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

If your organization relies on outbound leads through cold calling, this is a great tool for you. ConnectAndSell definitely made the associate's jobs easier at our company and allowed them to produce greater output than they could have done manually without such a tool. This tool is less appropriate if cold calling isn't a big part of your company's lead generation efforts.

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

• Builds lead lists.
• Maximizes connections with prospects.
• Provides guidance for how to approach future prospects.
• Leaves strategic voicemails for prospects.
• Sends emails based on programmable metrics.

Incentivized

• Organizes your leads based on the parameters you set so you call the hottest leads first.
• Connects with your phone so you can dial from your computer without having to enter the numbers every time.
• It also allows you to record the notes from the call right there and they get added to the completed task in Salesforce.

Incentivized

• One thing that's been difficult about Connect and Sell is some people can tell you've been patched through so if you can work past the initial conversation it ends up working great.
• The system has worked great with outreach which we've integrated our contacts directly into the system. Because of this the connection between outreach and connect and sell don't always communicate calls and metrics which are crucial for us to know conversion rates.
• We had a hard time getting the system implemented quickly and working the way we wanted it to. Because of the implementation specialist we were working with problems weren't solved quickly rather they were worked through quickly however they were solved.

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

We have moved to Salesloft. Salesloft gave us greater visibility into performance metrics and integrated with more software which in turn helped streamline our business.

Incentivized

I am actually not on the decision making side, but we used PowerDialer because of the easy to use integration with our CRM with Salesforce. Having these two tools in tandem was a great platform for us to do prospecting.

Incentivized

• It gives you greater potential to lock in a client, but I'm not sure from my end if this ROI is worth the headaches. It has a lot of work before it can become a truly reliable source for outbounding.

Incentivized

• Improved Connect Rates - Knowing when our team has the highest chance of success has helped us optimize our call blocks, leading to an improved connect rate.
• Dials - With dialer lists and click to call functionality, we are able to make more dials to the right people.
• Rep achievement - Though harder to quantify, the gamification has focused the team around the right KPIs.

Incentivized