curiousmajor

Inside Sales Rep

Gong power users - how are you using gong now? What else do you want?

We got Gong recently in the org. I'm looking to talk to Gong power users to understand what are the good things and what are the missing things that you crave for in Gong. Of course, when I asked the Gong team, they talk as if everything under the sun is possible :)

Anyone up for a 20-mins conversation?

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nomdeguerre

Executive

Account executive

I don’t know that you’ll find a lot of people here who are positive on Gong. I have personally never had access to it, only have gotten demos and didn’t really see how it would help that much. Primarily it seemed like it would just tell me if I talked too much in my calls or used to many filler words. When I started asking about their “AI” they had a hard time explaining how it worked. I was told don’t worry we set that up for you. When I said that is not my understanding of how AI works, you have to build a model based on the outcomes you are looking for. Then you have to train the model by feeding it a significant amount of your own data and then measure that you are getting significant better results. It not some magical thing that just automatically can show you results without data, and it’s certainly not just building a list of words and phrases that to want to either avoid or include and then running a NLP matching process. That’s not AI, that is basically a business workflow which is fine, but call it that. Also, that doesn’t just happen, you have to define that vocabulary or rely on a generic built by Gong. Anyway, my opinion is that Gong is making you drink their kool aid and it’s not as amazing as their marketing. However, this is just my opinion and I haven’t used it. Maybe they can give you some how-to videos that can help you use the tool or you can find something on YouTube.

curiousmajor

Executive

Inside Sales Rep

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

nomdeguerre

Executive

Account executive

Pleasure

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

I second this!

RandyLahey

Politicker

Account Executive

I've used Gong at 2 different gigs now, both as an SDR and AE. Here's my hot take:- I find their social media presence, pushed by their reps, to be some of the cringiest shit on the interwebz.- They have a decent amount of one-pagers and other content, but again, it's a lot of fluff and there are far better resources out there.

Now, for the product:- I think it's really contingent on the sales cycle. At my previous role, it was medium a length cycle, albeit a complicated sell. It was a good fit.- For shorter term, high velocity, transactional, it's not particularly useful.- Calls get tracked to open opps (Salesforce, unsure of other CRMs), so it's useful to have a single place to view the calls of a deal, track it's evolution.
- The AI features are overrated - it's basically a notification system if you say something like "we'll set a call next week". I found it annoying, because even if you actually did what you said, you still get notified. I ended up turning it off.- As for actual calls recording features, it's pretty smooth, you'll get things like longest monologues, pauses, talk time ratio and a few others. This is their strongest feature.
- Lastly, I really like seeing all of the deals in a specific tab, clicking into it and viewing all of them in a single place, including emails. This was my favourite part of their platform. But again, if you're in a short term, transactional cycle this may be useless.

I am unaware of their pricing and how it compares to others, so take this with a grain of salt.

curiousmajor

Executive

Inside Sales Rep

Thanks Randy for sharing your experience.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

I'm fairly certain they are super expensive

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

We are using Chorus.ai instead of Gong, but I suspect they are very similar. There are some cool features having to do with engagement and cadence.
I treat it all with a grain of salt - particularly when I'd get emails stating that my meeting was over and I was named in the transcripts of meetings I did not attend (!!). Definitely brought that up with sales management as an issue, because that's a fairly major issue if they're going to be looking at transcripts downroad and using those as any basis for a source of truth (they really shouldn't IMO). So the tech is useful; I do like the transcripts, faults and all, so I can go back and make sure I captured important details I may have missed in my own notetaking - but it's not all there yet.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Return it and get something better. That’s it. Also you sound like a gong employee looking for product feedback.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

1,000,000% looking for feedback. Also I'm the only curious one in here TYVM

curiousmajor

Executive

-3

Inside Sales Rep

I'm not a Gong employee. I'm a simple Gong user. I feel things can be better. I'm trying to think about what is missing in Gong that I can build to help sales reps.

I don't like Gong or hate it. I'm neutral with a belief that tool is as good as the user. I feel Gong is bloated. The whole Revenue Intelligence positioning was overplayed to make companies buy but somewhere in the process they ended up forgetting the rep. The value to rep is decreasing. Hence trying to talk to power users to understand on what is missing. :)

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

You mention gong in every post, and it’s fairly clear to me that you are asking leading questions or pitching the value of using it. There use to be another user on this platform that had a similar user name and had similar post styles to yours…

curiousmajor

Executive

Inside Sales Rep

Oh mate! Appreciate connecting the dots. But it is not what you think. All I can tell you is I'm looking to build a hobby project in sales tools space to solve my problems and other reps like me. If it helps the context is I'm looking to build something around removing admin work for reps be it around notes or updating sales or doing next steps etc. You can find this from my other questions.

I would appreciate if you can share any insights or the icky admin things you hate doing on a daily basis in your role.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

What’s the compensation for my time?

Gong is bloated, overly expensive software that is no longer the only player in the space—it’s just the loudest one. It’s not user friendly, has awful integration support, customer support is trash, and the revenue tools are very much lacking. I actively persuade prospects to choose other tools.

curiousmajor

Executive

Inside Sales Rep

Thanks. There are multiple problems I want to dive into a couple of them. I can send you a gift card for your time or help you with anything related to sales. Let me know if you are interested in a chat.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

Gong is great to remember all the shit I forget that someone mentions on a call.
The only feature that I think would be helpful is if it could have a button that instantly makes all their SDRs stop posting on linkedin

curiousmajor

Executive

-1

Inside Sales Rep

Thanks. I find the keyword trackers useful too.

What do you do when you go the call to review the mentions? How do you use this information for navigating the sales cycle?

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

What else would you do other than listen to calls?

curiousmajor

Executive

Inside Sales Rep

Gong seems to have ton of functionality. Hence trying to get a sense of how users are using other than the standard listening/leaving feedback.

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Gong can be somewhat useful for a few reasons.
Deal velocity - it has a decent way of showing if deals have been in contact with you recently, if there’s a next meeting on the calendar and all that jazz
There is also some value in the call stats they provide but should be taken with a grain of salt because they universally apply metrics which to me is dumb
Being able to go into calls and identify areas to improve and log notes at those times is also of value.
To be honest I’m not the worlds biggest gong fan because they’re puke worthy on socials and they think they know sales better than anyone.
The product does have some cool pieces though

curiousmajor

Executive

Inside Sales Rep

Thanks mate!

punishedlad

Tycoon

Business Development Team Lead

I really only use it to remind myself of things that were said in calls that I failed to take notes about. It's good for coaching as well.

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

I am unfamiliar with it, never used it. So it just tracks customer calls for review later?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

It does do a few other nice things, such as highlight calls to action and next steps as well as insight onto talk time, filler words, etc., for training purposes.
But if it's like the tool I'm using, it can also be used in conjunction with the CRM to track and manage engagement.

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

Interesting , and people actively use this feedback and insight to improve cold calls or presentations? How do you link it to a CRM?

TheEnglishMajor

Opinionated

Account Executive

it records them! so you can pay attention to the convo and not worry about notes, go back and get things word for word, and also be able to just watch yourself and prospects/customers on video for reactions and such. it's like being a fly on the wall for your own sales conversations

TheEnglishMajor

Opinionated

Account Executive

After each call I do, I listen on Gong and capture their challenges/priorities/etc in a strong follow up. Use their words in quotes when possible for a follow up and for a next call deck.
Additionally, I will comment on my own calls when relistening to pinpoint areas of improvement -- questions i could have asked to go deeper, tagging others in the company when I need to (ex. common product requests, ask a bit about what they are trying to do and such, tag product team)

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curiousmajor

Gong power users - how are you using gong now? What else do you want?

27 comments

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