Believe it or not, we’d like to start by thanking you for your candor. It sounds like you had an awful experience - completely inconsistent with our values and the experience of our other customers - and we’d like to make it right.
For anyone else reading we would also like to clarify a few things since many of the experiences you share here are inconsistent with the way that we operate and were - frankly - quite surprising to read.
For example, we never promise a number of appointments. Guessing at appointment volumes without first testing is a fool’s errand (practiced by many others).
The number of appointments needed to achieve economic results is a function of your price points and sales acumen, which we don’t control. The number of appointments possible is a function of your brand, the target segment, and the urgency of the problem you solve which we also don’t control. We know that our methods are the fastest way to get to answers about whether outbound will work, but it’s close to impossible to figure out how many appointments are possible without testing in the real world.
Also (critically) outbound just doesn’t work for everyone. While we weed out companies in our sales journey where we are SURE outbound won’t work, fully 20% of vetted prospects that proceed with us are unable to get to an economic result, sometimes as a result of fewer appointments than needed to achieve the result, and sometimes because the appointments can’t be turned into sales. That’s the entire reason we have an evaluation period before long term commitments - at a minimum our approach is the most sophisticated and economical way to rule OUT outbound for those unsure whether it will work.
In our analysis of clients where we have failed to generate economic results, there are two categories of shortfall: failure to generate sufficient appointments and failure to handle appointments that were generated.
Since it sounds like the first category is more relevant here, here are the primary correlates most connected to failure to deliver appointments:
* Extremely challenging segment. If you are targeting CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, the job is exceedingly difficult...
*Small ICP / Segment. Outbound requires some volume. Small segments are hard to target, and while segment size is always flagged in the sales process, some clients elect to try against small or difficult segments anyway, which increases the risk of subpar results.
*Straying too far from proven methodologies. Rarely, CIENCE recommends trying novel strategies that have some risk of falling, if the potential upside warrants it. More frequently, proven methodologies are adjusted or abandoned due to client constraints or recommendations - sometimes those have to do with brand constraints, and sometimes clients simply insist on campaign strategies they prefer. While we do our best to push back when we think these changes are likely to negatively impact outcomes, ultimately clients are in charge of their campaigns.
While correlation doesn’t mean causation, we know that major client-driven adjustments to campaigns are a very strong predictor of campaign challenges.
Given the anonymous nature of this review, it’s hard for us to say whether any of these applied to your account - and we certainly don’t intend to imply that ANY of them are relevant.
But what we can say is that it’s incredibly disheartening that any CIENCE client was left with the impression your documented and we would welcome the opportunity to learn more from you and make it right.
As such I’d like to offer you to reach out to us directly at hello@cience.com
And whether you choose to or not, please know we have taken your comments to heart and appreciate you sharing what you shared, as painful as it was for many of us here to read.
See how CIENCE improved
