Zoom puts the deal at the center—and turns customer truth into competitive advantage

Looking beyond internal assumptions

Most companies think they understand why they win and lose business.

But Zoom wasn’t interested in guessing.

Instead, they built a system designed to get closer to the truth—one that captures the full picture of every deal, from every angle, and turns those insights into action across the business.

Leo Boulton is the head of product, solutions, and industry marketing at Zoom, and his team is tasked with aggregating competitive and customer insights—and then analyzing and sharing them in a way that helps the entire company.

“We basically describe ourselves as the outside-in interface within the company,” he said. “We look into the market from a customer standpoint—and then interface that with product, marketing, and the rest of the organization.”

That mindset became the foundation for something bigger and more ambitious: a program they call “Win-Loss 360.”

Seeking the full picture behind every deal

Zoom already had strong internal signals:

• Feedback from their sales reps
• Input from their customer success team
• Insights from their partners

Internal feedback from their sales and CS teams provided a high volume of data and could point to broad signals and general patterns—but it lacked depth and was often incomplete or biased. 

Most importantly, it couldn’t fully answer the why behind the final outcome.

And in a fast-moving, highly competitive market where product innovation, positioning, and buyer expectations are constantly shifting, that gap matters.

A lot.

While those internal signals were a helpful starting point, Zoom was seeking clarity with granularity—delivered in a way that could actually shape decisions across their organization.

"We needed to get an external perspective, and we wanted to hear from our customers in an unbiased way,” he said. “So we partnered with Clozd to build the ‘Win-Loss 360’ program—and it's worked very, very well for us.”

Zoom’s solution of putting the deal at the center of their CI program—and then surrounding it with context—was simple in concept but powerful in execution.

“The Win-Loss 360 program was basically our way to look for as many perspectives as possible,” Leo said. “Inputs from sellers, customer success, the customer, and our partners.”

Four viewpoints, one source of truth.

Together, those inputs power what Leo describes as an input → analysis → output machine.

Gather broadly. Analyze deeply. Deliver a small number of high-impact, actionable insights.

And then, most importantly, distribute those insights across the business—to product managers, product marketing, sales enablement, sales ops, and even their legal team.

“We’ve been expanding our program more and more,” Leo said. “And now a lot of people are using it.”

Turning customer truth into competitive advantage

With Win-Loss 360 in place, Zoom got better answers and changed how they made decisions.

“There’s a lot of value in helping shape the product—prioritization of features, things like that,” Leo said. “On the product side, that has been brilliant.”

Instead of relying on assumptions, Zoom’s teams hear directly from their prospects and customers—honest, in-depth insights about what mattered, what didn’t, and why.

Beyond product strategy, those insights have also sharpened Zoom’s positioning, messaging, and GTM execution.

“When we launch products, the data is used to make sure we have the right message,” Leo said.

And because those insights are shared broadly across the organization, Win-Loss 360 has become a valuable source of customer truth.

Get to know: Zoom

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Zoom is a global communications platform that became essential to how people work and connect during the shift to remote and hybrid environments—supporting hundreds of millions of meeting participants worldwide. Today, Zoom’s AI-powered platform extends beyond video to include chat, phone, events, and contact center solutions, helping organizations collaborate more effectively, engage customers, and scale communication in a digital-first world.

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