B2B win-loss research that’s limited to product capabilities or pricing models may not truly reveal the extent of your win-loss problems.
For example, you may be losing customers because a competitor:
- Provides exceptional support.
- Invests in a more robust developer community than what you offer.
- Provides more forgiving licensing terms.
- Has better brand recognition.
- Has a better partner program.
- Provides developers a better software development kit (SDK) or application programming interface (API).
- Offers better education and training.
Many of these factors are unique to the B2B tech industry. Unfortunately, B2B win-loss research that’s not backed by a solid grasp of the technology sector cannot provide effective recommendations to help you win more customers.
With more than 15 years of being 100% focused on the needs of B2B technology companies, Cascade Insights can help you address the unique concerns of your customers and prospects. Many of our recommendations extend beyond the typical product feature or price changes suggested by industry-agnostic firms.
Additionally, while we see familiar patterns across our win-loss efforts, we also find unique ways that tech companies can lose. Because of our long history analyzing B2B tech companies, Cascade Insights can identify these problems early, back up our observations with sound qualitative and quantitative evidence, and provide recommendations you can act on immediately.
Our Approach to B2B Win-Loss Research
Tech-Specific Insights and Benchmarking
Cascade Insights’ interviewers are experts in the B2B tech sector. We will uncover technology-specific deal factors that are causing your customers to choose the competition, and where you need to focus your efforts to score victories. Furthermore, our extensive experience with the B2B tech sector allows us to benchmark your churn or loss rate, so you know exactly where you stand months or years after our initial research.
Reports Tailored For You
We understand that a standardized report format doesn’t work for every organization. Whether you need a dashboard, deal-by-deal summaries, or monthly/quarterly reviews of sales successes and failures, we can help.
Put Every Stakeholder Into Action
We also put special attention into making sure our deliverables meet the needs of stakeholders across your entire organization. This includes both long- and short-term recommendations that sales, marketing, product, and executive leaders can get to work on immediately.
Expert Insight at the Speed of AI
Truly impactful research goes beyond the data you’ve had in front of you for a while. By combining the power of AI with our deep human expertise, we can move faster than other firms while still bringing insightful, comprehensive, and uniquely human perspectives to any research study.
How We Leverage AI: AI significantly enhances our ability to organize and analyze conversational data, quantitative data, and secondary sources of information rapidly. This allows us to identify patterns and trends with greater efficiency.
Fluid Intelligence™: However, AI alone cannot capture the full picture. That’s where our team’s expertise shines. We bring:
- Emotional intelligence – Human researchers interpret intent, emotion, nuance that AI might miss and business implications of those insights.
- Adaptive methodology – We adjust a line of questioning based on participant screener details, live responses, and always dig deeper where necessary.
- Tech sector expertise depth & context awareness – We challenge assumptions, validate insights, and connect them to real-world trends.
- Bias detection and correction – Our researchers detect uncertainty, subtext, and hidden biases all of which can lead a research project astray.
In short, great research isn’t just about collecting words or text. It’s about listening with empathy, paying close attention to your words and tone, nonverbal cues, and what is unsaid as much as clearly stated. These human capabilities drive great research that uncovers valuable insights, ultimately delivering a competitive advantage.
15 Years In the Tech Sector, Thousands of Conversations With B2B Buyers
We only work with companies that create B2B technology products and services. This has been our focus for more than a decade. Every day, we interview and survey B2B customers on their tech stack, pain points, and business needs. Our background empowers us to design the best studies and questions and recruit the best participants to bring specialized, actionable insights to the B2B tech sector.
Cascade Insights Founders Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart have been recognized numerous times by Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) for their contributions to the competitive intelligence field. Campbell is also a member of the Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows, an invite-only organization.
The Right Questions for B2B Win-Loss Research
- What gets us on the long list to start?
- What factors do buyers consider when generating a shortlist?
- How often are we losing to a well-known competitor or a lesser-known one?
- Have competitors changed their prices or discounts?
- What do competitors say about us to potential customers?
- How big is the competitor’s sales team and how is it structured?
- Are we focusing on one-off solutions when buyers concentrate on platforms?
- How much does a given pricing model factor into the purchase decision?
- What is the impact of our partners on our sales efforts?
- Are we losing deals to do-it-yourself or do-nothing?
- How often are customers engaged with after the sale?
- How much are customers willing to pay for support services?
- What can our sales team do differently to limit churn and win more deals?