Intercom transforms its GTM strategy and resolves the product-sales gap using revenue AI

As the Vice President of Revenue Operations (RevOps) at Intercom, an AI-first customer service platform, I sit at the forefront of driving go-to-market (GTM) strategies on rapidly shifting terrain. To say that our revenue team and I need to quickly iterate and innovate on our GTM approach is an understatement.

Given our product, perhaps it is not surprising that we have turned to the combined power of conversation intelligence and AI to understand the quickly morphing landscape in which my team and I operate. It has helped me move from a kaleidoscope of GTM possibilities to a highly targeted strategy that drives revenue and growth for Intercom.

Gong’s revenue AI, in particular, has enabled our revenue team to move as fast as our product team and stay at the forefront of the AI revolution.

In the world of AI-driven customer service, there is no map to guide the way. If our revenue teams at Intercom cannot get visibility into what is happening here and now, it is challenging to spot hazards or know if we chose the right course. 

Previously at Intercom, we often did not have visibility into how new initiatives or products were received in the market.

That changed with our use of conversation intelligence and AI. Now we are able to run deeper analytics and get insights much faster into how customers receive our launches, or why customer churn or contraction happens.

I’ll give you a real-world example: We recently introduced a new product — an AI customer service agent — alongside an incentive for our sellers to attach it to their deals. We used conversation intelligence to capture and maintain clean and relevant data across multiple channels, and AI to analyze and contextualize it.

In just a few weeks, we saw that the incentive had created an uptick in the frequency of mentions. The visibility was so fast and accurate, and we were able to take action quickly if we did not see strong adoption with a particular rep. When that happens, we use targeted enablement and coaching to drive that behavior change we want to see. For me, that immediacy was truly a wow moment with Gong.

In many organizations, there is a disconnect between product development and sales execution, and it leads to misaligned strategies and missed opportunities. At Intercom, we discovered a powerful way to bridge this divide and align our product and sales teams. 

We brought the product team into our revenue platform so they can see real-time data about our sellers’ daily experience of talking to customers. Our product team now better understands the sales team’s challenges, and can hear firsthand what it’s like for our reps to talk about AI-based products with customers who have low tech readiness, but whose challenges we can solve.

The product team now takes a more realistic view of our customer base into consideration when they prioritize features and products, sometimes opting for those that are easier to adopt and require less technical expertise. With our product and sales teams aligned around the customer, we’re able to ensure that the products we develop at Intercom truly meet the needs and capabilities of our target market.

In the accelerated world of AI tech, Intercom must be able to innovate quickly — and that’s not limited to our product development. It applies equally to our GTM motions. But RevOps leaders everywhere know the challenges of keeping GTM innovation on par with rapid product development: 

At Intercom, we sit at the cutting edge of AI application technology, and we need our product and GTM teams to both innovate quickly so we aren’t defeated by these hurdles.

What has been groundbreaking with Gong is that we’re able to innovate on the GTM side as quickly as we are on the product side. 

Gong’s revenue AI helps us drive alignment and move forward as one business. It analyzes our data incredibly efficiently and provides us with insights about our customers, our product, and our sales processes much faster than ever before. It means we can iterate quickly and remove hurdles from our workflows, pipeline, and processes faster too. 

With the combination of conversation intelligence and AI, I feel closer to both the customer and seller experience day in and day out. We’ve also taken significant leaps forward in terms of being able to aggregate a ton of key data and analyze it in entirely new and valuable ways. 

By leveraging AI, we’ve unlocked a more informed, analytical approach to driving revenue. It allows us to broadcast new insights and strategies to our sales team instantly, ensuring that our GTM execution is always in sync with our rapidly evolving product offerings.

Gong has fundamentally changed how we operate, allowing us to move with the agility required in today’s market. With Gong, we can now hear our customers as clearly as they can hear us.