COMMVAULT USES DRIFT TO LEVEL UP THEIR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND DRIVE 105% INCREASE IN REVENUE

THE CHALLENGE: SERVICING BUYERS AS RESPONSIVELY AND PERSONALLY AS CUSTOMERS

Commvault is a global leader in data protection and data management for mid-size and enterprise-level organizations all over the world. Since 1996, their mission has been to help customers turn their data into a powerful strategic asset.

A lot has changed in the industry since 1996, but Commvault’s products and services are always ahead of the curve. In addition, their intense focus on delivering exemplary customer support had helped them differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market. They saw an opportunity to extend Commvault’s focus on innovation, and replicate their best-in-class support practices, to create a better buyer experience. They just needed the right platform. 

Commvault’s Director of Web Marketing, Mike Impelluso, wanted to provide buyers with the same ease of communication afforded to Commvault customers, “We saw that prospects were becoming less likely to pick up the phone, and with chat volume increasing, there was a great opportunity to grow that channel’s success.”

When Mike first joined Commvault, there was an existing live chat software in place, but Mike’s vision was to take that user experience even further. “Our engineering team was building cutting edge tech for our customers, and I wanted our customers to see that side of Commvault right on our website. I quickly focused on opportunities to create more engagement and delight our website visitors through chat. ”

The user experience was the focus of a new buyer experience Mike wanted to create. “We wanted to support evolving buyer behaviors, and very, very quickly get people on our website talking with humans. We wanted to deliver an experience that says, ‘Didn’t find what you needed in 30 seconds or less? We’ll help. You literally press this button, and you can talk to a human right now.’

Lisa Salabritas, Commvault’s Digital Marketing Manager, put it this way, “We wanted to pull down all the barriers so buyers could access our team as easily as customers could.”

Mike knew getting prospects and customers the information they needed when they needed it was an essential element of building a stronger brand and improving the overall experience. He knew a digital transformation that created a better experience by opening up a more direct and instant channel of communication would earn them buyer consideration. As Mike explained, “From a marketing perspective, we were trying to get on the buyer’s short list. We knew that buyer behavior had changed, with buyers expecting immediate answers.  We couldn’t rely on whitepapers and technical documentation. The new opportunity in front of us was enabling buyers to chat, get the information they needed, and then tell their boss to take a look.”

THE SOLUTION: REMOVING BARRIERS TO BUSINESS AND REPLACING WITH INSTANT HUMAN CONVERSATIONS

Mike chose Drift to replace the out-of-date chat solution because it offered all the features and capabilities he needed. He believed in conversational marketing as a strategy. It aligned closely with their brand and experience goals of becoming substantially more accessible, responsive, and “human” across the entire customer journey.

There were a few specific Drift benefits that Mike knew would really level up Commvault’s ability to deliver a superior buyer experience:

1. Drift gets visitors connected to sales people fast. There’s no form to fill out. No hurdles. No hoops. Instead, it simply provides immediate gratification with instant access.
2. Drift accommodates a fast global rollout with comprehensive features. As a global enterprise, Commvault needed a partner who could get them up and running fast (within 6 weeks!) worldwide. They needed a solution that could offer comprehensive playbooks right out of the gate and the ability to route conversations based on geographic territories. Critically, they needed a solution that could integrate seamlessly with their existing systems, Marketo and Salesforce.
3. Drift provides consistent, context-relevant messaging. Mike wanted to be able to meet site visitors wherever they were in their research. Drift allows companies to promote key messages and features on specific pages throughout the site, providing consistent and relevant messaging at every step of the buyer’s journey.

FACILITATING A FAST, EASY GLOBAL ROLLOUT

Mike recalls how the rollout transitioned quickly from a phased approach to a full implementation, “We had planned on a gradual rollout, but once leadership got wind of what we were doing, they said, ‘Oh no, everyone needs this.’ So, we flipped the switch.”

After starting with some simple playbooks, the team began to expand and experiment. “We focused more on the routing in the beginning, because we knew that had to be right,” says Mike. “It wasn’t long, though, before we were making custom playbooks for specific pages.”

Commvault worked closely with the Drift team to get the internal team up to speed. “Our meetings focused on helping them understand how users actively engage with Drift, meaning the sales team would be able to see user intent before even starting a conversation. We demonstrated how Drift handles a lot of the research and qualifying work that they used to have to do themselves.”

It was also important to set up an internal support system for non-technical lead development reps (LDRs). As Mike pointed out, “By looking at Drift conversations – something we weren’t easily able to do with our old chat solution – we realized that conversations with good leads get very technical very quickly. We needed to make sure our LDRs knew who to engage to progress and even accelerate the opportunity.”

Ultimately, all the training and education paid off. “We saw our LDRs gain confidence and quickly adopt chat, and we saw the impact to our pipeline pretty quickly, too.”

ENHANCING COMMVAULT’S FIRST VIRTUAL EVENT WITH 1:1 CONVERSATIONS

In addition to implementing Drift as a core lead generation and sales tool, Mike also saw an opportunity to use Drift to support a virtual event with technical experts. Basically, the entire ‘Virtual Connections‘ event was built around Drift. We used Drift to help users navigate to the event and connect webinar attendees to our sales team and experts for 1:1 conversations driving over 1,200 registrations.”

This unique application of Drift in a live event helped Commvault deliver a more engaging and personal experience that yielded excellent general feedback and specific conversational wins.

LOOKING AHEAD

“Drift quickly became a big focal point of the ‘new Commvault,’” Mike says.  “Our brand was already transitioning to become a more conversational brand as part of our second act, and Drift really worked out well in terms of helping us see what we could do differently.” In addition to giving Drift a starring role on the new brand website, the Commvault team is also exploring other applications for Drift including a new partner experience, a virtual assistant function for a large content library, and integration with the support team.

THE RESULTS: IMPROVING THE BUYER AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, SALES PRODUCTIVITY, BRAND INSIGHTS, AND THE BOTTOM LINE

Drift helped Commvault implement a digital transformation that strengthened their brand and improved their customer experience in a way that benefited everyone involved.

Better for Buyers and Customers:

1. Provided prospects and customers with an overall better experience – easier access, faster response times, and immediate gratification.
2. Created opportunities to showcase key corporate messages like the release of a new Gartner report. “With Drift, we don’t have to drive people to the specific page that converts,” Mike explains. “We can communicate a very clear and consistent message no matter which page they are on.”
3. Increased the fun factor by injecting a little more brand personality, like a quirky Taco Tuesday message just for the fun of it.

Better for Sales:

1. Increased efficiency and productivity. “Drift is a lot easier for the team to use,” Lisa says. “We’ve made their day job a lot more exciting than cold calling all day. We see reps down in our cafeteria having Drift conversations on their phones. They are totally obsessed with it.”
2. Tied all Commvault’s systems together. “Our team fills out the details, and then everything syncs to Marketo and Salesforce,” Lisa explains. “It’s all clean and crisp and right there. The entire global team is using the same technology, the same platform, and the same playbook. Which means they’re all having the same conversations.”

Better for Marketing:

For Mike, Drift has been instrumental in learning what prospects and customers want from the Commvault site. It provides intelligence beyond just the process of marketing and selling, helping the marketing team see exactly what people are looking for and how they are interacting with specific pieces of content. Some of what the team has learned is being used to inform overall website strategies.

Visibility into conversations helped Mike discover not only how technical prospect conversations can get, but also things like how many people come to Commvault’s corporate site looking for support. Each conversational insight helps him identify new opportunities to use Drift to help remove friction from the buyer and customer experiences.

And Mike points out how easy it is to adapt and evolve with Drift, “The beauty of Drift is that it’s so easy to make changes. We can easily just keep testing, iterating, and changing different gradings. It makes it easy to try things because you’re not afraid to fail. If you fail, you just make adjustments. And we didn’t even have too many of those moments. It all went really, really well.”

Better for the Bottom Line:

Drift helped Commvault create a better customer experience. From there, the Commvault sales team was much better positioned to drive revenue-focused goals like better lead qualification, website conversion, and revenue.

1. 135% increase in opportunities generated from chat
2. 105% increase in new business revenue generated from chat
3. 7.7% more conversations than via email

“Drift has become one of our most significant pipeline contributors from an inbound digital perspective,” Mike says. “After implementing Drift, we saw an enormous jump in how much chat contributes to pipeline. That was a pretty significant jump that happened quickly, even with our initial limited implementation. Drift was the digital team’s biggest win of the year.”