Commercial Intelligence in Action: A Deep Dive into the Knownwell Platform

Courtney Baker: What happens when 85% of next year’s revenue comes from your existing clients… but loyalty is quietly cratering across the industry. And why are gut calls and outdated metrics like NPS no longer enough for leaders who need to act in real time?

Hi, I’m Courtney Baker and this is AI Knowhow from Knownwell, helping you reimagine your business in the AI era. Today we’re doing something a little different. Instead of our regular roundtable and guest interviews, we’re bringing you a special replay of our recent platform showcase event. If you’ve ever wondered what the Knownwell platform actually looks like in action, you are in luck. So stick around and enjoy this. Behind the scenes. Look at what we’ve been building at Knownwell because the showcase is so visual, I recommend [00:01:00] clicking the link in our show notes to watch it on YouTube or the Knownwell site.

Courtney Baker: Hi everyone. I am Courtney Baker, the CMO here at Knownwell. Thank you so much for joining us today for the Knownwell Platform Showcase. You’re in the right place if you want a front row seat to the future of commercial intelligence. Joining me today to help guide you through the platform is one of my.

Favorite partners in crime, Mohan Rao. Mohan is the chief product and technology officer here at Knownwell, which means he’s actually forgotten more about the platform and its capabilities than I’ll ever know. Hey, Mohan.

Mohan Rao: Hey Courtney. Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

Courtney Baker: Mohan, without further ado, can you set the stage for us before we dive into [00:02:00] the platform? I wanna make sure we’re kind of painting the big picture here before we dive in and show off Knownwell. To start off, what was Knownwell created for?

Mohan Rao: Like any good technology product, we wanted to develop a solution based on a compelling problem, and when we started Knownwell, we did hundreds, hundreds of customer interviews and heard of. Courtney, as you know, a very persistent and hard problem to solve. we heard that professional services leaders don’t have a reliable way to understand and act on client health, right?

That are, because this is complex, uh, traditionally. There have been, um, manual red, amber, green type reports, CSAT scores, NPS, so on, so forth. But you can’t act in the moment and they’re always [00:03:00] delayed and, uh, it is too little, too late. and these relationships are complex. Uh, you know, just to give a client one tooth and score or red, yellow, green, just misses the point, and that’s the problem we wanted to solve.

Courtney Baker: Yeah, I think for anyone watching who’s ever had a client, give them a 10 on a CSAT score and then a few days later turn around and in that very same relationship, you know, it’s painful, honestly. And you know, that kind of scenario is enough to make you wonder. What went so wrong over the course of that short amount of time, it really makes you think clearly what was happening in that relationship was bigger than what a seas Saturn NPS number could tell you.

Mohan Rao: That’s exactly right, Courtney. That these relationships are, uh, complex and multi-threaded. Uh, right. So there is so much nuance to all of this. And it’s a [00:04:00] fool’s head to just sum it up into a one to 10 scale, uh, just does not work or works at a such a course level that it’s basically useless.

Courtney Baker: Yeah, I, it kind of leaves you at the end of the day just having to make a gut call on the, you know, on where you’re gonna take the business next.

Okay, so before we jump into the platform, let me share a few. Stats from research Mohan. These speak a little bit more to the why. Research has shown that 85% of next year’s annual revenue and professional services comes from existing clients, yet customer loyalty is imploding for professional service firms.

Only about 50% of companies today. Say they buy from their incumbent service provider, and that’s projected to drop by 15% in the next five years. Pretty alarming. Add those two very important [00:05:00] trends together and you’re gonna have a lot of professional services firms that are really fighting for doing business.

Mohan Rao: That’s exactly right, Courtney. It is this confluence of forces that led us to build Knownwell and we see Knownwell as the platform for commercial intelligence. Let’s take a look. What do you think?

Courtney Baker: Yeah, I think we should. Okay. One last thing though. Before you do, can you give us a, a quick idea of what people will see so they can kind of orient themselves, give them a frame as we dive in.

Mohan Rao: Yeah, a hundred percent. So let me, let me set, let this stage, uh, for all of our viewers, uh, here is what I want you to imagine. You are an executive at a marketing agency and let’s call this marketing agency, pulse Digital. And, uh, just for fun, let’s say that the based in Manhattan, um, you know, as a New York Giants fan, even when you are [00:06:00] down zero two at the start of the season, you’re still a Giants fan.

Courtney Baker: Hey, listen, I’m a Titans fan and we’re in that same camp. It’s, it’s disheartening

Mohan Rao: and let’s imagine, um, that it’s a Monday morning. Uh, I’ve just arrived at the office, uh, probably after a run in, in Central Park, uh, with a coffee in hand. I’ve just sort of arrived in the office. The first thing I’m gonna do is go to go check the, uh, health of my clients in Norwell.

Courtney Baker: I love this scenario, Mohan. I’m feeling very cosmopolitan in this scenario. By the way. Obviously we are just imagining a marketing firm. Obviously, the Knownwell platform is for any professional service firm, so if you’re a technology service firm or an MSP, you can kind of imagine yourself as we talk through this.

Okay? So in the old world. You know, as I am thinking about being this executive at this marketing firm in the [00:07:00] old world for Pulse Digital, you really kind of on Monday morning probably would have no idea the health of the portfolio. So show us the way here, Mohan.

Mohan Rao: Yeah. Let me show you the platform. Uh, Let me log in. what you’re seeing here is the overview tab. It has the, uh, portfolio score, so at a glance, I know where my clients are. Has the score increased as the score decreased? Gives you a really good sense of my overall portfolio. I can, um, scroll down and I can see the, um, greatest change over the last 30 days.

Looks like this particular client has increased. Very healthy one hundred and eighty, two fifty seven points change. So every day when you come in, you’re gonna be able to get a quick pulse of your clients, what is the health of the portfolio, and be able to see them at a [00:08:00] glance. So this allows you to organize the work your work in, in terms of how you’re gonna deep dive.

Based on real data, not just on, have you always done it or by gut, you can also look at the newest clients that you have. As we all know, uh, in in services business, you have to start strong to stay strong. Onboarding is a critical point. So I want to see all of the new clients that have joined, uh, pulse Digital, um, and I’m get, I’m able to get a good sense of.

All of the clients get a little executive summary, see how they’re doing, what the health is, and be able to look at this particular client called Swift Current. Over here it’s got this 101 score. It’s got this signals, it’s got an executive summary. I just can Courtney at a glance, see what’s going on.

Courtney Baker: Okay. This is great. So really you’re crushing Monday morning already. [00:09:00] You’ve already had a run. You’ve got coffee. You’re just a couple of sips into that coffee and you already have a pulse on where your priorities are, where your portfolio stands. So walk us through what you’re looking at and what Knownwell is telling you about Swift Current.

Mohan Rao: Yeah. When I look at Swift Current, I see that there are three signals here that are really interesting. So out of all of this, I probably want to jump into this first and click on it. And now what this provides you is the page on your client, swift Current. At the top is, uh, the Knownwell score.

Again, this kind of captures. The essence of everything that’s going on, which is the commercial propensity for you to continue to do business. Uh, it’s a score out of 200. It’s scored at 101. to get to green, you gotta be one 40 or higher. So this is somewhere right in the middle. We can also go in and take a look at, um, [00:10:00] the, uh, the, what we call signals.

There are three active fires, um, right. You can read up on them and know what’s going on with this client. You also know that there is an executive, uh, ad that’s, uh, happened here. With all these fires going on, the client has introduced a new director who may join discussions, and there’s also a growth opportunity.

These are all the signals that you can see very quickly. And then you can see how this score has gone over the last six months. Get a really good view of, uh, swift current at a high level. and get, um, you don’t have to call 20 people to know there’s. You just get it all consolidated in one place.

Courtney Baker: Mohan, let me jump in really quick here. We get asked often what goes into the Knownwell score, and just for anybody wondering that, it’s really comprised of three overarching categories that our research has found are key indicators [00:11:00] of a client’s propensity. To continue working with a service provider, and those are service quality perception.

Again, everybody talks about service quality, but it’s the perception of that, um, service that really matters, the strength of interpersonal relationships and commercial alignment.

Mohan Rao: Yeah. You know, and those are the three right things. And what we’ve done at Knownwell is to measure those. They were usually not measurable in the past.

Right? Yeah. So how do you do. Perception of service quality. Uh, right. So, so we have now introduced measures on those things that were hard to uh, measure previously. Now, if I can get back to Courtney, the Monday 9:00 AM mode, uh, right, so you can in one fell swoop, see everything that’s going on, the executive turnover, the growth opportunities, the fires.

Um, you know, yeah. In, in, in all of [00:12:00] this, um, you know, it is sort of bad news that these fires are going on, but actually there’s some good news here, um, yeah. That I know what’s going on with this client. Um, in the, in the past it was, um, you know, I had to call the delivery manager. I had to call, um. The account manager, I had to make 20 calls and even then I was never sure about what was going on and I didn’t want to focus on this particular client in the past.

Uh, right. Yeah. So because everything was one bucket and you are never sure about what you’re supposed to do. Now I have a really good overview of this client.

Courtney Baker: Okay. I wanna stop you right there and ’cause you’re feeling really good. So I wanna ratchet up the pressure a little bit. Mohan. Let’s pretend I’m your main contact, uh, at Swift Current.

And because we have such a good relationship, I’ve just text you to see if you’re free to talk in 15 minutes. Happy Monday. I know you’re [00:13:00] crushing it already, but nobody wants that text first thing on Monday morning.

Mohan Rao: Yeah. You know, you get a text like that from a client, your coffee has already gone cold.

Uh, right. So you, you are, you are like, uh, who do I call? Why is she calling me? Why is she calling me first thing on Monday morning, but with Knownwell? Uh, and I have a good sense of what’s going on with, uh, with the account. And I’ll just reply back and say, sounds good. Call me if you’re free right now, or call me whenever.

and you know, I also have a sense, Courtney, that when you call, when you’re gonna call me, you’re gonna probably give me a heads up on this executive, uh, director that you’ve, um, added. Um, and then maybe I want to talk to you about this growth opportunity as well. Uh, so I feel calm, cool, and collected at this point because I have a sense of what it is that you’re gonna tell me.

Courtney Baker: Well, you’re actually in, you know, the luck keeps coming because since Swift Current is actually [00:14:00] based here in Nashville and I’m on Central time, I can’t talk till 10:00 AM your time. So that gives you 12 more minutes to get the latest on all things Swift current. So where’s your attention going to go next to, you know, get ready for this unexpected call.

Mohan Rao: Know the little wins you get in life. I have 12 whole minutes, so what am I gonna do next? I think I’m gonna go to the health tab because, you know, let me kinda get into the details and prepare more because I have this few precious minutes. I’m gonna go to the uh, health tab, and when I go here you see all of the performance themes that I have.

We have at the top. So there are strengths and weaknesses. Uh, for example, I’m not gonna go through all of this. Uh, proactiveness is a strength. Responsiveness is a strength. Some issues on delivery, quality as noted. So on, so forth. I get a view of what are the strengths and weaknesses. [00:15:00] Um, there are also recommendations.

For example, this is saying, uh, standardized reporting protocol and implement quality assurance. So there are recommendations that the platform has made of what the team should be working on. So I have a better sense of, um, uh, all the things I need to do. There is a relationship recommendation. You know, there are reporting failures, but just address them, um, you know, straightforward with the senior stakeholders.

So you are in, you can manage this account better and be transparent about the root cause analysis. So now I’m able to see what it is that I need to do from an account perspective here, based on these recommendations. I can also further scroll down and see what are the strengths, get some texture to each of the strengths, forward thinking, client engagements, swift collaborative exchanges.

These are the strengths so far that the team has demonstrated strength and leadership ties. There are also weaknesses [00:16:00] at the bottom. Uh, right, so systematic service deficiencies, widespread competency deficiencies. So it again, gives me a good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of this account, and I’m starting to feel more in control because I know what’s going on, uh, with this particular account.

I’m also gonna go into, uh, the, uh, growth recommendation since I have a few more minutes, um, and, uh, be able to see, oh, this is really cool, that I can also perhaps talk to you about what are the things I can do. One, you know, you all, acquired a new company, uh, Nightingale. And this is one of our strengths, so we can, uh, develop a marketing strategy.

So the growth tab gives you a set of recommendations on how this account can be grown. And when you call me, I am now better prepared to talk about this growth opportunities as well. Since I have a couple of more minutes, [00:17:00] what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go to the new tab. And then I’m gonna look at, um, all of the publicly available information here in terms of, the, uh, client news and industry news and be really well prepared for, uh, your call at 10:00 AM.

Courtney Baker: You know, it’s probably helpful to mention here, one of our clients concept talks about, in one of our case studies, how they’ve used this capability to uncover upsells and cross sell opportunities with existing clients that they frankly wouldn’t have known about without Knownwell. So really super powerful to have all this information in a single place versus.

You know, Google alerts coming in every day on every of your clients, checking everybody’s website for the latest press release, going to their LinkedIn, you know, when you try to do that versus, you know, all the clients that you kind of wanna have a pulse on, it becomes, Humanly impossible. So having [00:18:00] all of this together, um, simplified for you just makes it really easy to actually use that intelligence to, uh, grow the client relationship.

Okay, Mohan clock is ticking. It’s about to be 10:00 AM New York time in our hypothetical scenario. How are you feeling?

Mohan Rao: You know, because I have this, I feel ready for anything that you might, uh, throw at me. But being a naturally optimistic person and the deep relationship that we’ve had over the years. I think you’re gonna talk to me about this turnover, this new director ad that you’ve, um, added to the team, you, you’re calling, and, uh, to, to gimme a heads up about it.

Um, and likely you may talk about the growth opportunity as well. So I am feeling good about this.

Courtney Baker: You know, I gotta say Mohan, I’m blown away. By how well you know Swift Current’s [00:19:00] business, we gotta get some of these delivery issues. You know, there’s some weaknesses here, but it feels like, you know, this is something we can do.

Alright, Mohan, I’m gonna let you off the hook. Great job. Uh, in my pressured scenario. Let’s take a quick breather here because I know, you know, this is a lot for everyone watching to take in. I wanna ask a question. That I’m sure a lot of people watching are interested in. How is Knownwell making these recommendations?

Where is the intelligence coming from?

Mohan Rao: Yeah. You know, when we built the, uh, platform, uh, Courtney, we, uh, wanted to make sure that there was not a lot of manual input that somebody had to type up, upload, blah, blah. So this is all powered through natural information flows. So there is a lot of data that goes between, uh.

Pulse digital and the clients that through [00:20:00] email, slack messages, call transcripts, so on, so forth. So we take all of that in analyze to produce these beautiful insights. There are also two big benefits here. Uh, the, um, the time it takes to get set up and started is minimal. You are talking minutes. Um, it’s a simple OAuth connection to these, um, products that I mentioned.

Uh, and you are off and running. in an enterprise, nearly 80% of the, uh, data is unstructured, right? So we all go to traditional CRMs, ERP, so on, so forth. That is all structured data. That is somebody entered it. So, but there is so much intelligence in the unstructured data, which is nearly 80% of the total data in an enterprise.

We are taking that and analyzing it to produce these insights to could. To go back to your excellent question, it requires email [00:21:00] integration with either Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Email in and of itself is sufficient. But Knownwell can improve on that, uh, through connectors to Salesforce, slack, HubSpot, fireflies, Dialpad with a number of other integrations on the way.

Courtney Baker: Yeah. That’s awesome. Thank you for that. By the way, if you’re curious, we do have those listed on our website. If there is an integration that you’re curious about, our team is always rolling out new ones. We could already be working at it on it. So feel free to reach out to our team, um, if you have any questions about that.

Okay. Let’s take things up a level now and get back into the platform. You just knocked it outta the park on your call with Courtney from Swift Current, uh, here. She’s pretty awesome. Uh, the adrenaline, the endorphins and the caffeine are all pumping. And now you don’t wanna focus on a single client, but rather on the [00:22:00] health of your entire portfolio of clients.

You are in the C-suite after all, so. You get paid to see the big picture. Can you walk us through where you’d go to do that?

Mohan Rao: Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that we’ve heard a ton of is that you deal with client by client, by client, but there is not a single pane of glass for the firm-wide intelligence.

Right. Where can you improve as a company that provides the all of these services, and what are the deficiencies where you can improve on as well? Right. So executive dashboards and pipeline reviews are great, but they don’t tell you what’s working and what’s not. And this is similar to what we said about CSAT scores.

You often get a binary number that’s not very helpful, and this is where the Knownwell operations, uh, page comes in. As you can see here that you, uh, [00:23:00] not only get, benchmarks on how we are doing, but also a historical view of your strengths and weaknesses through the year that’s represented by these green and red bars, uh, through the various performance themes that, um, uh, that we measure in the month of August.

You see that there are, as a firm across all of your clients as a firm. There are six strengths and one weakness, and four neutrals. Uh, you can, you can click into each of these performance themes and get a sense of what’s going on with, uh, team member competence and so on, so forth. Um, you can, um, uh, also see that each area contains a very specific recommendation, but let me kind of walk you through the.

Top strengths and weaknesses as a company that you see that there are these three strengths. Consistent, proactive communication and forward thinking, client management, fostering strength, uh, strong [00:24:00] partnerships through collaborative, proactive, collaborative engagement. Um, strengths, um, weakness around delivery quality.

So this is across all of your clients. What this allows you to do, Courtney, as a senior executive is to, um, you know, think about this in a holistic manner, to how do you kind of improve on your strengths, but also make improvements on your, uh, weaknesses.

Courtney Baker: Yeah, absolutely. And I, it is, it’s one of my favorite parts of the platform and over and over again with our clients, it’s been incredible as they’ve started to, to connect the dots of, hey, being able to take information to our board that’s actually driven by data.

We’ve never had that before. Um, you know, it’s just been a really incredible way to kind of transition from things that are somewhat subjective into real data. Um, it’s a rich, rich area of the platform. Okay, Mohan. This next area I always [00:25:00] get very excited about because when I show this part of the platform off, it’s, it’s probably the thing, one of the things people get really excited about.

What can you tell us about the energy allocation?

Mohan Rao: Yeah, I’m really excited about this also, Courtney, I’m with you. Uh, you know, uh, as you know, uh, you know, in services you’ve got squeaky clients and they get all the grease, right? So, and so what this pro shows you is a good way to, um, to see what this known wealth scores are, what the risk is, what is the client health of the score, and how much energy are you.

Uh, spending on them. Uh, right now, pulse Digital is in a good place. There are no clients that you’re firefighting with. Uh, but you can see that there are many, uh, clients that, um, uh, that are content where you don’t have to spend a lot of energy, um, but have relatively high Knownwell scores. Unfortunately, [00:26:00] there are also some high maintenance CLI clients where you have to spend a lot of time on them.

And really the place that is really hard to be and not the ones that are disengaged, where the scores are not high, uh, but they’re relatively disengaged. So now this allows you to put very specific, uh, account strategy for each of these clients and know how to deal with, uh, each of these clients.

Courtney Baker: Yeah.

I’ve seen over again, over and over again with clients, you know, they start to look at groups of clients to say, Hey, we’ve got this group, you know, all sitting in content, but we know that the. Fourth quarter is when many of the renewals come up. What can we do strategically to move that group, you know, up into the right.

So we’re well positioned for renewals. Okay, Mohan, uh, I know we’re pushing the limits on what people can absorb on the platform Showcase. Are we ready to bring it home?

Mohan Rao: Yeah, absolutely. Let me show you the last, [00:27:00] uh, section here, which is the people intelligence. this is an easy way to know how many the account managers and delivery teams, how many clients have they been assigned to Sometimes see crazy numbers, right?

So some people are dealing with. 20, 30, 40 accounts, but here it looks healthy. Everybody has eight clients or less. And then you can see who is overextended, who is not. I can also click on each one and get a sense of, each of the clients they’re involved with, but also get a sense of um, uh, the kudos that have been, uh, curated.

’cause all of this is available in the unstructured natural information flows. And isn’t it so nice from a culture perspective to say. The client expresses gratitude to Jason for a smooth transition of point of contact. You might not have known this as a senior executive, that all of this is going on and at one click you can curate, know what’s [00:28:00] going on and make sure that right people are assigned to the right clients.

Courtney Baker: Okay. Mohan, I got a couple of questions for you about the platform. Are you ready?

Mohan Rao: I am ready.

Courtney Baker: Okay. So the first question is, can we bring Knownwell into other environments or platforms that my team is already used to working in?

Mohan Rao: Yeah, we are committed to, uh, something called ambient ux, which means the, uh, data does not just have to live on our application. The data that we are, uh, curating, developing through our models and rubrics, uh, which we call commercial intelligence data. We’d be happy to work with you to push it into any platform.

If you deal with Salesforce, it can be in Salesforce. Uh, if you want to do some other platform, we can do that. We are currently integrating with multiple platforms, including ticket [00:29:00] systems, so on, so forth.

Courtney Baker: Okay, next question. Um, they ask about what kind of security or compliance certificates does Knownwell have?

Mohan Rao: Yeah. Um, you know, we are very committed to, um, security because we understand we are dealing with your client’s email, uh, slack messages, so on, so forth. Uh, we have taken this and built our security and privacy foundations, uh, right from the get go. we are SOC two type two compliant. Uh, we have, um, uh, hipaa, PHI filter.

Uh, we have a number of privacy foundations based on how Google has developed it. We use a lot of Google models, um, including in the security area. Uh, we’d be happy to talk to you. Uh, we have a trust center, uh, and we’ll be happy to share with you anything that you’d need to know about security and privacy.

Courtney Baker: Yeah, so helpful. I know that’s a question that comes up and [00:30:00] an important one. Um, okay, that was all the questions for today, Mohan, uh, one note for everybody watching. One, thanks for attending today. Thanks for watching this. Hopefully it helps you understand and know more about Knownwell. Maybe imagine how.

You know, maybe the Sunday scaries aren’t so bad when you’re wondering what’s going on with those clients because, you know, Monday morning you’re gonna have exactly what you need. Um, so Mohan, thank you so much for guiding us through this, for everybody watching. We always love having you here. At the end of this webinar, you’ll actually be on a landing page where you can schedule time with our team, uh, to get the process started to actually see your own.

Intelligence on the Knownwell platform. It’s honestly the best way to experience the platform is, you know, not in a demo environment, but actually seeing your own data on the Knownwell platform and see that intelligence [00:31:00] come to life. So at the end of this webinar, you will be on a page where you can book a, a time with our team.

Um, also, if you have more questions about integrations or security, we would love to answer those and, and spend a few minutes with you. Mohan, thank you as always and thank you to everybody that was watching.

Mohan Rao: Thank you, Courtney. Thanks all.

Courtney Baker: Thank you.

As always, for listening and watching. Don’t forget to give us a review on your podcast, player of Choice. As always, we really appreciate it. If you can leave a review or share this episode with someone you know would enjoy it.

At the end of every episode, we like to ask one of our AI friends to weigh in on the topic at hand. So, hey, comment, really been enjoying your built in assistant. What can you tell me about the Knownwell AI platform?

Cedric: Knownwell is an AI-powered [00:32:00] platform that helps businesses by turning their communication and data into clear, real-time insights about client health and relationship risks. It lets teams focus on what really matters by giving them smart alerts and a holistic view to keep clients happy and grow portfolios easily.

Courtney Baker: And now you are in the know. Thanks as always for listening. We’ll see you next week with more AI applications, discussions, and experts.

 

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