September 17, 2015
By Oren Smilansky,

ClearSlide Releases Predictive Insights Tool

ClearSlide Inc., provider of the ClearSlide sales and marketing platform, this week announced Predictive Insights—a technology that use data science algorithms to analyze engagement data and help sales reps interpret and assess deal forecasts.

According to Raj Gossain, vice president of products at ClearSlide, many organizations are still relying on outdated and risky methods—such as word of mouth and self-reported accounts— to predict the outcomes of prospective deals. As a result, they are suffering: Gossain cites a CSO Insights study which reported that below 50 percent of forecasted deals are closed. ClearSlide’s release aims to boost those percentages by providing sharper assessments and enabling better ways to tend to those deals "that need a bit of attention," Gossain says.

"Up until this point [ClearSlide's offerings have] been focused on marketing and sales productivity," Gossain says. Those tools aimed to improve an organization's use of content and stimulate and track customer engagement rates. With Predictive Insights, the platform can help professionals understand what might have gone wrong with a particular opportunity. The technology automatically tracks customer interactions and then uses machine learning models to review deals and predict their results according to 150 attributes. After assessing criteria such as meeting frequency and volume, email open rates, and engagement analytics, the system then determines a prospect's level of interest in a product or service. Scores are then assigned to each opportunity, giving sales managers insight into the prospect's intention of buying.

The release comes on the heels of improvements to email and meeting scheduling functionality, announced last week, and accelerates ClearSlide's larger goal of building a "comprehensive solution" for sales effectiveness. Predictive Insights is a result of work the company began two years ago, when it assembled a team of data scientists to determine what the best predictors of sales success are, and how those factors can be leveraged along with CRM data.

While the first release of Predictive Insights focuses on sales at an opportunity level, ClearSlide will work on strengthening management functions, Gossain says. "Depending on the situation, [sales managers] may want to take a deal-centric view, or a team-centric view," Gossain says. A future release will concentrate on coaching, allowing leaders to see which employees are high performers and which ones need guidance.

ClearSlide integrates with Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but the company also has an API that allows customers to link it to any CRM system of their choice, Gossain says.

Packages range from $35 to $125 per user a month. The Predictive Insights features will be included in a "higher end" offering and available in private beta versions later this year.