# Turning Lost Deals into Game-Changing Insights

## **Client Overview**

Our client is a leading enterprise software provider offering an AI-powered DevOps and security platform for large organizations. Formed through the merger of multiple companies, our client delivers an end-to-end “value stream” platform that integrates agile planning, software delivery, and application protection capabilities. By 2025, its product was considered technically strong in mobile app protection, but the company faced headwinds around product complexity, pricing, and customer churn in this line. Its go-to-market focused on Fortune 2000 enterprises with high annual license fees, which sometimes led to “sticker shock” for smaller customers. Internally, leaders observed that half of lost deals cited price as a reason, despite the sales team’s willingness to discount.

By early 2025, our client had lost dozens of customers and prospects without a clear understanding of “why.” Many churned customers never fully deployed the product, pointing to possible implementation issues, and many lost deals were simply tagged as “no decision” or “project ended” in the CRM. Over the prior two quarters, our client had 90+ lost renewal opportunities (each worth >$10K in annual revenue). This alarming churn trend prompted leadership to seek answers swiftly.

*"DeltaGen gave our team the buyer’s story we were missing. We stopped debating theories and focused on fixes the customers themselves asked for.”*

**John Roberts**  
*Head of Sales, Digital.ai*

## **Challenge**

### **Lack of Insight into Churn Drivers**  
Our client suspected a mix of factors were at play – from product integration difficulties to misaligned pricing – but they had only anecdotal evidence. Its product, while powerful, was complex. The company’s rapid growth by acquisition had also created market confusion. Internally, there was debate: Was price the main problem, or the product itself? Direct, unbiased customer feedback was needed to get to the truth.

### **Time Pressure**  
With a pivotal board meeting on the calendar, our client had only a few weeks to gather and synthesize insights. Leadership needed actionable answers within 4–6 weeks. They had worked with a consultant in the past for win-loss studies, but this time required a faster, more cost-effective approach.

## **DeltaGen’s Solution**  
Our client engaged DeltaGen to tackle this challenge using an AI-driven Voice-of-Customer platform and rapid win/loss research methodology. DeltaGen’s approach was tailored to surface the real reasons behind churn and lost deals – faster, deeper, and cheaper than traditional methods.

### **Key elements of the engagement included:**

- **Project Scope**  
  The team focused on the product’s recent churned customers and lost opportunities. Our client identified ~90 accounts for analysis. DeltaGen targeted ~20 in-depth interviews as a representative sample to glean qualitative insights.

- **Outreach Strategy**  
  DeltaGen orchestrated a personalized outreach campaign. The Head of Sales first sent a friendly email to each contact, establishing trust. DeltaGen followed up with scheduling, even increasing the incentive in attempts to engage key voices.

- **AI-Powered Analysis**  
  DeltaGen’s platform aggregated the interview data and automatically coded recurring themes across all conversations. This allowed the team to quickly identify patterns and quantify the impact of various factors.

- **Accelerated Interviews**  
  DeltaGen conducted 45–60 minute confidential interviews with each willing customer or evaluator. An experienced strategy consultant moderated the calls, guided by a semi-structured discussion guide customized to the client’s hypotheses.

- **Interactive Dashboard & Debriefs**  
  Within 4 weeks, DeltaGen delivered a comprehensive insights dashboard accessible to client stakeholders. The dashboard highlighted the top win/loss drivers, complete with charts and anonymized customer quotes.

**Notably, DeltaGen offered this rapid engagement with an outcome-based pricing model – our client would only pay per completed interview that delivered satisfactory insights.**

## **Key Insights Uncovered**  
### **“Time-to-Protection” is Critical – Speed Wins Deals**  
In enterprise security, deployment speed and ease of integration proved to be decisive. Customers cited slow or difficult implementation as a reason for choosing competitors.

### **Pricing & Packaging**  
Misaligned with customer size: Pricing came up in almost every interview. The one-size-fits-all pricing didn’t scale down for smaller customers.

### **Customer Support & Onboarding Gaps**  
The quality of post-sale support and onboarding was a make-or-break factor for many customers. Client’s execution here was inconsistent.

### **Messaging & Value Communication Issues**  
DeltaGen uncovered a disconnect in how client’s value was perceived versus what was being messaged. Potential buyers were mapping the product to a category on their own.

### **Competitive Intelligence**  
The interviews also shed light on what competitors were doing right. Some rivals were winning deals not on core technology, but on experience factors.

### **Win-Back Opportunities**  
A pleasant surprise was that some former customers were open to re-engaging under the right conditions.

## **Outcomes & Impact**  
### **Data-Driven Clarity**  
Client’s leadership came away with a clear, prioritized list of root causes behind churn and lost sales – replacing gut feelings with hard evidence.

### **Executive Alignment & Urgency**  
Presenting these unbiased customer insights at the board meeting created urgency to invest in certain fixes.

### **Culture of Customer-Centricity**  
The engagement instilled a more customer-centric mindset, emphasizing the importance of hearing the customer’s voice.

### **Quick Wins and ROI**  
The project yielded quick wins, identifying a willing win-back candidate.

### **Cost-Effective Insight Generation**  
DeltaGen delivered this impact at a fraction of the typical cost and time, allowing for scalable customer feedback in the future.

## **Conclusion**  
*"Our client now deeply understands its buyers’ decision drivers and pain points in a way it never did before."*  
By partnering with DeltaGen, our client transformed a pressing business problem into a story of insight-driven change.