AI Is Becoming Table Stakes. Data Discipline Comes First.

AI Is Becoming Table Stakes. Data Discipline Comes First.

This blog was written by Cameron Chambers.

As leaders in the Win / Loss industry, we work closely with sales and revenue leaders to help them understand why they win, lose, and retain clients. In nearly every executive conversation we are having right now, one topic dominates: AI.

As this new technology sweeps across every industry, expectations have shifted almost overnight. Prospects and existing clients alike are no longer simply evaluating vendors on the quality of their services or expertise – they are increasingly demanding robust technology capabilities, specifically clear AI roadmaps as part of the baseline. In many verticals, AI has become less of a differentiator and more of an assumption.

Sales leaders are feeling this pressure directly. They are being asked not only how their teams perform, but how their systems, processes, and partners are leveraging AI to drive better results.

These new “table stakes”, however, are presenting new challenges for both buyers and sellers.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Win  / Loss research. On the surface, AI tools present intriguing opportunities for automation and scalability. Large language models can summarize interviews instantly, detect patterns across mountains of buyer feedback, cluster themes at speed, and generate polished deliverables in a fraction of the time traditional workflows require. For revenue teams under pressure to do more with less, the efficiency gains are undeniable.

And we agree – when applied correctly, AI can meaningfully augment Win / Loss programs and business intelligence efforts. For example, Anova uses various AI tools to elevate our efficiency in analyzing data and spark new insights.

In our experience, however, efficiency is not the same as execution – and automation is only as strong as the foundation beneath it.

In practice, many organizations are trying to layer AI-driven insight on top of sales ecosystems that are built on an inconsistent foundation. Widespread CRM data completeness and accuracy issues create a shaky base on which to build. Opportunity fields are missing or outdated, even contact information is inaccurate. Loss reasons are vague or entered for internal optics rather than the truth. Competitive intelligence is captured unevenly. Deal context often lives in unstructured notes, or nowhere at all.

AI does not solve these problems. It amplifies them.

This is the core challenge: AI can accelerate analysis, but it cannot independently validate whether the underlying inputs reflect reality. Even as new tools continue to improve and the frequency of hallucinations declines, our experience has been clear – it remains essential to fact-check and sanity-check all AI-assisted output, especially when insights are being used to inform strategic decisions at the executive level.

Compounding this is the growing ability of LLMs to quickly and cheaply generate content that passes the “eye test”. AI-generated summaries can sound credible. Reports can look polished. Themes can appear coherent. But when AI output is produced faster than the underlying sales discipline required to support it, organizations risk confusing speed with truth and volume with value.

And this raises a deeper question for Win / Loss programs specifically – one we regularly challenge leadership teams to consider: even if AI enables us to generate more data, more reporting, and more analysis than ever before, does that align with what your sales leaders need?

Sales and product leaders are already overwhelmed with information. The goal is not to provide ever more output, rather it is to deliver prioritized, actionable insight that drives better decisions and better execution. True client centricity is about clarity, focus, and guidance on what to do next.

Before organizations ask:

  • How can AI accelerate this?
  • How can AI automate this?
  • How can AI augment this?

They must first ask:

  • Is our underlying foundation strong enough to trust what comes out?
  • Will this efficiency translate into better execution?

From our vantage point as a third-party Win / Loss consultant, before layering AI onto your sales data, the priority must be strengthening your CRM hygiene and foundational discipline. In the AI era, automation is becoming ubiquitous. But trusted insight – especially in high-stakes B2B sales and Win / Loss situations – still depends on fundamentals: clean data, structured processes, human judgement, and an unwavering focus on turning analysis into action.

In a world where AI is the expectation, disciplined execution is what earns trust.

Boston, MA — February 24, 2026 — Anova Consulting Group today announced the launch of year-over-year analytics capabilities within its myView dashboard, enabling clients to compare quantitative and qualitative research insights across multiple years in real time.

The new functionality allows organizations to track program performance over time, identify emerging trends, and better understand how stakeholder perceptions evolve from one research cycle to the next. By providing longitudinal insights directly within the myView platform, the enhancement supports more informed decision-making and strategic planning.

With the introduction of year-over-year comparisons, clients can now analyze historical research data alongside current results, providing a more comprehensive view of program performance and market dynamics.

The new capability allows organizations to:

  • Evaluate changes in satisfaction levels and key decision drivers across program cycles

  • Benchmark strengths and opportunities for improvement from one year to the next

  • Identify emerging trends and shifts in stakeholder perceptions

  • Support strategic planning with deeper longitudinal insight

By consolidating multi-year insights within a single interface, the myView dashboard simplifies complex analysis and makes it easier for clients to understand how their programs evolve over time.

“These enhancements represent an important step forward in how we deliver real-time insights and value to our clients,” said Richard Schroder, Founder and CEO of Anova Consulting Group. “Year-over-year analytics empower our clients to move beyond a single snapshot in time and instead see how performance, perceptions, and competitive dynamics evolve—helping drive meaningful business improvement.”

Schroder added that the release reflects the firm’s ongoing technology investment.

“This innovation reflects our continued investment in technology and our robust product roadmap. We are committed to developing tools that make it easier for clients to access, visualize, and act on their data—enhancing the overall value of our partnership.”

The addition of year-over-year analytics is part of Anova Consulting Group’s broader commitment to expanding the capabilities of the myView dashboard platform, providing clients with deeper analytics, greater transparency, and more powerful tools for understanding stakeholder feedback and research outcomes.

About Anova Consulting Group

Anova Consulting Group is a leading advisory firm specializing in research-driven insights, stakeholder experience programs, and strategic consulting. Through advanced analytics and proprietary platforms such as the myView dashboard, Anova helps organizations transform research data into actionable insights that support better decision-making and long-term business improvement.

Written by Harriet Peabody, this is the first in a series of blogs that will explore the four themes identified by Partner Andrew Cloutier, driving the state of voice-of-the-customer research in 2026.

The Expansion Era: Why Growth Now Starts with the Customers You Already Have

For years, B2B growth strategy followed a familiar script: build pipeline, land new logos, repeat. Net-new acquisition was the headline metric. Expansion was a bonus.

That script is changing.

Across industries, organizations are recalibrating around a new reality: the most reliable growth often comes from the customers already on your roster. Retention, cross-sell, and up-sell are no longer supporting actors. They are central to the revenue story.

This is a structural shift from growth-by-acquisition to growth-by-expansion, and just as importantly, growth-by-retention, brought on by increased uncertainty – uncertainty that looks like it’s here to stay.

So, what can my business do to retain and expand our existing accounts?

Why Expansion Is Harder Than It Looks

On paper, selling into the installed base should be easier. You have relationships. You have history. You understand the account.

In practice, the bar is often higher.

When selling to a new prospect, expectations are shaped by positioning and promise. When selling to an existing client, expectations are shaped by lived experience.

Every support ticket.
Every missed deadline.
Every surprise invoice.
Every positive outcome, too.

Expansion conversations don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in the context of trust that has either been strengthened or eroded over time.

Win/loss and pre-renewal interviews consistently reveal a subtle but important dynamic: clients expect vendors to demonstrate that they know them. Not in a superficial way, but in a way that reflects accumulated knowledge of their business, priorities, and internal constraints.

Generic pitches that might resonate with a new logo fall flat inside an existing relationship. Their reaction is “You should know us better than that.”

The Psychology of Selling to the Installed Base

There’s also a psychological difference between acquisition and expansion that organizations underestimate.

In a new-logo pursuit, buyers are evaluating potential. In an expansion or renewal scenario, they are evaluating performance and risk.

Prospects ask: Can this partner deliver?
Existing clients ask: Have they delivered? And what happens if we give them more?

That second question is rooted in retention logic. Clients are thinking about stability, continuity, and internal optics. Expanding a vendor relationship is not just a commercial decision, it’s a reputational one for the internal champion.

Pre-renewal interviews often surface this tension. Clients may express overall satisfaction yet hesitate to expand scope because ROI was never clearly quantified, early implementation challenges created skepticism, or value hasn’t been consistently reinforced.

Retention as the Foundation

Expansion strategies tend to get attention because they drive incremental revenue. But the strongest organizations understand that retention is what makes expansion possible.

If a renewal is uncertain, cross-sell conversations are irrelevant. If trust is fragile, upsell feels opportunistic.

That’s why many companies are investing more heavily in client satisfaction and pre-renewal interviews. These conversations surface friction early, before it turns into churn. They often uncover issues that would never appear in a survey:

  • A stakeholder who feels under-informed
  • A service model that no longer fits evolving needs
  • Quiet competitive evaluations happening behind the scenes

Protecting revenue today requires more than a renewal calendar. It requires listening.

What Win/Loss Data Reveals About Expansion Friction

Traditional satisfaction metrics rarely capture these nuances. A customer can rate a relationship positively and still be quietly at risk or resistant to expanding it.

Independent win/loss, churn, and pre-renewal interviews reveal where the retention and expansion engine breaks down.

Common themes include:

  1. Value articulation gaps.
    The product works. The service is solid. But the client cannot clearly explain, internally, why renewing or expanding makes strategic sense.
  2. Misalignment between sales and relationship management.
    Clients describe a disconnect between the person pitching new work and the team managing the current engagement. Expansion feels like a reset, not a continuation.
  3. Conversion aversion.
    Even happy clients are wary of adding complexity. New modules, new contracts, new integrations each introduces risk. Unless the upside is unmistakable, inertia wins.
  4. Unresolved friction points.
    Minor service irritants that were tolerable in a small engagement become barriers when the scope grows. Clients often think, “If we expand, will this problem scale too?”

These insights don’t surface in pipeline reviews. They surface in candid conversations that clients are often more comfortable having with an independent, trusted party.

Growth That Compounds

Acquiring new logos will always matter. But in this expansion era, durable growth compounds from relationships that deepen and endure.

Retention is the prerequisite. Expansion is the multiplier.

Organizations that treat client satisfaction and pre-renewal diagnostics as strategic disciplines vs. administrative tasks are better positioned to navigate shifting markets, evolving technology, and rising buyer expectations.

The companies that win won’t just ask, “How do we land the next client?”

They’ll ask, “Have we earned the right to keep and grow the ones we already have?”

About Anova Consulting Group

Anova Consulting Group is a recognized leader in Voice of the Customer. Through expert-led executive interviews, actionable analysis, and our proprietary myView dashboard, Anova delivers the intelligence leaders need to improve retention, drive expansion, and refine competitive positioning.

Learn how Anova can help your organization transform customer feedback into a measurable business advantage.

This blog was written by Andrew Cloutier, Partner at Anova.

As 2026 kicks into high gear, I want to revisit the trends we’re seeing in Anova’s research across clients and industries. During Anova’s 20th anniversary in 2024, I reflected on where the industry had shifted since Anova opened its doors. In that piece, I noted that the pace of changes had accelerated – and eighteen months on, that trend has only picked up pace.  There are four key themes that we’re seeing as we enter the second half (!) of the 2020s:

1: An increased focus on retention and expansion

One of the most prominent observations we’ve noticed is that our clients – both new and long-standing – are placing an increased emphasis on our customer satisfaction and churn analysis, with an eye towards increased retention, upsell and cross-sell opportunities.  Organizations are turning inward because we are in an extended period of considerable uncertainty. As discussed below, prospective new logo clients are hesitant to bring on new vendors when a new AI model or legislative decision could cause disruption for their business.

It is no surprise, then, that many of our win / loss programs have evolved to include pre-renewal, at-risk, or pre-upsell components. Protecting and expanding existing clients has always been important, but doubly so in this current period of uncertainty. Our analysis enables our clients to dig deeper than a satisfaction or willingness to recommend metric and uncover the real drivers of friction in client relationships – issues like service model or product gaps that imperil relationships that are critical to protect.

Additionally, Anova’s win / loss analysis shows that sellers face a higher bar when selling into existing relationships, with an expectation that client’s specific needs and experiences will proactively be taken into account during the sales process. Successfully navigating these higher expectations requires collaboration and flexibility between sellers and relationship managers.

2: A Higher Bar for Technology / AI Acceleration

As AI sweeps the world, prospects and existing clients in all industry verticals are demanding ever-more robust technology capabilities and roadmaps of their vendors, though these new “table stakes” are also presenting new challenges for both sellers and buyers.

To use the win / loss industry as an example, AI tools present intriguing opportunities for automation and scalability, though widespread CRM data completeness and accuracy issues create a shaky foundation on which to build. New tools are constantly improving and reducing the frequency of hallucination, though in our experience it is still important to fact and sanity-check all AI-assisted output. LLMs have the ability to quickly and cheaply create output that passes the “eye test”, though the jury is still out as to how well providing ever more data to already-overwhelmed clients aligns with actionable insights and true client centricity.

3: Ease of Doing Business Increasingly Drives Decisions 

While it has always been a topic raised in win / loss and client satisfaction research, both new prospects and existing relationships are placing a higher emphasis on how easy it is to do business with potential vendors, even relative to the quality of the company’s offering and the professionalism of the sales process. Dynamics like burdensome contracting processes, rigorous information security / compliance audits, rigidity in scopes of work, and consistency / responsiveness of client service are coming into increased focus in how our clients evaluate whether to purchase or continue using a vendor. The prospect of integrating additional vendors and technology is becoming increasingly daunting, and “conversion aversion” is growing.

4: Slowdown in Decision Speed

A related dynamic to the factors discussed above is an overall slowdown in decision-making processes that borders on paralysis. In Anova’s win / loss research, the average length of sales cycles is increasing, and our clients are seeing a higher number of stalled deals or no decisions reached. As I noted in 2024, information overload contributes to slower decisions – the sheer quantity of data that is available to buyers is increasing the challenges facing sales teams to differentiate their offerings and articulate their solutions’ value propositions.

Global macroeconomic uncertainty has created increased scrutiny on every budget dollar. Whether due to actual AI adoption or the prospect of it, teams are being asked to do more with less to justify their value-add.

This dynamic has increased since 2024 (as explored by our research analyst Cam Chambers in a recent post), exacerbated by the growing prevalence of AI, which can quickly synthesize large volumes of data. While superficially useful, if the influx of new data does not drive action, it can muddy the waters and continue to slow down the decision-making process for purchasing teams.

These are just some of the most pronounced trends we’re seeing among our clients as we start off the new year. Every client will tell a different story – although many times, those stories rhyme. If you’d like to see how your organization fits into these larger trends, reach out – we’d love to help your business navigate 2026.

Boston, MA — January 29, 2026 — Anova Consulting Group today announced the launch of automated monthly progress emails powered by its proprietary myView dashboard platform, providing clients with a streamlined way to monitor program activity and research progress.

Beginning this year, clients will receive monthly summary emails highlighting key metrics from their active programs, including the number of interviews completed and overall research progress. The new automated updates are designed to provide greater transparency and ensure clients remain informed as their programs advance.

The automated progress emails are generated directly through the myView dashboard and provide a concise overview of ongoing program activity. The updates allow clients to quickly understand where their research program stands without needing to log into the platform.

To further enhance collaboration, each automated email will include the client’s Anova service team, allowing recipients to easily respond with questions or feedback.

“This new functionality reflects our ongoing commitment to delivering greater efficiency and transparency to our clients,” said Heather Jenkins, Managing Partner and Head of Client Relationships at Anova Consulting Group. “Our goal is to make it even easier for clients to stay up to date on their program’s progress, while maintaining effortless communication with their Anova team.”

Jenkins added that the new capability is part of a broader technology roadmap for the firm.

“This is just one of many technology enhancements we have planned this year. Our product roadmap is full of exciting developments designed to bring more automation, analytics, usability, and convenience to our clients.”

The launch of automated monthly progress emails represents another step in Anova Consulting Group’s continued investment in technology, analytics, and client experience. The company plans to introduce additional enhancements to its myView platform throughout the year as part of its ongoing commitment to service innovation.

About Anova Consulting Group

Anova Consulting Group is a leading advisory firm specializing in research-driven insights, client experience programs, and strategic consulting. Through proprietary tools such as the myView dashboard, Anova helps organizations better understand stakeholder perspectives, measure program performance, and make more informed strategic decisions.

This blog post is written by Cameron Chambers, Analyst at Anova Consulting.

Introduction

In today’s fast-moving business landscape, sales teams have more data than ever — and more pressure than ever to prove they’re using it well. Dashboards glow on every screen, performance reports pile up in inboxes, and analytics platforms promise leaders a clearer path to growth. Yet despite the abundance, many companies still struggle to translate information into action.

The issue usually isn’t access. It’s interpretation. In other words: most organizations don’t have a data problem; their problem lies in understanding that data and turning it into action.

Where the Value Disappears (When Insight Doesn’t Turn Into Action)

Most sales teams aren’t short on data. Companies track everything: pipeline velocity, revenue, stage conversion, churn rates, NPS, win rates, marketing attribution, and sales activity. The intent is good: to be data-driven and reduce reliance on gut instinct. But data visibility is not the same thing as insight.

They know which deals stall late. They can point to common objections. They’ve identified trends in churn, buying behavior, and competitive pressure. The problem is rarely what the data reveals. It’s what to do with it.

A dashboard can tell you what happened. It rarely explains why it happened, what it means for the next quarter, or what specifically should change Monday morning. Without context, teams can spend hours reviewing KPIs, only to leave meetings with observations instead of clear decisions. Over time, the volume of available information can slow down decision-making by overwhelming teams with metrics that lack narrative, consistency, or direction.

Without a clear bridge from insight to action, valuable information tends to linger in reports, decks, and dashboards. Teams acknowledge the findings, agree they’re “important,” and then move on. Messaging doesn’t change. Qualification stays the same. Enablement isn’t updated. Strategy remains largely untouched.

This is where momentum breaks down. Sales keeps selling the same way. Marketing tells the same story. Product follows a roadmap disconnected from real buyer feedback. The organization technically knows more — but operates no differently.

That gap between insight and action is where value disappears. And it’s exactly where win/loss analysis comes in.

How Anova’s Win/Loss Analysis Bridges Insight and Action

One of the biggest challenges organizations face isn’t a lack of insight — it’s a reluctance to act on what they already know. In many cases, teams continue to gather more data not because they need it, but because it delays the harder work of making changes. Instead of moving forward by acting on existing insights, organizations wait for more certainty, more validation, or “the answer” that never fully arrives.

Effective win/loss analysis helps break that cycle. By equipping sales teams with direct, buyer-driven insight, win/loss enables immediate, practical action — small adjustments to messaging, qualification, and deal strategy that compound over time. The best sales organizations don’t wait for perfect information; they learn from every opportunity, test what they hear, and improve through consistent action rather than analysis alone.

Win/loss analysis is one of the most effective ways to close the gap between insight and action — especially when insights are delivered in a way that teams can consistently understand, trust, and apply. That’s where Anova Consulting Group’s approach stands out.

Most organizations already have strong visibility into their sales performance. Dashboards, CRM reports, and analytics platforms surface valuable signals about pipeline health, competitive activity, and deal outcomes. The challenge isn’t having access to information — it’s knowing how to interpret it, prioritize it, and turn it into meaningful change.

Anova’s win/loss programs are designed to complement and strengthen those existing data investments. Through structured buyer interviews and deal-level analysis, Anova captures buyer-validated, conversational intelligence that adds critical context to performance data. This insight helps explain why the trends teams see in their dashboards are happening — and what should be done about them.

Anova brings win/loss insights to life through its myView dashboard, that delivers real-time access to both qualitative buyer feedback, quantitative benchmarking, and competitive intelligence. This combination allows teams to ground decisions in buyer truth while tracking performance trends across deals, segments, and time. Supported by Anova’s expertise in the space, the myView dashboard becomes more than a reporting tool — it’s a shared source of understanding that helps organizations move from insight to action with confidence.

With this foundation in place, patterns turn into priorities:

  • Deals don’t just stall — they stall for repeatable reasons that can be addressed.
  • Customers don’t just churn — they disengage at identifiable moments that can be mitigated.
  • Competitors don’t just win — they succeed with specific narratives and proof points that can be countered.

This is the difference between simply viewing insights and using them. When win/loss analysis is supported by the right methodology, expert interpretation, and purpose-built dashboards, it becomes a living input — not a static report — and a powerful driver of future performance.

Conclusion: Don’t Just Collect Data — Learn From It

Data is a powerful tool, but only if it leads to understanding. The organizations that separate themselves in crowded markets aren’t the ones collecting the most information, they’re the ones transforming what they already have into insight, and insight into action. Because in the end, data doesn’t drive growth – understanding the data to make changes and drive action does.

Interested in learning more?

Anova Consulting Group offers real-time insights on our clients’ Win / Loss programs through the myView dashboard, a secure web portal that provides real-time access to research results and trends. If you’re looking to turn win/loss insights into tangible revenue impact, myView helps teams stay aligned, informed, and ready to act.

This blog post is written by Jeffrey Cheng, Analyst at Anova Consulting.

Clean Data, Clear Decisions: Why Clean CRM Data Drives Better Sales Performance

In a world where every business decision is expected to be data-driven, the truth is simple: the quality of your data determines the quality of your decisions. When sales data quality breaks down, it can have ripple effects throughout your organization, impacting future sales prospects and retention.

In our twenty years of experience, the team here at Anova has noticed replicable trends emerge from poor data hygiene. As an organization specialized in working with B2B sales teams, we have first-hand knowledge of the benefits of strong, trusted CRM data – and the consequences of bad CRM hygiene.

When Data Quality Breaks Down

Over time, many organizations experience what we call “CRM drift.” Duplicate records, inconsistent data entry, outdated contacts, and incomplete deal notes gradually erode accuracy and undermine confidence in the insights produced.

This degradation isn’t intentional – sales teams are rewarded for closing deals, not maintaining data hygiene. Yet the result is predictable: flawed data leading to flawed insights. Poor CRM discipline can distort forecasting, misdirect strategy, and weaken the credibility of customer feedback programs.

The Consequences of Data Breakdowns: Win / Loss and Voice of the Customer

One example where these concerns come to the forefront is Win/Loss Analysis and Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs. These initiatives reveal the why behind performance outcomes – why deals are won or lost, and why customers stay or leave. Few inputs are more valuable for improving sales performance and strengthening competitive positioning than genuine feedback from prospects and customers.

But these programs rely on strong data quality.  When CRM hygiene breaks down, it can have huge impacts on sales programs, revealing major shortfalls and gaps that impact your bottom line.

Consider one real world experience the team at Anova encountered:

A client asked Anova to analyze a “new competitor” that suddenly seemed to be winning more business at an alarming rate.  After a few interviews, we discovered the problem wasn’t a competitive surge at all – it was a CRM error.  The supposed new competitor was simply the first name in a Salesforce dropdown menu.  Sales reps, unsure who had actually won or rushing to log a deal, picked the first option by default.

The result? The client had been channeling resources to fight a competitor they rarely encountered.

A simple data integrity issue had cascaded into a strategic distraction; a perfect illustration that small data problems can have big strategic consequences.

Data Discipline Reflects Customer Discipline

Beyond its impacts on sales strategy, across Anova’s client base, one insight has proved consistent: data discipline mirrors customer discipline. Organizations that take care to capture complete, thoughtful details about each opportunity tend to earn higher ratings from prospects for attentiveness and importance. Conversely, when data is incomplete or inconsistent, prospects often perceive a similar lack of rigor in their interactions.

Clean data, then, is more than an operational best practice – it’s a culture signal.  The same discipline that ensures CRM accuracy also signals to customers that their time, needs, and feedback matter.

How do you Ensure Data Quality? Developing Strong CRM Hygiene

Strong CRM hygiene begins with establishing clear data-entry standards and enforcing them consistently across the organization. Sales, marketing, and customer success teams should operate from a shared definition of core fields – such as opportunity stage, close date, lead source, competitor involvement, and reason codes. When everyone uses fields the same way, data becomes more trustworthy and more actionable. Organizations can reinforce these habits by embedding mandatory fields, providing brief in-app guidance, and performing quarterly data audits to identify duplicates, missing information, or outdated records.

Sustaining CRM hygiene also requires cultural alignment, not just process alignment. Leaders should communicate why clean data matters: better forecasting accuracy, more effective Win/Loss Analysis, stronger Voice of the Customer insights, and clearer visibility into pipeline health. Highlighting the downstream impact – such as how incomplete fields undermine your ability to diagnose churn drivers, understand loss trends, or waste valuable resources chasing phantom competitors – creates accountability and buy-in. Pair that message with ongoing enablement, quick-hit training sessions, and automated reminders, and CRM hygiene shifts from a compliance task to a strategic differentiator.

The Competitive Advantage of Trusted Insight

As automation, analytics, and AI reshape competitive dynamics, the differentiator won’t be access to data – it will be confidence in data.  Clean, credible data gives sales programs like Win/Loss and VoC the foundation they need to deliver unbiased, actionable intelligence – the kind that drive sustained growth, alignment and resilience.

Our client work consistently reveals the same truth: the difference between reactive and resilient organizations often comes down to one thing – confidence in their data.  When data integrity, disciplined feedback, and objective analysis converge, insight doesn’t just explain performance, it improves it.

About Anova Consulting Group

Anova Consulting Group is a recognized leader in Win/Loss Analysis and Voice of the Customer research. Through expert-led executive interviews, actionable analysis, and our proprietary myView dashboard, Anova delivers the intelligence leaders need to strengthen sales performance, improve retention, and refine competitive positioning.

Learn how Anova can help your organization transform customer feedback into a measurable business advantage.

This blog was written by Harriet Peabody, Senior Research Analyst at Anova.

Introduction

In today’s fast-moving business landscape, outsourcing has become more than a cost-cutting strategy – it is a strategic move to consolidate specialized skills, scale quickly, and stay agile. From customer support to IT services, marketing to finance, companies are increasingly turning to third-party providers to handle non-core functions. A recent uptick in outsourcing across industries reflects a growing need for flexibility, efficiency, and global expertise.

But as outsourcing becomes more prevalent, it brings new challenges, particularly with respect to maintaining high levels of client satisfaction.

When services are outsourced, companies lose direct control over how customer interactions are handled and how services are delivered. There’s often a physical and cultural disconnect between the service provider and the end customer. This disconnect can lead to misaligned expectations, fragmented communications, and minor problems sitting unnoticed until they turn into major pain points.

Gartner reported that in 2024, 84% of surveyed organizations reported working with at least one business‑process outsourcing (BPO) partner, and 56% said improving those relationships is a moderate or significant priority. Gartner also warned that 60% of companies outsourcing customer‑facing functions would suffer client defections or hidden costs outweighing the savings.

Voice of the Customer Research and Outsourcing

This is where Voice of the Customer (VoC) research becomes essential. VoC is the process of collecting and analyzing feedback from clients to understand their needs, experiences, and expectations. For companies that outsource services, VoC insights can bridge the gap between the business, its service partners, and the end client.

By integrating VoC research throughout the outsourcing process before, during, and after transitions, businesses can:

  • Identify pain points early: Are clients frustrated by slower response times after a service was outsourced? Are communication handoffs creating confusion? VoC highlights issues quickly, allowing companies to address them before they impact satisfaction or loyalty.
  • Identify client priorities: Feedback can help clarify what clients truly value, enabling better alignment with outsourcing partners from the start.
  • Ensure consistency in customer experience: Even if multiple vendors are involved, VoC insights and ongoing feedback ensure companies make data-driven decisions about whether a partner is meeting expectations and take corrective action if needed.

In short, companies that rely solely on internal KPIs or vendor reports to track how their clients feel about their outsourcing are operating in the dark.

That’s why organizations that outsource must invest just as much in listening as they do in logistics. Ultimately, outsourcing can drive efficiency and growth, but only if client satisfaction keeps pace. Voice of Customer research gives organizations the insight needed to manage outsourced services more effectively and ensure that clients don’t just tolerate the changes but benefit from them.

In a world where service delivery is often one step removed from the business itself, VoC becomes the direct line between companies and the customers they serve.  And in an age of outsourcing, maintaining that connection is more valuable than ever.

 

Interested in learning more?

Anova Consulting Group offers real-time insights on our clients’ Win / Loss and Client Loyalty programs through the myView dashboard, a secure web portal that provides our clients with real-time access to their research results. Click here to learn how myView can help your organization win and retain more business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This blog was written by Philip Trevisan, Consultant at Anova.

In an increasingly quantitative world, nearly every program we use spits out data in some form. Sales leaders naturally want to wrangle that raw data into something digestible – and one of the most common ways is on a dashboard. Before entering the market research space, I worked in management consulting, where I saw clients frequently ask for dashboards to help them make sense of complex, disparate, or overwhelming amounts of data. Oftentimes, they just wanted to see their data displayed – but dashboards are important for so much more than that.

Dashboards are a core part of a successful Win / Loss program. Beyond just displaying quantitative data in an easy-to-understand way, they offer several larger benefits:

  • Dashboards foster transparency and equal access
    • When a whole team uses a shared Win / Loss data dashboard, everyone operates on the same page. A shared dashboard fosters transparency and equal access – there is room for interpretation and discussion of the data, but your entire team is basing these conversations on a shared, universal set of information.
  • Dashboards focus your team on improvement
    • A well-designed Win / Loss dashboard gives your team immediate insights on how to improve. It is difficult to tease out actionable improvements from raw data – building a visual display of the information allows your team to immediately identify insights and areas for improvement in your sales process.
  • Dashboards improve real-time decision-making
    • When you get an unexpected request from a prospect or are trying to determine how you size up against a competitor before a meeting, well-designed dashboards give your team real-time data you can act on.

Successful dashboards have a few key characteristics. At Anova Consulting, we’ve built the myView dashboard, a web dashboard around these principles:

  • Ensure it focuses on actionable data
    • Successful dashboards drive your team to action and enable change.  If a dashboard isn’t providing data that helps you act, then it’s just a medium for digital noise, overloading you and your team with another set of KPIs to monitor.
    • Identify and display actionable metrics; for instance, key reasons your sales team are winning and losing, the most common reasons for your prospects’ decisions, and other areas that matter most to your team.
  • When rolling up qualitative data into quantitative displays of information, ensure everyone is speaking a shared language – build a set of categories and priorities and stick with it.
    • For instance, if a prospect shares they went with a competitor due to their willingness to negotiate on price, one of your teammates may identify that as a loss due to pricing, and another may identify it as a loss due to poor sales execution – neither are ‘wrong’, per se, but now your dashboard data are muddled.
  • Make sure it updates in real-time – automate as much as possible
    • In an increasingly fast-paced business environment, having access to real-time data that updates regularly is key for winning business. A dashboard that requires manual updating can quickly become outdated, potentially imperiling decisions that require the most up-to-date data.
    • Explore automating data entry – uploading interview summaries that auto-populate the relevant charts, for example.

Interested in learning more?

Anova Consulting Group offers real-time insights on our clients’ Win / Loss programs through the myView dashboard, a secure web portal that provides our clients with real-time access to their research results. Click here to learn how myView can help your organization win more business.

 

 

This blog was written by Philip Trevisan, Consultant at Anova.

Businesses across the United States and the world are facing unprecedented uncertainty. Tariffs, a shaky labor market, and the ever-shifting potential impacts of AI leave leaders uncertain of how to react and plan their strategies for the next quarter, let alone next year. In periods of intense uncertainty, you need to have an accurate understanding of the sentiment of your potential and current clients to grow and sustain your business. Win/loss and voice-of-the-customer (VoC) analysis helps that happen.

Importance of Win / Loss and Churn Analysis in Periods of Uncertainty

Win/loss analysis is crucial for business and sales leaders to navigate periods of uncertainty like the one we now face. Win/loss analysis is the systematic review of closed sales opportunities, both wins and losses, to uncover the real reasons behind customer decisions. This process goes beyond surface-level feedback, digging into the factors that truly influence buying behavior, such as sales approach, product features, pricing, customer experience, and competitive positioning. Here’s why it matters in times of uncertainty:

Why Win/Loss Research is Critical in Uncertain Times:

  1. Respond to market shifts: Win/loss analysis helps sales teams identify and respond to rapidly evolving market situations. Without it, your team is flying blind. In normal market conditions, that’s not ideal, but in periods of uncertainty, this presents a serious risk to your pipeline. Regular win/loss interviews help you keep abreast of new customer pain points and shifts in industry expectations. Additionally, in times of uncertainty, competitive intelligence becomes a requirement. Win/loss analysis doesn’t just show you how you win or lose, but also why your competitors are winning. In an uncertain market, learning how your competitors are standing out from the crowd can help you respond and better position yourself to win business.
  2. Navigate a buyer’s market: Periods of uncertainty often lead buyers to take a step back and adopt a much more selective mindset when buying products and services. Why commit to an expensive and risky contract when the market could look totally different tomorrow? In this tight environment, you need every competitive advantage on your side to win. Armed with actionable win/loss analysis, your team will be better positioned to execute and win in a tough market.
  3. Focus resources where they matter: Win/loss interviews give you actionable information on where your team can improve. In periods of uncertainty, your team is more likely to have fewer resources, so it’s critical to use them where they matter. Win/Loss interviews are a gold mine for delineating between what sales reps think happened during the process vs. what actually happened. Instead of investing your limited resources in hunches or anecdotal data, Win/loss interviews enable you to turn real customer feedback into tailored coaching and improvement for your team.

In addition to loss debriefs, an interview with a departed client (a churned client) puts the spotlight on why customers did not choose to continue a relationship with a company.

These churn interviews provide many of the benefits of loss interviews, with a few additional benefits. If, for example, missing functionality on a platform is a key reason why a company is both losing new business and experiencing churn, that clearly highlights a competitive gap in their solution. If a key feature of the platform is being cited as a strength in win interviews but subsequently shows up as a churn driver, that indicates a lack of consistent experience around that tool, either because of unrealistic expectation setting from the sales team or insufficient follow-through on the CX side.

Importance of Voice-of-the-Customer Analysis in Periods of Uncertainty

Win/loss analysis is critical to winning new business in periods of uncertainty, but how do you retain your existing customers? This is where voice-of-the-customer (VoC) analysis enters the picture. VoC feedback is a way to collect and analyze customer feedback to better understand their needs, expectations, and pain points. By listening to VoC feedback, you can identify addressable areas of your product and service with direct benefits to your customers. Important in normal business environments, VoC analysis becomes essential in periods of high uncertainty.

Why VoC Research is Critical in Uncertain Times:

  1. Identify at-risk accounts: In periods of uncertainty, your clients may be more likely to end an engagement or not renew over an experience that would not have prompted the same response in a normal environment. VoC research helps you identify at-risk accounts, determine the sources of their dissatisfaction, and make course corrections to retain their business.
  2. Hone strengths and address weaknesses: VoC analysis helps you identify the areas of your product or service that resonate the most with your customers, and the areas generating the most pain points, especially blind spots that you can’t see internally. You can use the strengths to bolster your sales approach and mitigate your weaknesses to help retain clients. Additionally, VoC analysis helps to solidify future priorities. While it might seem all-encompassing now, economic turmoil will abate in the future. When normalcy returns, the insights gained from VoC analysis can help direct future investment and priorities.
  3. Identify opportunities for upsell or cross-sell: Client acquisition is difficult in times of uncertainty. In addition to the sales advantages of win/loss analysis described above, VoC analysis gives your sales team key insights into upsell and cross-sell opportunities at your clients. In VoC interviews, clients frequently express pain points outside of the engagement being analyzed, giving you a unique, direct perspective to pitch them on new work.

Interested in learning more?

Anova Consulting Group offers industry-leading Win / Loss and VoC analysis for businesses across a range of industries. Through our myView dashboard, you and your team can unlock real-time insights from our research. Click here to learn how Anova can help your organization navigate this period of turbulence and uncertainty.