The challenge

Scaling the sales process

Bitly’s link management platform helps brands measure online marketing efforts. With thousands of inbound leads coming in from across the world every month, business was booming. When Dave Rotholz, head of the company’s east coast sales team, saw that first contact with clients still depended on phone calls, he knew there had to be a better way.

Varied time zones are a challenge to connecting by phone, and cycles of missed calls are often more frustrating than fruitful. Increased interest in Bitly’s product already meant hefty call volume flowing through the sales channels. The last thing account executives (AE) needed was more phone traffic.

At Bitly, inbound SDRs reach out to warm leads who have submitted a web form requesting a meeting, outbound SDRs find new business opportunities through cold calling and email, while AEs take the baton from SDRs to close deals and manage active sales cycles. As the company grew, it became more difficult to keep everybody on the same page.

Dave needed something to improve communication and efficiency, so AEs could focus on closing business with the most qualified potential clients.

“I just loved the whole aspect of booking with Calendly and thought, ‘I have to get this for our whole team,’” Dave says.

The solution

Faster engagement, shared accountability

As a first step, Dave directed inbound SDRs to use email rather than phone calls to reach out to querying customers. Calendly allowed prospects to set their own time for an initial meeting and easily integrated with Bitly’s existing platforms. Soon enough, similar methods spread throughout Bitly’s scheduling systems.

Today, leads from the website flow directly into Bitly’s Salesforce CRM, then on to a sales automation platform that automatically triggers an email with a Calendly scheduling link. Questions on the scheduling page gather context for the initial call and help SDRs quickly convert more qualified leads. In the meantime, outbound SDRs send prospecting emails with Calendly links too.

“Not only do the SDRs come in with a whole calendar of prospects to speak with,” Dave says, “but they have more prospects show up to their meetings”.

AEs post questions on their scheduling page to ensure SDRs ask the right qualifying questions before scheduling. The responses push directly into Salesforce, and the integrated system ensures accountability and guarantees that AEs are meeting with the best-qualified prospects.

The results

Landing leads as interest peaks

And the results show that it’s working. Since shifting to Calendly, the leads generated by the web site are 40% more likely to end up as a sale. Prospects schedule at their moment of peak interest, and they avoid the frustrating back-and-forth of phone calls or emails.

When the AEs step in, they are confident that the prospect they are talking to is a qualified opportunity for a sale. So it’s hardly a surprise that overall conversion rates are up.

All told, more than 90% of all Bitly’s calls are scheduled using Calendly. Less time on logistics means a clearer focus on customers. The customer experience is better, and communication between the various parts of the sales team has also improved.

“It’s such a seamless process and everybody’s happy, AEs and SDRs get along way better,” Dave says. “You can plug-and-play any new SDR right into it.”

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