Betterworks: Standing Out in a Niche Software Space

To understand how organizations prioritize and value performance enablement, Betterworks wanted to explore perceptions of  performance enablement within enterprise management: Are companies currently using a performance enablement solution? Are company leaders familiar with the concept, and do they consider it important to achieve their business objectives? 

Betterworks’ leadership also wanted to understand how the company’s brand compares to alternative solutions within the performance enablement software market and to gauge how its software generates ROI for current customers. 

Additionally, Betterworks wanted to determine the most effective means of communicating its value in a way that aligns with customers’ priorities and would attract new customers. With that in mind, Betterworks partnered with Hanover to:

• Measure how current and potential clients perceive and achieve performance enablement
• Gain a better understanding of how organizations use performance enablement software
• Assess how they prioritize alignment within enterprise management
• Gather meaningful data points and stories from Betterworks customers to use in marketing materials 

Betterworks partnered with Hanover Research for a multimethod approach that would empower them to gather direct, actionable customer insights.Hanover’s approach combined surveys and interviews, delving into how executives view performance enablement software, how the software is being used, and how valuable clients view the solutions offered by Betterworks.

To help Betterworks improve its market positioning, Hanover surveyed over 200 senior managers who share in decisionmaking for strategic goal-setting across their companies. Hanover also conducted multiple in-depth interviews with a selection of Betterworks customers to gather deeper insights about their experiences with the company and its solutions. 

By engaging these enterprise management leaders, Betterworks was able to understand which attributes lead companies to choose a performance enablement software. They can also use this data to demonstrate the ROI experienced by customers using Betterworks’ performance enablement software.  

To help Betterworks further stand out in the market, Hanover helped the company collect customer feedback and findings that Betterworks can incorporate into its marketing strategies and messaging. Hanover assessed the needs of Betterworks’ clients through: 

• Survey insights
• Qualitative analysis
• In-depth stakeholder interviews

Through its research, Hanover helped Betterworks gain a wealth of insights and data it can use to highlight the value its solutions and demonstrate potential ROI for customers. This included data points such as:

• 84% of executives have seen a measurable impact from performance enablement initiatives on their quarterly revenue
• 62% of executives note a 5-25% increase in employee satisfaction linked to the use of performance enablement software
• 73% of companies using performance enablement software have only implemented it within the past five years
• 55% of companies that are not currently using performance enablement software plan to implement it within the next year

Hanover also provided valuable recommendations to help Betterworks optimize their marketing materials to target prospective clients. For example, to encourage more interest in their software, Betterworks can emphasize data that shows how performance enablement provides tangible increases in quarterly revenue and employee satisfaction.  

Hanover’s interviews generated valuable customer quotes that Betterworks incorporated into case studies and whitepapers. Additionally, Hanover advised Betterworks to leverage customer testimonials to communicate how organizations have increased productivity and efficiency by using its software — a benefit non users report that they most anticipate in their upcoming performance enablement software implementations. 

I manage a number of systems, and Betterworks is the one that I don't get any complaints about. It's a really simple and easy-to-use system … it's transparent and easy for individuals. So, our adoption is really high." Dev Ops Manager In-depth Interview Participant

Hanover provided further recommendations to help Betterworks sales representatives develop targeted language to directly address customers’ needs and priorities during the sales process.