How Freshworks’ Salesforce Became Social Selling Champions

Freshworks Breaks the Mold in the CRM Market by Becoming Social Selling Champions

Discover their Social Selling journey

Freshworks’ journey began in India nine years ago, when it revolutionized the entire business software industry thanks to a new line of innovative, easy-to-use CRM applications. With a philosophy centered on democratic design, they changed the face of the market, bringing software solutions that were simple, intuitive, and quick to implement. Today, they are considered a true unicorn, having expanded rapidly to include over 2,000 employees, and with a headquarters located in San Mateo, California.  

Despite their tremendous success, however, Freshworks knew there was still potential waiting to be tapped online, in the form of the expertise and enthusiasm of their salesforce. As pioneers in innovative marketing methods, they knew Social Selling was something they wanted to explore.  

Their Challenges: How to Turn the Salesforce into Online Thought Leaders and Social Media Pros

They wanted to highlight their expertise on social networks. Freshworks was keenly aware that they had an enthusiastic salesforce with extensive industry knowledge. One of the main hurdles, however, was channeling that expertise and enthusiasm to social networks—especially with new markets opening up across Europe as the company was just starting to expand, creating a need to be seen as the leaders that they were. The sales team had to be regarded not just as online sellers, but actual experts in their field, across all social media. This would mean having at hand an entire ecosystem of engaging and accessible content to help the transformation occur. Which also meant they had to find a powerful and comprehensive Social Selling solution. 

After doing a full comparison of leading market solutions, including LinkedIn Elevate, Freshworks chose Sociabble to implement and guide their new Social Selling initiative. They found its ease-of-use very much in tune with their own software philosophy, and appreciated the analytic potential of its leaderboards, as well as the extra human support that the dedicated CSM team provided. From the start, it just felt like a perfect match. 

Our Solutions: Curated Content, Gamification, and Expert Human Support

Sociabble: the Social Selling platform that meets their needs. In formulating a strategy, it became clear that content was key. In order to become thought leaders and effective Social Sellers, the Freshworks salesforce needed easy access to relevant, authentic, and engaging industry content. The Sociabble platform provided the Freshworks team with curated content on themed channels, as well as features that made it easy to distribute UGC over social networks, such as the mobile app and one-click sharing.

Advanced targeting was also implemented, separating global and local content by relevance, all of which was amplified by a gamification system that encouraged employees to win points and badges by sharing content. A sophisticated analytics package with built-in lead tracking, including the ability to track the specific shared content piece and social network origin of individual leads, helped administrators optimize sales techniques and identify effective employees. All of this, while Sociabble’s compatibility with LinkedIn and Xing also greatly expanded the sales team’s potential reach.  

These technical features were also backed up by Sociabble’s APAC CSM and support team, located in Mumbai and able to work closely with Freshworks’ Indian office. This included strategic consulting to help with the launch and implementation, day-to-day functional assistance, and a direct link to Sociabble’s IT team based out of Europe. Thanks to this level of human support, the launch took place in just six weeks, as Freshworks’ sales professionals were quickly and effectively onboarded onto the new platform and trained to become effective Social Sellers.  

The Results: The Salesforce Became Social Selling Pros

 Social Selling initiatives have brought good results: Freshworks’ Social Selling initiative was a success right out of the gate, with hundreds of their employees onboarded in the first few weeks. Thanks to the features that the Sociabble platform provided, coupled with intensive training and support, over 515 fresh leads were generated in the first four months. And the company’s Social Selling Index jumped from 72.8 to 73.2 in only the first three months. Which goes to show that with the right platform, the right strategy, and the right synergy between teams in terms of vision and values, great things are truly possible. 

Tricycle: The Power of the Right Partner

The Freshworks launch of Sociabble was effective in part because of a strategic partnership with Tricycle, leading experts in Social Selling coaching. Together, Tricycle and Sociabble helped to train sellers and executives in Social Selling best practices, and even combined the Sociabble analytics with those from Sales Navigator to create a special “rock star” index. Sociabble chose Tricycle as a partner because they were the perfect match for Freshworks’ project goals. 

 Sociabble’s CSM Team: Support Makes the Difference

At Sociabble, one of our hallmarks is our team of Customer Success Managers, or CSMs. Their main purpose is to support our clients and make sure they receive all the proper training, management, and IT assistance they require. For Freshworks, we were able to offer support from our own APAC team based out of Mumbai, which was helpful in terms of physical proximity and understanding the local business culture.