Upserve + CRAYON

Upserve, the restaurant POS and management software company, helps restaurateurs run, manage, and grow their business by boosting profits and improving hospitality. The POS and restaurant management software industry is hyper-competitive because the market demand is so high, and new services are popping up nearly every month. The Upserve team needed a solution to stay one step ahead of market innovation. Their Senior Manager of Product Marketing, Jake Godgart, implemented Crayon to automate his manual competitive intelligence efforts and get a deep-dive into their competitive landscape.

The product marketing team at Upserve is lean, and supports a rapidly growing organization. They are responsible for everything from competitive intelligence, win/loss analyses, buyer persona development, pricing, and packaging - a lot of work for a small team. In the early stages, Upserve had minimal intel about their competitors. They relied on the team’s restaurant DNA to give them a competitive edge, focusing on creating a product for and speaking the language of their target customers. But the market and their competitors were moving fast, and Upserve needed a competitive intelligence solution to ensure they were keeping an accurate pulse on the competition.

Upserve was doing competitive intelligence manually, which was costing their product marketing team valuable time. An automated solution was ideal for the Upserve team. “I need to focus my time on the efforts that will move the needle,” Jake said. “If I can hone in on the things that will make me more successful, I will be better able to help grow the business.” Once they saw Crayon’s software-driven competitive intelligence solution, they knew they would get immediate and long-term value.

As a product-focused company, Upserve is able to leverage Crayon intel to keep up with competitor product updates. Product updates benefit the marketing, product, and sales teams alike. When a competitor updates product details or launches a new feature, the Upserve team can make a quick change in messaging and update battlecards instantly to help sales reps close more deals. “By staying on top of the competitors, we’ve been able to arm our sales team with actionable insights that they can act on immediately. As a result of Crayon, our win rate against our top five biggest competitors has improved by 54%,” Jake shared.

For example, Upserve was able to use Crayon to map out a key competitor’s product updates and identify where the competitor was focusing their time and effort. Upserve was able to map out a trajectory to see where they thought their competitor was headed, and what they needed to do to best compete, and stay one step ahead. These insights not only allowed Upserve to keep their competitive edge, but also allowed them to steer their product roadmap to be focused on the right things.

In such a crowded market, there are many different product and pricing details that factor into competitive comparisons. Having access to detailed pricing and packaging intel, Upserve was able to compare the total cost of ownership of their service vs. their competitors. For one competitor in particular, they found that customers would save 48% on average by going with the Upserve solution -- a core metric used by sales that was enabled by Crayon intel.

Crayon’s pricing and packaging intelligence has enabled Upserve to craft impactful talking points for sales calls. Their sales team is able to have better conversations with customers, armed with concrete and up-to-date information about their competition. This resulted in their competitive losses decreasing by 76%, quarter over quarter. They also saw a 41% reduction in losses due to “no decision” prospects, an improvement attributed to a better understanding of the market and competitive landscape. Crayon’s competitive intelligence platform has driven improvements in their sales processes, product marketing materials, and overall revenue success. “The power of Crayon is making it so that I can see the patterns faster and stay one step ahead of my competition,” shared Jake. The Crayon platform is integral to their product marketing team and continues to show great value across the business.