Kentik
How Kentik cut down list building and prospect research time by 40% with CloseFactor
Introduction
Kentik is the provider of a leading SaaS-based, internet-native network observability platform. The company empowers network teams across the globe to build, plan, run, and fix any network.
Kentik uses CloseFactor to enable its growing sales team with exactly identified target prospect accounts that have the right levels of buying indicators and buyer personas that specifically need the network observability that Kentik offers.
Redefining Network Observability
Kentik’s remarkable approach to network observability makes it a compelling solution for network, cloud, security, and infrastructure professionals. The Kentik Network Observability Cloud platform allows these professionals to do everything from network troubleshooting and cloud optimization to digital experience management and protection against DDoS attacks.
At the onset of COVID-19, Kentik’s customers were seeing a 200% to 500% increase in network traffic. These unprecedented traffic levels put the spotlight on why networks must remain optimized and always-on, and allowed Kentik to support its customers with the network observability needed to keep businesses and users connected.
“As quickly as we jumped in to help our customers address new and unprecedented network challenges, we knew there was a much broader group of network teams that we could support,” says Justin Biegel, COO and co-founder of Kentik. “We didn’t want to waste time searching individually for the right companies to support. Instead, we wanted our sales team to have precisely identified accounts that were facing many of the challenges that Kentik resolves. That way we could reach the right people at the right time, while also growing our business efficiently at the fastest rate possible.”
Why Kentik Chose CloseFactor
Having been a veteran sales rep himself, Justin understood the value of prequalified prospects that matched a set of buying criteria. As the leader of the sales organization, he wanted his team to hit the ground running.
“The CloseFactor team had this really novel approach where they understood exactly the business problems and buyer personas we saw as high potential and were able to hone in and carve out lists of high-potential accounts that matched our selling motion,” says Justin. “Not only did it save time for our sales team from having to research accounts one-by-one with Google, LinkedIn. and other tools, but it also surfaced the best personas that we could take action with.”
CloseFactor automated Kentik’s research process across hundreds and thousands of target accounts, making the selling process more about the buyer’s journey than about manual, laborious, and time-consuming searching for information. By calibrating the accounts, CloseFactor helped Kentik to prioritize its outbound efforts. The Kentik team quickly integrated the CloseFactor heatmap into a seamless outbound workflow designed for reps to maximize customer engagement and relationship building.
The Results
The net results were that a newly hired and minted sales team at Kentik saved 40% of list building and research time.
“I can’t imagine now what it would have been like to have my SDRs and reps do this type of research account-by-account, keyword-by-keyword”, says Justin. “CloseFactor used machine intelligence to offload all of the keyword expansions, contextual filtering, title and persona-matching to machines, so our representatives could focus on building relationships with customers.”