website chats, and emails, to name a few. And now, thanks to Chorus, signals will rise from voice and video phone calls. We capture signals, derive analytics, and trigger workflows, automation, and engagement through our application layer.
Our seamless integration between data and integration creates a flywheel effect: the continual investment in data makes the engagement layer more powerful. An expanding engagement layer makes the intelligence layer more actionable by feeding it with activity and engagement data for better targeting and decision-making. This combination of software and data is so much more powerful than software alone, and it is a big reason why we have so much confidence in our ability to continue to deliver increasing value to our customers.
A Perfect Acquisition Match
At ZoomInfo, we look to acquire companies that have best-in-class go-to-market technology. We seek out companies that can be optimized by our data; where we can accelerate the sales and marketing motion; and that can be accretive in the short term. Chorus checks all of these boxes.
The buyer for Conversation Intelligence is nearly identical to the Sales Intelligence buyer we are targeting and have built strong relationships with today. Chorus is a horizontal solution with broad applicability across our customer base and in every industry. We are confident that we can accelerate its go-to-market motion by putting it in the hands of all of our sellers.
ZoomInfo was an early adopter of Conversation Intelligence-our sellers know its value and have seen the results from using it. We believe it is going to be a critical solution for the sales tech stack.
Opening the Doors to New Buyers
It's not just go-to-market teams that benefit from Conversation Intelligence. Nearly every business function can benefit from the insights surfaced during front line conversations with prospects and customers. Whether you're an executive, engineer, product manager, sales development representative, account executive, customer success manager, support specialist, recruiter, or compliance officer, you can learn from the voice of the customer and from the robust analytics and insights that Chorus provides. This universal value creation will open doors for ZoomInfo to reach new buyers in every department, significantly expanding our total addressable market.
Chorus is also the technology leader in the category, with seven times more patents than the nearest competition. Each one represents invaluable solutions such as:
- Automatic Speech Recognition that transcribes speech to text 3x faster, with 18% more accuracy than the nearest market alternative;
- A system that learns the language of your business and sales process without any human interaction needed. It gets smarter with every call, identifies patterns and themes and automatically highlights important moments;
- Reliable in-room, multi-speaker separation, which will become even more important as more companies return to office.
20 Ways Businesses are Leveraging Chorus
Today, Chorus customers are driving value in a variety of ways across a variety of outcomes. Here are some examples:
Go-to-market leaders and managers are using Chorus to:
- Deliver tailored coaching moments rooted in tangible examples
- Groom future leaders
- Shorten ramp time by accelerating rep productivity
- Create a consistent sales approach
- Improve communication across teams and create a collaborative culture
- Gather competitive intelligence and monitor the landscape
- Track deal progress and monitor pipeline momentum
- Monitor how the field executes on directives
- Curate a library of the best calls for virtual call shadowing
- Automate win-loss analysis
Sales Representatives are using Chorus to:
- Receive specific feedback and recommendations
- Improve their selling skills and win more deals
- Learn from and replicate winning behaviors
- Stay on top of next steps and follow ups
- Bookmark key moments in calls
- Understand what success means for customers and how to help them achieve it
- Tell a consistent story and driving consistent messaging
- Set up Smart Playlists to automatically add calls that meet your criteria to your library so it's always up to date
- Stay on top of leading indicators to protect and grow accounts
- Share call clips with clients so they can refer back to what was discussed
Coaching and Training Superpowers
So much of what a seller does happens digitally now, but getting visibility into that activity has been incredibly cumbersome for sales managers. I still remember how painful the process used to be to prepare for important sales calls. As an executive, my options were limited to having the account manager write up a synopsis of their interactions with the customer over the previous months, or asking legal if I could get e-Discovery access and go through emails between the customer and the rep. It was a frustrating and inefficient use of time for everyone.
In today's world, that can't cut it. If you're a sales manager or VP, ask yourself this question: What are the three biggest deals that are happening for our company right now? Now ask yourself: How are they doing? How can you really know the answer to that and have real confidence if you're not on those calls, or if you haven't seen the prospect's reactions to proposals or new products? Using Chorus, you can instantly zoom into the key moments on a call and see when the prospect expressed excitement or disappointment or when they asked for the contract. You can see when they explained the buying process and described the key decision makers. This window into what the buyer is really thinking is a superpower for a sales team.
PART II: Chorus and ZoomInfo Transform the Future of Go-to-Market
The Power of Signals
Today, it's no longer good enough to smile and dial randomly through business contact lists. Modern business-to-business selling is all about signals that indicate interest, intent, and higher propensity to engage, convert, and buy. Signals tell sales and marketing teams where to direct scarce resources and efforts. At ZoomInfo, we surface a variety of signals to our customers, filtering information down to categories including new executives hired, new funding rounds, new office locations, new technologies added or dropped, acquisitions, or a spike in research on a particular product or brand. We've built the most robust set of third-party signals powered by 24×7 monitoring of the business landscape.
A New Category of Signals: Conversation Insights
Chorus will change the game by exposing an entirely new category of sales signals for targeting and workflows- signals that surface in every interaction with prospects and customers. These signals include information about sentiment, pain points, objections, concerns, competitors, timeline to close, other decision makers involved in a deal, and inferred signals about communication frequency that can have a bearing on the opportunity outcome.
When Chorus' conversation insights are brought together with ZoomInfo's information on company firmographics, professional contacts, and the actionable, third-party insights surfaced about them, it will unlock completely new targeting and engagement capabilities.
PART III: Three Layers of Go-to-Market Insights
1. Conversation Insights in the Intelligence Layer
Conversation Insights in ZoomInfo Search
By bringing insights from every prospect and customer interaction into ZoomInfo, customers will be able to build targeted audiences across Contacts, Companies, Scoops and Intent signals filtering on conversation metadata including: Time Range, Engagement Type, Sentiment, and Keyword & Tags identified by Chorus' proprietary AI engine.
With Keywords & Tags, sales and marketing teams will be able to build an audience around interactions where a specific competitive alternative was mentioned by name. They can also build an audience around where a particular type of objection surfaces, where pricing conversations occur, when a prospect or customer asks for a follow up meeting, or when a customer voices specific product feedback or feature requests.
A sales rep will be able to use Chorus within ZoomInfo to identify all the 'Video Calls' with 'Positive Sentiment' that they had in the 'Past Month' where follow-up was mentioned for 'Next Month' and prioritize re-connecting with those prospects. Marrying ZoomInfo and Chorus, we will surface all of the contacts with whom there's been an interaction-such as a meeting, a call, an email, or a chat session-and we will provide access to the interaction history, including call recordings, emails, and chat interactions, all in one place.
Conversation Insights on Company & Contact Profiles
But it won't stop with search. Reps will be able to click into and pull up actual video recordings and see information and statistics about calls right from ZoomInfo. You'll see who was speaking and how much they participated. And you can easily drill into conversations or a particular transcript, make comments, or share a snippet of the conversation with a manager or colleague.
2. Conversation Insights in the Orchestration Layer
Workflows
One of the most exciting elements of combining ZoomInfo and Chorus is the ability to initiate automated go-to-market plays triggered by topics and keywords mentioned in calls, meetings, or emails with prospects and customers.
Below are several examples of automated workflows that will be enabled by Chorus:
- Automate escalation to management or leaders over pricing concerns, churn risks, negative sentiment, complaints, and complex needs or objections.
- Difficult technical questions may be routed to support or technical experts.
- Product feedback may be routed to Product teams to be prioritized as a part of roadmap planning.
- Pain points and needs may be used to initiate upsell or add-on product sequences.
- Competitor mentions may surface differentiating content.
- Supporting sales specialists or overlay teams may be notified when certain topics or products are surfaced.
- Buying committees may be expanded as contacts are mentioned.
Workflows powered by the combination of Sales Intelligence and Conversation Intelligence will be truly game-changing. Harnessing keywords and insights specific to your business will drive automated go-to-market motions across the entire buyer journey-for prospects and customers at any stage.
3. Conversation Insights in the Engagement Layer
ZoomInfo Engage & ZoomInfo Chat
Chorus will supercharge ZoomInfo Chat, our sales enablement functionality called Engage, and every aspect of the overall platform.
We believe that wherever there is engagement with prospects and customers, sales and marketing teams will benefit from both ZoomInfo and Chorus, surfacing meaningful insights and triggers that are all-too-often missed, overlooked, or not consistently followed up on after interactions with sales.
The at-a-glance view of key moments, issues, concerns, needs, and opportunities will position sales teams to have relevant and prescriptive conversations. Momentum will drive greater visibility into deal and pipeline health, giving managers leading indicators that set the stage for effective coaching and forecasting.
Video Calls
Leveraging Chorus' Zoom.us integration, ZoomInfo will surface and enrich meeting participant profiles within the Zoom.us application, delivering insights about professionals and their companies as you meet with them.
Other Engagement Integrations
Whether you use ZoomInfo's suite of engagement solutions or integrate with other sales and marketing automation applications, you'll be able to take advantage of Chorus' Conversation Insights through ZoomInfo Workflows that feed your connected systems.
Conclusion
We believe every company will soon be leveraging Conversation Intelligence as a strategic and competitive advantage in their go-to-market motions. Chorus changes the game for sellers, sales managers, and companies looking to improve, coach, scale, and understand their go-to-market motions relying on more than just a gut feeling. We are confident this addition will improve the customer experience, create greater stickiness across our product suite, and deliver greater ROI to our customers. We couldn't be more excited about the combination of ZoomInfo and Chorus and what it means for go-to-market teams everywhere. Buckle up and join us for the ride as we transform the future of go-to-market.
Henry