ChargeLab keep Salesforce updated and workflows streamlined

The electric vehicle (EV) industry is slowly gaining momentum across America: 7% of U.S. adults say they currently have an electric or hybrid vehicle, and 39% would seriously consider buying one as their next car.

The more these vehicles arrive on America’s roads, the greater the investment needed in charging infrastructure across the country. That’s where ChargeLab comes in. ChargeLab provides and maintains the software used at charging sites and supports site operators in the business.

Andrew Angus, VP of Sales at ChargeLab, describes the company’s mission as “helping the world transition to a greener fleet of vehicles.”

How ChargeLab manages sales leadership and tooling using Momentum

As a former company owner and now VP of Sales, Andrew is primarily a mentor and coach to his team. He prioritizes removing roadblocks from their workflow and helping them advance in their careers. I build strong, committed, dedicated teams of people who invest a lot in the company and me because I invest a lot in them. - Andrew Angus

Andrew’s approach to sales tooling aligns with Momentum’s own guidelines: assembling a set of tools to optimize every aspect of the sales cycle and help sales teams close deals faster. His team uses RevOps for CPQ, Outreach for emailing, and Salesforce as their CRM tool.

Every time I start with a company, there are foundational building blocks we have to get. Salesforce is one of those. Momentum is another, because it ties together all those pieces - Salesforce, CPQ, your email tool - and makes it easy for sales reps to see that data, for your team to collaborate, and for that data to be updated. - Andrew Angus

Many sales teams now depend on Slack as their primary communication platform. This effectively means that any new tools or solutions aimed at improving sales workflow need to integrate with Slack in some way.

Integration is important, as siloed software tools can present a challenge to your sales workflow. Angus taps Momentum to bring together these disparate pieces of software in a cohesive way.

I can see the value of a deal right there in Slack. I can see in the channel for that deal, and who sent an email and what the response was. I’m able to stay on top of a lot of deals and make sure that there’s activity. And yes, I can probably go and see that in Salesforce, but it’s just incredibly cumbersome. Our Salesforce instance is cleaner because we use Momentum. - Andrew Angus

How Momentum helps ChargeLab collaborate and move fast on complex deals

One recurring task as a sales manager is keeping the team’s CRM tool up to date - a task Angus is glad to have automated away through Momentum’s Slack and Salesforce integration. This automation has resulted in reduced team nagging and faster data syncing.

Momentum allows Slack to work with Salesforce so you can live inside Slack but keep your deals updated. With Momentum, I can trigger people to update their deals without harassing them, because it’s added directly to their workflow. - Andrew Angus

ChargeLab uses Momentum to rope in relevant members of their team during each deal. This feature helps ChargeLab provide customers with answers and counter common objections, for example, by bringing in their Partnerships team or tagging their Solution Engineers for help.

Using Momentum, we’re able to collaborate effectively across our partner team, sales team, and solution engineering team to put together the right solution for each customer. Momentum is like this quiet little helper in the background that makes my job easier by helping my team be accountable to themselves for their objectives and goals. - Andrew Angus

ChargeLab’s post-sales process is a critical part of its sales cycle. The company sells physical chargers that need to be deployed on-site, activated via software, and troubleshot.

Because of this, having a central source of communication and information is crucial to ensuring everything goes smoothly. Momentum’s Deal Rooms provide a history of each deal that reps can reference later to help close new deals and avoid previous deployment mistakes.

We’re able to deploy faster and meet our customer’s expectations because we have this deal room that contains all the information through the history of the deal, from that first touchpoint through to the chargers being installed and the software activated. And it’s all there for our tech support team in case they’re wondering, “What’s going on with this charger? Why is it set up this way? - Andrew Angus

How account executives use Momentum to close deals faster

Alex Scalisi has worked in sales for over twenty years and is now an account executive at ChargeLab. He loves the critical role that an account executive plays in growing a company’s prospects by meeting customer needs.

Most of all, Alex is excited by the growth of the EV industry and the part his team is playing to establish ChargeLab as a big player in that space. The company has an ambitious goal to 10x the number of charging stations in the country - a feat that requires careful planning, stakeholder collaboration, and a well-defined sales process.

There are about 100, 000 electric vehicle chargers out in the wild right now in the country. And we need about 10X more of those if we want to get to our sustainability goals. - Alex Scalisi

But when introducing any new technology, you need to overcome customer objections and convince them of the product’s benefits. This has become easier over the years (see the above research indicating that 39% of American adults would seriously consider buying an EV next). This puts pressure on EV charging operators to bolster their infrastructure in anticipation of EV ownership growth.

You might have residents that have electric vehicles so you should probably be looking at future-proofing and additional electric loads. Helping our customers make those decisions is really exciting. - Alex Scalisi

Optimizing workflows in sales account management

Account management involves orchestrating many moving parts of a deal, and Alex has had a front-row seat to the changing nature of how deals are conducted.

The growing prevalence of remote working and multi-stakeholder collaboration has called for greater sales workflow optimization, especially around updating Salesforce with new data and tapping the right people for input on each deal.

An AE is the orchestrator of the deal. For example, we might need to bring in a technical resource to review some sort of documentation and sync that review back to Salesforce. Momentum’s deal room makes it easier to get everybody on the same page - it has really reduced friction in terms of getting things done. - Alex Scalisi

How Momentum helps ChargeLab manage complexity

Managing deal complexity requires greater visibility over all the moving parts and the data they produce. In enterprise sales, this means understanding the customer’s needs and requirements, your product’s capabilities and benefits, deployment timelines and milestones, and expectations.

A lot of these deals I’m working on are very complex. Different parties are involved externally and internally, so I’m managing not only the deal process and its related tasks but also the people and the resources around it. - Alex Scalisi

Much of the data produced during these processes usually lives in siloed data stores - separate CRM tools, communication channels, and content management systems.

Momentum brings together these disparate data sources within easy reach of sales professionals closing complex deals, while also enabling the right people to be invited to ongoing deals - all within the same comms channels.

Momentum helps relieve my anxiety at not having visibility across multiple systems. Being able to invite the right people to deal rooms within Momentum has been key to navigating complex deals. - Alex Scalisi

Another benefit of using Momentum for ChargeLab’s sales team? Smoother continuity between deal phases. Where a deal might be in deployment, the deal room can be termed #deal and consist only of the necessary stakeholders within that space for that particular phase.

After closing the deal, the same room can be turned into a #deploy channel that involves new, relevant stakeholders (like IT) and excludes anyone not directly involved in that phase of the deal. This provides continuity without the clutter.

When it goes from our SDR team, the channel is named #qual, for qualification. When it gets to our proposal stage, it changes to #deal. And when it’s sold, it changes to #deployment. And there are updates inside Momentum as we go through each of those stages, and the right people are added through each of those stages and removed when no longer necessary. - Alex Scalisi

Momentum also provides personalized support with onboarding, troubleshooting, and customization. Customers can also suggest feedback for improvement and expect them to be implemented over time.

The results of using Momentum to streamline deal workflow

One of the more significant impacts of ChargeLab using Momentum to facilitate B2B deals has been a marked reduction in uncertainty around deal orchestration, deal progression, and stakeholder involvement. This has made a big difference to Scalisi’s workflow around multiple deals and navigating his critical role within the organization.

Momentum has improved the quality of my life quite a bit. We have many opportunities - some large, some small - and managing all of these can be very daunting. Deal rooms within Momentum have been life-altering; it’s been exciting and productive to be able to have Momentum within ChargeLab. - Alex Scalisi

Streamline your deal workflow today

Anyone can set up business processes, but it takes a forward-thinking sales leader to plan for the inevitable friction that will stem from that initial selection of people, tools, and platforms.

Momentum is designed to ease some of that friction and speed up your enterprise sales workflow. With Slack-to-Salesforce integration, deal rooms, and more, Momentum lets you continue communicating like you always have - with faster access to the people and data you need. See how Momentum can help your sales team thrive today.