ClearSlide Unveils the ION Version of its Sales Engagement Platform

ClearSlide today updated its sales engagement platform with the release of a version dubbed ION, which features a redesigned user interface equipped with engagement dashboards, coaching and opportunity management tools, and predictive content capabilities.

According to Michael Schultz, ClearSlide's vice president of marketing and business development, ION is "about changing the way sales, marketing, and success teams use customer interaction data to drive truly amazing experiences," sharpen forecasts, and improve business results. "We've refreshed the experience," he says. "It's a whole new interface that puts the power of the platform at people's fingertips [to make] every interaction is successful."

Central to the update are the dashboards, which are designed to reveal insights that drive effective actions. The Engagement Quadrant (EQ) Dashboards "are a way to look at what you're forecasting in [Salesforce.com] against the total amount of engagement that's happening across all channels, so you can do a better job of ensuring that you're forecasting correctly and drilling in on the deals that matter," Schultz says. Assuming that customer engagement metrics are  trustworthy predictors of success, leaders can leverage data points that are surfaced in real time and graphed on a quadrant, to quickly assess which deals are likely to make a great impact and focus on strengthening them.

Within the platform, managers can also access dashboards that provide views into team and individual rep performances, to determine what problem points sellers might need to work on to improve customer interactions, Schultz says.

Users can also drill into the engagement history associated with each customer account to better understand their responses to a company's outreach. "One of the very unique things about ClearSlide is that we save the entire history of interaction with an account, across emails, online meetings and in person, through mobile apps, and any presentations that you do remotely," Schultz says. The goal is to provide users with information "that lets me be smarter as a company, if I transition accounts or want to figure out what's going on with an account."

Schultz says that one of the greatest struggles organizations are facing right now is in finding the appropriate collateral to present to clients. "Aberdeen Research estimates that 440 hours per year per rep is spent searching for the right content to use. Half the time they end up rebuilding it themselves." Because of this, the update includes the "For You" option, which enables administrators to designate content—such as slide shows, presentations, videos, or case studies—to be recommended to specific roles at a certain stage in the sales cycle.

Raj Gossain, ClearSlide's vice president of product and design, expressed plenty of excitement about ION in a statement:

"The ION Release is the biggest release in ClearSlide's history. We've had hundreds of customers use it in Beta with feedback that is tremendous."

In addition to an integration with Salesforce.com, the platform is compatible with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and has APIs that enable connections with custom-built CRM systems.

ION is available to all new ClearSide customers today, and existing customers can transition at no additional charge.

In the future, Schultz says, ClearSlide will be working on tighter integrations with Salesforce, and to "formalize some of the work we've been doing around Salesforce's Wave," as a number of its customers have been leveraging the analytics within the interface.

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