“Sales reps are viewing business cases as a check-the-box activity.”
This sentiment is becoming all too familiar in many sales organizations. Rather than leveraging business cases as a digital collaborative experience to define and communicate customer value, many sales teams routinely fill in data simply to fulfill a process requirement. The result? Minimal integration of the business case into the sales motion and little to no continuity into customer success.
GTM leaders in the Customer Value Community grapple with this reality every day. With 69% of sales reps currently missing their quotas and 40-60% of deals being lost due to no-decision, driving meaningful customer conversations around value is more urgent than ever.
At a recent community event, Clayton Lougée, Senior former Director, Value Consulting Team Lead at Talkdesk, and Chris Swansiger, Senior Director of Value Consulting at Talkdesk, led a discussion on how to improve adoption and forecast more accurately by transforming business cases into collaborative value conversations powered by ViViENTM, Ecosystems’ Virtual Value Engineer.
ViViENTM: Ecosystems’ Virtual Value Engineer
ViViENTM leverages generative AI to automate sales-sensitized industry research and helps orchestrate alignment between buyers, sellers, and partners, with customer-specific value conversations. It also provides in-app value selling coaching throughout the buying process, helping sales teams have more confidence and clearer articulation of value.
Drawing on data from over 35,000 users across thousands of deals in the Ecosystems platform, ViViENTM identifies winning patterns and supports sellers in replicating success, leading to win rate increases of up to 3.4x.
The ViViENTM Effectiveness Score
To provide sales teams with actionable insights, ViViENTM assigns an Effectiveness Score to each business case. This score is the result of machine learning of 3,000 Ecosystems generated business cases that were tracked within a CRM through every stage of a sales cycle, through to close-won or close-lost, to identify usage patterns and best practices related to positive sales outcomes. Key metrics analyzed include:
- Number of internal and external collaborators
- Frequency of edits and views
- Number of value drivers identified
- Timing of the business case creation relative to the opportunity’s close date
- Inclusion of financial metrics and investment data
This scoring model enables teams like Talkdesk’s value team to assess the quality and engagement level of each business case, helping them better predict deal outcomes and prioritize efforts.
Forecasting with Confidence
Clayton and Chris have integrated ViViENTM’s Effectiveness Score into their forecasting process. A low score often signals a deal at risk—perhaps due to insufficient collaboration or lack of business case activity—allowing the Talkdesk team to intervene before it’s too late.
This score doesn’t just offer hindsight; it empowers foresight. The Talkdesk team can now proactively identify opportunities that require additional support, such as increased customer collaboration or further refinement of the business case. According to Ecosystems’ research, external collaboration alone can boost win rates by up to 3.4x, due to the increased confidence it builds in customer stakeholders.
“Ultimately, you’ve got to make that transfer of ownership [from seller to customer]. That’s the key. And if that doesn’t happen, then you’re probably going to find that you’re not as successful as you could be.”
— Clayton Lougée, former Senior Director, Value Consulting Team Lead at Talkdesk
Driving Adoption Through Data
Beyond forecasting, ViViENTM’s Effectiveness Score has become a powerful tool for monitoring business case adoption. By evaluating editing frequency and collaboration levels, Clayton and his team gain real-time visibility into how effectively sales reps are engaging with business cases.
When activity is low, it may indicate that reps are merely going through the motions. This insight enables the Talkdesk leadership team to address adoption and buy-in challenges directly, whether through additional training, strategic coaching, or better alignment with sales goals.
The Talkdesk value consulting team has also observed a strong correlation between higher effectiveness scores and increased win rates within their own organization. This has helped them secure internal buy-in by demonstrating the measurable impact of value-selling practices.
A Strategic Shift in Sales Enablement
With ViViENTM, Talkdesk has moved beyond treating business cases as administrative tasks. Instead, they now serve as living, collaborative value conversations that influence forecasting, strengthen customer engagement, and reinforce internal alignment on value.
If you’re interested in learning how ViViENTM can help your organization improve business case adoption, forecast more accurately, and boost win rates, we invite you to contact our team.
