The Challenge

Like all B2B companies, FreshBooks is focused on driving high-quality traffic to their website with a goal of converting those visitors into pipeline. Historically, FreshBooks relied on forms to capture these buyers, but they weren’t satisfied with their speed-to-lead. If a form was submitted, it would get passed over to a Sales Development Rep (SDR) to then start the arduous and asynchronous follow up process. This meant sales cycles were too slow and many buyers slipped through the cracks. 

To solve this, FreshBooks sought a live chat solution to convert visitors into pipeline in real time. Prior to Qualified, FreshBooks implemented a competing solution but faced some real problems. 

• The Salesforce and Pardot integrations were brittle, which meant leads were routed incorrectly, and the FreshBooks team had to manually build out custom fields and flows to triage.
• Reporting capabilities were lacking, especially attribution reporting, so the FreshBooks team didn’t have full clarity into which channels were the most successful with sourcing leads. 
• FreshBooks faced a lack of customer support to help optimize or troubleshoot their technical issues, which led to a frustrating experience for both internal teams and prospects on the website.
  

The Solution

So FreshBooks turned to Qualified to turbocharge pipeline on their website. Out of the gate, they saw two immediate improvements:

• Qualified provided a dedicated success architect to lead implementation, build experiences across multiple regions and web pages, and offer ongoing optimizations
• Qualified solved FreshBooks’ integration challenges with Salesforce and Pardot by providing a more flexible integration infrastructure. No more lead routing issues.

Moreover, FreshBooks had access to an entire suite of pipeline generation products, rather than limited to just conversational marketing.

With Piper the AI SDR, FreshBooks could engage and convert inbound visitors during off-hours. Piper would proactively greet and qualify buyers while SDRs were offline and nurture qualified buyers until they booked a meeting. She would carry multiple conversations simultaneously and always worked toward her main goal of conversion. With Piper, FreshBooks was not only able to sustain conversions during off hours, they also improved lead quality as Piper would only book time with worthwhile buyers. 

“With 24x7 engagement, we never miss a lead. Piper is constantly capturing pipeline and those deals have a 60% win rate. We’re continuing to book meetings while maintaining a high level of quality—and it’s happening automatically!”—Nolan Mikowski, Marketing Manager, Demand Generation at FreshBooks.

With Qualified AI Conversations, SDRs could have better quality live chats with high-intent prospects because they had complete visibility into each buyer as well as their website behavior. Plus, AI Pounce would automatically start a conversation on behalf of SDRs, which meant they didn’t need to sit and watch website traffic. Instead, the system would proactively engage the right buyers at the right moment. Once engaged, SDRs would use AI Copilot to have fast and efficient conversations, getting buyer questions answered instantly. In fact, AI Copilot cut SDR response times in half by surfacing the most appropriate response, instantly.

“When I was first pitching Qualified to our executives, I simply showed a screenshot of what reps could see in our previous solution compared to Qualified, and they were sold. The fact that our reps can see where that lead came from and what they’re doing live on the site is a real game changer.”—Nolan Mikowski, Marketing Manager, Demand Generation at FreshBooks.

With Qualified AI Meetings, FreshBooks could expedite the meeting scheduling process across their website. Not only were meetings booked in the messenger with Piper or an SDR, FreshBooks also implemented Smart Buttons across their website. When a visitor opted to book time through a CTA button, Qualified automatically determined whether the visitor was qualified, then instantly served up the meeting booker. This allowed visitors to book time on their terms and skip the asynchronous email cycles.

With Qualified AI Signals, FreshBooks had full visibility into the accounts that would frequent their website, which helped their sales team nurture the accounts that were most likely to convert. FreshBooks also pulled Signals intent data into their Qualified experiences and notifications so sales reps would know when a high-intent account was back on the website. From there, they could roll out the red carpet and deliver a heightened buying experience.

The Result

Since switching to Qualified, FreshBooks has seen a tangible uplift. With Piper, they sustained coverage and improved lead quality during off hours. With AI Copilot, they cut SDR response times in half. With the entire Qualified Platform, lead creation increased 10X, closed/won deals increased 5X, and revenue increased 6X.

“Qualified is continuously innovating and improving, which excites us as a customer; our numbers are absolutely insane! If you're looking to segment, interact, and close more deals, then Qualified is the tool for you.”—Nolan Mikowski, Marketing Manager, Demand Generation at FreshBooks.