Research, recommendations, and reality: How Gong helped Mintel increase win rates by 34%

As a global leader in market research, Mintel has over 50 years of experience in understanding what consumers want and why. Not surprisingly, its go-to-market teams love data. It’s how they know they’re on the right track when it comes to customer service. 

Previously, with over 6,000 global clients, data patterns weren’t always easy to spot in calls. That’s why Mintel’s sales and client success teams wanted a more efficient and effective way to deliver customer care based on feedback. 

“We bring value to our clients, and we do that by tapping into our tools,” says Patricia Avila, Mintel’s Director of Client Success, Mid-Market CPG and Beauty. Her team brought Gong on board to surface numbers they knew would help them succeed by improving their internal and client-facing processes.

If you want to improve your customer experience, start by looking inward. “We’ve now created a coaching culture, and that’s so important to us,” says Josh Morgan, Head of Sales Enablement. Once they brought Gong onboard, Mintel’s teams saw numerous ways to improve their effectiveness with customers. 

Because Mintel works with clients across many industries, it often rolls out new initiatives. Getting internal teams up to speed can eat away at valuable time, which results in lost or stalled deals. Being able to review calls using Gong means closing the knowledge gap sooner. That’s especially important for enterprise teams that use peer-to-peer examples. “When new initiatives come out, we use our recorded calls to highlight the best-in-class examples,” says Josh. 

Being able to easily share top-notch recorded calls also made manager-to-rep coaching more effective, especially for those working remotely. “With Gong, they just tag me and I can see exactly what’s happening. It’s almost like being a fly on the wall of calls,” says Patricia. 

This has been important for new hires as well as more seasoned reps. Not being able to offer in-person feedback or praise can make onboarding difficult. The right tools have shown Mintel’s reps that even when you’re not sharing physical space, support is available. 

“When they share things in Gong, they can either send me calls where they used too many filler words, or things they’re proud of,” says Patricia. “I love being able to support my team from afar and really feel like I’m with them. I love watching them grow.”

Normalizing a culture of continuous feedback did more than streamline coaching for the Mintel team. It also revealed trends that had held the sales team back. Since bringing Gong on board, offering coaching that’s based on real numbers has helped Mintel reach an impressive 34% increase in their win rate. 

“Gong helped us see a trend that was happening across Mintel. It turns out we didn’t multi-thread enough,” says Josh. (That means their teams didn’t connect with more than one contact at the buyer’s company.) Once they started multi-threading, as recommended by Gong, their teams sold more, faster. It turned out that four contacts is the magic number for multi-threading at Mintel. Since discovering that pattern, there’s a new multi-threading policy in place that’s gotten impressive results. 

Mintel also conducts pipeline reviews using Gong’s Deal Boards. That enables sales leaders to quickly scan stats and prioritize which deals need help now, based on how sales calls are going. “With these pipeline reviews, we can quickly pull up stats on how much velocity is in the deal and where the deal stands, rather than trawling through lots of opportunities on Salesforce,” says Josh. It’s a highly efficient way to create coaching plans that work.

That kind of focus is also visible in the advice Gong regularly and automatically provides to Mintel’s teams. “If deals lag for 15 days or more, or if they’re not multi-threaded, Gong lets us know. That’s helped speed up the work we do,” says Josh. “Efficiency is a really crucial part of how Gong makes us better.”

On the client success side, communication remains a top priority. Mintel is particularly interested in being able to go back and confirm important pieces of information that came to light during customer calls. 

Taking notes during conversations with clients while actively listening is tough, particularly in work-from-home environments. “There are so many times when we drill down into our notebooks, and we’ve missed one second of something fantastic a client said,” says Patricia. “The good news is that we now use Gong on every client call.” Because of that, CSMs and their leaders can review a recording any time after a call and hear exactly what the client said. “Gong allows our team to listen in after the fact so we can provide the proper support based on the conversation.”

Because call snippets are easily shareable, Mintel can even send parts of a recorded call with a client to confirm their agreement on any project. “There’s no room for errors or miscommunication, and if there’s any doubt on our end, we can quickly ensure that we’re 100% aligned,” says Patricia. “It’s made the work-from-home environment so much easier.”

Despite having employees scattered around the globe, improving productivity and customer experiences is straightforward these days. Mintel uses trackable metrics that mean the same thing to everyone involved. “We love numbers. They allow us to see whether we’re hitting our marks,” says Patricia. 

Because those numbers are available at the rep, manager, and executive level, there’s an equal playing field, as everyone has access to the same data. It helps keep everyone on the same page, particularly when it comes to the reasons for launching internal initiatives. 

Plus, reps can engage in self-coaching in addition to the coaching they receive from their managers. “Instead of me always saying, ‘You could do this better,’ Gong allows them to see that on their own,” says Patricia. “They can see stats on how patient they are, or whether they’re really listening to their client or leading the conversation too often.”

Those clear statistics are invaluable when it comes to improving customer calls. If a rep has a high talk ratio, it’s a clear indicator that they need to listen more. If there’s a pattern of poor talk ratios, managers know that further coaching is needed, and they know exactly which reps need it.

As a tool, Gong has influenced the Mintel team across the board. From helping them adopt a coaching culture, to drastically improving their win rates, and enabling a more seamless distributed work experience, Gong provides critical data points. “It’s a tool that makes my life easier; one that keeps my team excited and motivated,” says Patricia. 

Josh says that future plans for Gong include using key-word trackers to keep an eye on competitor mentions during conversations, as well as building a sales framework within Gong. 

“We’re really excited about what’s happened, and even more so about what’s to come!”