ConnectAndSell vs. InsideSales.com / XANT PowerDialer for Salesforce (discontinued)

ConnectAndSell is incredibly helpful when it comes to getting people on the phone. In the world of sales, dials and connects are king and connect and sell works great to hit these two points. The ability to create lists is great, however, I would like to see more customizable options available for end-users to play around with.

Incentivized

Outbound dialing is where it excels. It's especially good with larger teams of reps. Organizing through campaigns and seek lists is very powerful once you understand how to use it. There is definitely a learning curve with seek lists (I've spent tons of time on the phone with their support staff) but once you understand it the possibilities are endless. You can sort which leads show up by a variety of filters. Even with a list of 10,000+ leads and 5 reps calling on it, you can ensure no leads show up in two reps lists, the reps are calling specific territories, and even skipping leads that are likely on their lunch break! One my of favorite tricks with seek lists and only calling people with titles like Director/VP/C-Level before 8:30am or after 5pm their time, when those people are more willing to pick up the phone. They also appreciate a sales rep who is putting in the extra time to call during those blocks.

Incentivized

• The amazing piece is that you can leave a voicemail with each of those calls and really only need to focus in on the calls that patch through.
• One thing that has been absolutely amazing about Connect and Sell is the amount of call volume you can get in a single day. We used to start out by having 40 calls a day to now exceeding 200 calls going out.
• It's been a product that we weren't sure of the business impact but we've already seen results from producing more conversations and being able to follow up with greater ease.

Incentivized

• Creates competition between teammates, I have used several outreach tools and this one provides the best interaction with a points system to give that competitive edge to outreach
• Accurately tracks metrics, near realtime tracking of your own and team's metric attainment on a day-to-day basis
• Integrates with Salesforce, having click to dial and a widget embedded in Salesforce made using this tool very easy

Incentivized

• ConnectAndSell sounds way too robotic when the prospect answers the phone
• The implementation team is terrible. Donny was a horrible leader and did a terrible job of getting us going
• They have way too many bugs they need to fix at this point

Incentivized

• No call parking features for inbound calls, if on a call through the dialer, one cannot place that call on hold to take the second call.
• All notes are lost when another inbound call comes in, whether or not you accept that call.

Incentivized

For the right reps who are good at talking to prospects who aren't expecting their call, this is a no brainer.

I like that it is simple, functional and I can rely on it to help me get my work done everyday. My job became much harder without InsideSales.com. The new CRM I am using has confusing features and too much going on sometimes. There are so many fields and functions that I find unnecessary--what sucks is when I look at my screen at all these empty fields, it makes me feel incomplete. With InsideSales.com, I knew what to put in every box and why it would be important. I could put it in once and whether it was my manager, case admin or data analyst or me, we all knew where to find it. With our new system, I find myself having to do more input and data entry for other people to benefit--no longer a "one shot, one kill" deal.

Incentivized

I have had a few support calls with their people. They are totally reachable and helpful, sharing screens, controlling my screen, showing why things happened, not just correcting it. If you have an issue with the software, let them help. They are there for you, and they are friendly, accessible, and happy to do their job.

Incentivized

They are providing good support. We can contact any time to raise our query.

Incentivized

Lightning has a better success rate for connecting (in terms of it takes less time to connect using Lightning) but Lightning was definitely using shadier connecting tactics and also required the user to be focused intently when it connected you with a prospect. When using lightning, you needed to immediately speak and know your talking points while ConnectAndSell gives you better time to prepare.

Incentivized

[PowerDialer for Salesforce, from XANT (formerly InsideSales.com) is] cost effective and can use it without any training that saves lot of time. It helps to connect more [clients] and getting more business. We can easily track inbound and outbound calling. We can check leads to call. Support team is also there for us to help.

Incentivized

• It is a little expensive.
• It does require management to keep lead lists lean and workable.
• It is tough to keep sales people motivated on it.
• It can feel overwhelming.

Incentivized

• Because it manages leads, we call the hottest leads first no matter what time of the day they come in.
• I am able to make more calls every day which helps me to contact more people and create more opportunities for our company.
• It keeps our company up to date with Salesforce helping us know better about what is happening with the lead and opportunity.

Incentivized