How does the assessment work?

How do you measure a rep’s selling attributes?

Each attribute you see in the Hidden Revenue Assessment is a comparative metric. Cien looks at all applicable data points and adjusts the value to compensate for various data quality issues. We then see if the specific rep is better, worse, or about the same as his/her peers. Each metric is measured using data from your CRM and we take great care to do apples-to-apples comparisons to ensure consistency. Attribute metrics are tracked over time, so you can see how coaching and other tools improve reps’ skills and measure the dollar impact of those initiatives.

How do you measure the value of improving each attribute?

This is a central component of Cien’s technology. Cien’s AI models search for correlations between reps’ skills and attributes and their impact on the final value of opportunities. This is the basis for a set of patented algorithms called the Cien Value Chain. Cien determines the relative value of each lead as it enters your CRM and tracks its value at the end of the sales cycle. The Cien Value Chain measures the value added at each stage of the opportunity and the skills and attributes that drive incremental value.

How do you measure engagement ability?

We take into account all activities across different communication channels (email, call, in-person meetings, social media)  and determine if there was any meaningful customer engagement (e.g. if a meeting was held or an email was responded to) and compare each rep to their peers that perform similar activities. 

How do you measure work ethic?

We factor in at sustained activity levels, not just individual activities, and adjust for the activities that may not be logged in your CRM. We then compare if the specific rep is better, worse or about the same as his or her peers.

How do you measure product knowledge?

Cien looks at multiple factors to determine product knowledge. The first one is the rep’s ability to do effective customer discovery and tie customer requirements into a solution that the customer finds value in. Cien contrasts that value with the quality of the leads received and the reps’ individual behavior compared to his or her peers. Lastly, we look at his/her tenure and role in the company.

How do you measure closing ability?

We measure a rep’s ability to turn late-stage opportunities into closed won deals while controlling for all other factors that as the quality of the lead or opportunity.

How do you measure value received?

All leads are not created equal. Sometimes it can be much easier to close a “hot lead” than a cold one. We look at the lead’s source, role, industry, size, location and other data points to measure the probability of all leads and accounts to generate revenue, and then translate their actual value using our patent pending Cien Value Chain technology. This can highlight territory imbalances or faulty lead distribution among other problems.

How do you measure deal maximizing?

This attribute measures a rep’s propensity to maximize deal value compared to his or her peers. Please note that this is not the same as closing ability, and in some cases, reps that maximize deal value may have lower closing ability.

How do you measure CRM accuracy?

We measure the amount of CRM entries normally needed to obtain specific sales results and compare that we the actual number of activities found. We can then get a good estimate of how much data “is missing” in your CRM, which in turn allows us to derive for example the true adjusted number of sales activities.

How do you measure CRM timeliness?

We calculate the percentage of activities that actually get recorded in your CRM and how much they appear to be bulk-entered versus manually entered.

How does the Hidden Revenue Assessment associate a dollar amount to its findings?

For each skill or attribute, Cien’s AI models determine the midpoint of your team.  The system then determines the dollar value that can be attributed to that individual rep being above or below average and by how much for each skill or attribute. We calculate the value based on the rep having about the same skills as everyone else.

Do you measure X, Y or Z? 

We are constantly adding additional measurements to our AI models. If you have an idea or a suggestion, we’re very eager to hear about it. 

Is Cien really AI or just another BI tool?

As stated, Cien uses over 100 AI models. The typical SalesOps/BI dashboard simply summarizes past data which is often of questionable quality. Cien i) cleans and standardizes your data, regardless of CRM configuration, ii) applies semantic meaning to your data (e.g. by using Natural Language Processing to analyze activity notes to determine the outcome of a call), iii) predicts the outcome of a specific lead or opportunity, iv) assigns value to each rep step of the sales process, using our Value Chain Technology, v) Summarizes and quantifies our recommendations into actionable prescriptions using our Mentor feature. 

Tell me a little about the technology stack Cien is using?

Cien runs our high performance AI engine in the AWS Cloud with all recommended security processes and technology enabled. The primary MongoDB database server handles over 100 million AI predictions daily. Individual AI models are implemented in Python using Deep Learning frameworks such as TensorFlow and Machine Learning toolkits such as scikit-learn. Our web, mobile apps and APIs are implemented in Node.js.