Item: Sendoso
Rating: 9
Author: Julia Brocato

Overall Satisfaction with Sendoso

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Sendoso predominantly for its eGifting capabilities. I can send eGifts in the various currencies I need across a slew of vendors. In addition, I leverage their network of Direct vendors that allows me to send perishable baked goods, gourmet food, and plants to our prospects for demand generation and customers for appreciation. We also integrate Sendoso with Marketo to automate some aspects of our gifting campaigns. It helps us increase meeting show rates, event registrations, and overall satisfaction with our company.

Pros and Cons

Pros

eGifting, and providing the recipient a choice of gifts.
Integrating with Marketo.
A diverse network of partner vendors.

Cons

Inventory Counts
CSM reassignment
SLA adherance

Most Important Features

eGifting
Perishable Gifting
Gift tracking

Return on Investment

Increased registration rates.
Time savings (compared to other gifting vendors).
Bespoke physical gifting capacity.

Alternatives Considered

PFL Hybrid Experience Platform and Alyce

Sendoso has a more flexible solution than Alyce and at a better price. In addition, it has a wider breadth of eGift options than PFL has. I think PFL does have better inventory tracking but overall needed more on the front end to make it worth it (and gifting in more currencies). I like my Sendoso AM and he's stuck with me for years and understands what my needs are. In addition, their Marketo Integration onboarding team is stellar. Their super sender community is very helpful in sharing best practices and keeping me motivated. All of these teams/services aren't available at the competitors I've vetted that I could tell.

Key Insights

Do you think Sendoso delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Sendoso's feature set?

Yes

Did Sendoso live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Sendoso go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Sendoso again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Adobe Marketo Engage, SurveyMonkey, PathFactory, Foleon, Wistia, Miro

Likelihood to Recommend

We find more value with Sendoso using it in a more automated approach on the marketing side of the house. It can be very successful with sales team members and more ABM-style personalized gifting, but we have trouble encouraging them to continually use it. For this reason, we tend to automate gifting more around, webinar registrations, meeting reminders, and the like. We do this through the Marketo eGift URL integration as well as their Marketo Webhook.

Using Sendoso

Users and Roles

21 - Sales, Marketing, Customer Marketing

Support Headcount Required

2 - You need a background in Marketing automation or sales operations to use it successfully and have it integrated/visible across your organization, but can operate the platform standalone for less involved use cases.

Business Processes Supported

eGifting
Perishable gifting
Gift status tracking

Innovative Uses

Gifting in multiple currencies
Sweepstakes gifting

Future Planned Uses

AI/predictive gifting
bespoke branded packages

Likelihood to Renew

We're very sticky with Sendoso and would prefer to not train the entire sales org on a new platform! That and we've already sent up a plethora of gifts the team can send out (eGifts, physical branded items, treats, plants, etc.).

Evaluating Sendoso and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Prior Experience with the Product

We knew Sendoso could send in the currencies we needed because we'd used it at a previous company.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I would probably check out the newer vendors too, (reachdesk won't stop emailing me).

Sendoso Implementation

Implementation Rating

Get Sales and Marketing both involved in the implementation so you can strategize on how you'd want to use it across your organization. This will help your CSM roll it out the way you want instead of trying to piecemeal it after you've finished the onboarding process. Also I would recommend using a mix of Sendoso Direct, Inventory and eGift sends. Relying all on one or the other will not serve you well.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a minor issue with the implementation - It's hard to get sales teams to use Sendoso, particularly because it's a longer play and you don't see immediate results. Because of this they tend to give it up. Also I would recommend being prescriptive in how the sales team gifts. If you let them free in Sendoso they don't do it right, lol.

Implementation Issues

adoption
notecard templates
pick and pack fees

Sendoso Training

Training Types Used

Online Training
In-Person Training

In-Person Training

Our in person trainings were on zoom, but they are not recordings which is why I listed them as in person. You get a live person to walk you through integrations, how to use the platform, sendings best practices, setting up other users, etc. The customer success team will help you training staff users too. Ours even ran a contest for them to encourage them to send to prospects and they provided the prize!

Online Training

These were CSM and Onboarding team zoom meetings where they hand-hold you, which is nice especially compared to other company onboardings. After that they have Zen desk articles and regular check-ins where you can get the training you need. I also am on a slack channel with Sendoso staff where I can ask additional questions or look for best practices.

Configuring Sendoso

Product Configurability

Sendoso allows for a good deal of flexibility, but also allows you to use defaults if you don't have the time or the need to use all of its features. This is especially helpful.

Configuration Lessons

Use the templates! Sales teams aren't great at writing their own creative novel notes and a baseline to start with is helpful. Also follow Sendoso on LinkedIn so you can 'borrow' their sending ideas. Sorry Leslie ;) ;)

UI Customization

Some - we have done small customizations to the interface - We added templates per send, custom branding, hidden old sends using the archive, etc.

Extensibility and Customization

No - the product does not support adding custom code

Additional Customization Considerations

We do a lot of 'configuration' outside of their platform in Marketo like creating gifting landing pages, I believe it's a feature they're making, but now we do it on our own outside the platform.

Sendoso Support

Support Rating

The support team is very resposnive, so I give them an 8. I deduct a couple of points because usually they cannot help with warehouse problems. They are helpful with most of the time. I like that I can chat with them directly or email support.

Sendoso Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Knowledgeable team Kept well informed Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	Problems left unsolved Escalation required

Premium Support

I don't believe we get premium support. but as part of the middle tier account we do get some kind of elevated SLA. SLAs are a little fast and loose at Sendoso since they're growing so much, or if a problem takes a long time to resolve because other departments are involved, then you just have to deal!

Bug Resolution

Yes - Yes, I have reported a bug with Sendoso. Because they are actively releasing new features, especially during COVID, as a part of new releases there are bound to be bugs. They are responsive to users in recognizing bug complaints and acting on them. They're pretty good here.

Exceptional Examples of Sendoso Support

When some of our inventory went missing as part of a major warehouse move from Las Vegas to Phoenix, the Sendoso team made sure we were made right and repurchased the inventory.

Using Sendoso

Usability

The platform is continually being upgraded to make sure the platform is usable and prevents unnecessary errors. Once you get used to the platform you can get in there and build eGift touches, physical gifts, etc. quickly. You an also send quickly and in a variety of ways. The address confirmation feature makes sending when you don't know where your recipient lives is very helpful!

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Convenient Feel confident using	None

Easy Tasks

eGift URLs
Perishable gifting
Gift tracking
Gifting administration for sales

Difficult Tasks

gifting on a tight timeline
inventory tracking
warehouse packaging accuracy

Sendoso Reliability

Scalability

Sendoso has really improved here. Along with helping you train your staff, you can now clone gift touches, sync them with salesforce from the platform directly, and send out address confirmations using your own or their email sending platform - they also just released an option for you to white-label your own domain. helping you save time and get a lot off the ground quickly.

Reliability and Availability

Sendoso occasionally has downtime, but it's usually isolated to a single feature and doesn't effect the entire platform. They are responsive when it comes to intaking these outages and are quick to work to resolve them.

Performance

Their platform doesn't take a long time to load, and it typically isn't too buggy once a new feature has been out for a while. Reports are pretty quick to generate and are emailed to the user on file for use typically within ten minutes or so. I have not noticed Sendoso slowing down any of the software it integrates with at all.

Integrating Sendoso

Ease of Integration

It all went pretty smoothly. Some of the integrations don't do a lot, so there's not a ton you need to to do install the integration.

Systems Integrated With

Marketo
Groove
Google Chrome

Pretty minimal integration effort if you know how to use the software you're integrating with. Marketo was the hardest, but it was still done within an hour or so.