Overview
Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Canidium is a leading global consultancy focused on sales performance and sales operations optimization. In addition to helping businesses implement SAP Sales Cloud and Xactly solutions, Canidium provides ongoing technical and business support after deployment to ensure customers get the greatest possible value out of their implementations.
The Challenge
Much of Canidium’s business is conducted via Zoom, so from conversations with prospects to internal team meetings, Canidium employees spend a lot of their work week in meetings. With the number of meetings growing exponentially, keeping track of the important information shared in these meetings is no easy feat, and having to continually stop and jot down notes distracts from the discussion at hand. Matt Sodnicar, Manager at Canidium, recognized the need for a tool that would allow team members to focus on their discussions without worrying about taking detailed notes.
Searching for a Solution
In a previous role, Sodnicar used Gong to take meeting notes. Gong—a call transcription software solution—transcribed his calls and created a summary of each meeting he could reference at any time to review the conversation.
When he arrived at Canidium, Sodnicar considered Gong as a possible solution to Canidium’s virtual meeting challenge but quickly realized it wouldn’t be the right fit— primarily due to its price point.
The pricing for Gong was a non-starter for Canidium
This led him to start looking for alternatives that could deliver the same functionality in a more cost-effective way.
Like 90% of other B2B customers, Sodnicar started the buying journey with an online search. Searching for “Gong alternatives” yielded several possibilities, including Otter. After trying several options, Otter ultimately stood out from the pack.
A Cost-Effective Gong Alternative
One particular point of frustration Sodnicar noted was that many software companies make prospective customers jump through hoops to get a simple price quote.
“It’s frustrating to click on a button that says ‘Get pricing’ only to get redirected to a page where you have to schedule a call with a sales rep for more pricing information,” Sodnicar explains. “Decision makers, who are already short on time, can’t afford to hop on 15-minute calls with each potential vendor just to compare prices.
”Beyond its ease of use, Otter’s transparent pricing model on the website made it immediately clear to Sodnicar how much more affordable Otter’s licenses are on a per-user basis compared to Gong’s. Further, Otter offers more flexible licensing options , making Otter the more cost-effective option for both small teams and enterprises.
Fortunately a lower price point didn’t mean compromising on features, as Otter offered everything Sodnicar was looking for in a Gong alternative. Gong and Otter both include comprehensive call-recording features like transcription, file transfers, and archiving.
Otter, however, goes beyond this, including additional features that engage users, such as teammate tagging and automatic meeting notes. Taken together, Otter’s more competitive pricing and robust features made Sodnicar’s decision easy.
To me, Otter is as essential to the way I work as the computer itself. I could not do what I do without it.
Putting Otter to Work
When he started using Otter, Sodnicar quickly discovered that Otter could benefit his workflow at Canidium in multiple ways beyond simple meeting transcriptions.
Complete Transcripts and Meeting Notes
Without Otter, Sodnicar found himself having to take pages and pages of notes during client meetings. While he was able to save those note files for future reference, without a search feature, they weren’t very useful.
I used to wake up at two in the morning thinking, I forgot that thing. Where is it?
Not anymore, says Sodnicar. Otter’s live notes and search feature have been game-changers for Sodnicar. During a conversation, he’s able to highlight key areas in the live transcript. Afterwards, he can search through the notes he wants to revisit later. Otter also generates an automated summary of the conversation, offering insights into the main points covered in the discussion at a glance.
Now, he can be confident that Otter has captured all the important details from his meetings and that they’re all available for convenient review.
Seamless Collaboration with Internal and External Stakeholders
Sodnicar also shares Otter notes with other team members or customers so that they can offer input without having to be present for the whole meeting—all they have to do is read through the meeting notes and reference specific timestamps that require clarification or further discussion.
Saving Time and Increasing Marketing Capacity
The shift to using Otter led to tangible benefits for Sodnicar, including a significant productivity boost.
I easily save hours per week, without a doubt. That’s an exponential time savings.
Sodnicar notes that Otter was particularly useful in speeding up the information-gathering and editing processes for marketing collateral, such as web articles and case studies. In the past, trying to get input from interview subjects was a time-consuming, friction-filled process, as few people had the time or skill sets required to transform their thoughts into marketing pieces.
“I want to shine a light on our people that do the work, know the technology, and take care of our customers,” he explains. “We’ve got smart people doing smart things, but if I say, ‘Send me a 1,000-word article by tomorrow,’ that’s going to have a negative impact on their time.
”Now, however, Sodnicar is able to jump on a quick call with each person to talk through their marketing story, while Otter captures and transcribes the conversation. He then sends the notes off to his teammates—within days, the content is cleaned up and ready to go out in marketing campaigns.
Not only does doing so save time, but it has also enabled Canidium’s marketing team to produce more marketing content and take it to market faster than ever before.
Making Meetings Painless
Since switching to Otter, Sodnicar has noticed that his colleagues now take a more positive view of meetings.
People believe what I say when I tell them, the meeting’s not going to be a huge deal.
Because using Otter during meetings removes the friction typically associated with writing up notes and reports, the software enables Sodnicar to leverage his strengths and minimize the drain on his time.
Otter makes it possible for him to search meeting notes, review meeting summaries, and share the notes with anyone who needs the information—whether they attended or not.
The result? Corporate meetings have never been so painless or efficient.
