Finding the "why" behind buyer decisions

Customer expectations have changed.

The best go-to-market organizations have changed with them.

For Gong CRO Shane Evans, his role is no longer just about sales. His organization spans nearly every customer-facing function across the company—from pre-sales and implementation to partnerships, support, and post-sales teams.

And in a market defined by economic pressure, tighter budgets, and rising competition, staying close to customer reality is more important than ever.

“My job leading revenue has become much more complex,” he said. “I need to be connected across all departments and teams and make sure I have my finger on the pulse of what’s happening with our customers in real time.”

Gong already had access to enormous amounts of conversational and revenue intelligence data.

Their teams could see what customers were saying in meetings, where opportunities were getting stuck, and how deals progressed through the pipeline. In many ways, they were already closer to their customers than most companies.

But there was still a gap.

The sales conversations told part of the story—they showed what happened.

Win-loss analysis would help them understand why their buyers ultimately made the decisions they did.

“What we didn’t have was the ability to really go deeper in our interviews and fully understand the customer’s perspective,” Shane said.

Eilon Reshef, Gong's co-founder and chief product officer, saw the same gap from the product side.

"All of our calls are recorded, so that gives us a first approximation," he said. "But I don't think there's a replacement for actually going out and talking directly to your customers."

Even with access to every sales conversation, Gong still needed to understand what their buyers were thinking between meetings—as well as the hidden factors that actually drove their final decisions.

But uncovering those insights was only the beginning.

They also needed a way to make customer truth part of how the company operated—and to make sure those win-loss insights weren’t trapped inside a single department or isolated within quarterly reports.

The goal was something broader. Something operational. Something embedded into the fabric of how the company learns and improves.

Turning win-loss into a company-wide operating rhythm

By partnering with Clozd, Gong combined direct buyer feedback with the conversational intelligence already flowing through their platform, creating a more complete view of the customer journey.

The program quickly expanded beyond traditional win-loss analysis. Product leaders and executives became part of the research process, using the platform to tag feedback and drive action across the business. 

"I read every single transcript we get from Clozd," Eilon said. "I tag other people on my team and throughout the company so we can work together to drive more value."

Cross-functional teams used the insights to validate roadmap decisions, uncover product gaps, and prioritize customer requests in real time.

"With Clozd, we're able to be very surgical in how we dive in,” Shane said. “When we get to some of these decision points as a company, we’re no longer flying blind. We feel like we have a more comprehensive data set to look at.”

That visibility also helped Gong identify an important pattern in their losses and churn.

That visibility also uncovered an important pattern. Customers were leaving Gong because they believed the platform lacked certain capabilities—even though those features already existed.

“We realized that customers didn’t know that functionality was already there,” Shane said. “That insight had a big impact on our churn and retention numbers.”

The issue wasn't always the product itself. Sometimes it was messaging, awareness, or communication. 

And those are problems you can solve quickly—once you know they exist.

Creating faster alignment—and faster action

As win-loss insights spread across the organization, Gong's teams started making decisions with greater speed and confidence.

Instead of reacting to isolated anecdotes or the loudest deal in the pipeline, they could quickly validate patterns across hundreds of customer conversations.

“Within seconds, I can ask the Clozd Platform: ‘What’s the reality here?’” Shane said. “I can trust and verify instead of guessing.”

That confidence has changed the way Gong makes decisions.

Customer feedback is now a regular part of product reviews, roadmap discussions, and executive conversations.

And that level of engagement starts at the top, with Eilon leading by example. He reads every deal summary that Clozd delivers—sometimes at night before he goes to bed. 

“I joke with my executive team that it’s better than fiction,” he said. “It’s got all the best elements: a protagonist, a good storyline, hopefully a happy ending—but sometimes a sad ending. I read them before I go to sleep, because to me it’s exciting to see how they unfold.”

His habit sends a clear message throughout the organization: Customer truth matters.

Shane believes that executive engagement is one of the biggest reasons the program has been successful.

“If you’re going to do win-loss—and do it right—you’ve got to have a champion,” he said. “It needs to be someone others look up to and think, ‘If this is important to them, it’s probably something I need to pay attention to.’”

Today, win-loss analysis is part of the company's operating system.

It gives them a faster way to learn, a faster way to align, and a faster way to improve the customer experience.

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Get to know: Gong

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Gong pioneered the revenue intelligence category by helping companies capture and analyze customer interactions across the entire revenue lifecycle. Its AI-powered platform combines conversational intelligence, deal analytics, and forecasting capabilities to help revenue teams improve execution, increase visibility, and make faster, data-driven decisions. Today, Gong is used by thousands of organizations worldwide to align GTM teams, improve customer engagement, and drive more predictable revenue growth.

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