Education Startup Udacity Uses Smart CRM to Build Their Sales Process

For their customer success video, we interviewed Clarissa Shen, VP of Business Development and Vish Makhijani, president and COO of Udacity. Udacity is one of Copper's early adopters since December 2014.

About Udacity

Udacity is an education startup based in Mountain View, California. Udacity offers online programs and credentials that are designed and endorsed by some of the largest companies in the world. People seeking to advance their careers can gain skills that industry employers need today.Last year, Udacity started offering Nanodegrees, which are compact degrees with series of projects that students can add to their portfolios to showcase to employers. And recently, Udacity partnered with Google to offer a nanodegree in Android development.

Since the launch in 2012, Udacity has been growing rapidly with its enterprise sales doubling in the past six months.

Gmail Integration

“We are very much a startup,” says Clarissa, “so establishing sales process is an ongoing effort. It’s a revisiting and iteration process.” Clarissa and her team was looking for a lightweight CRM that easily integrates with Gmail, a tool that they use everyday. And they found Copper.

Like many startups today, Udacity uses Google Apps because it is affordable, cloud based and can be accessed anywhere with any device. “It was very easy to start using Copper,” Vish tells us, “as we were already using and living in Gmail day-to-day.” Copper is designed in line with Google’s material design to provide users the Gmail-like experience that easily blends into their daily workflows.

Copper's Chrome extension can act as a full service CRM, syncing data as it is updated. Many of our users work right inside Gmail using the Copper Chrome extension to manage contacts, leads, opportunities, tasks etc. “I wanted something that the team would not have to open up separately and go between different applications,” says Clarissa, “otherwise we lose time between all the things we have to do to go to other applications and make sure they are updated.”

No Setup Process

“The majority of larger CRMs on the market have tons of manual process and are harder to use, with a ton of ramp up time,” says Vish. “Getting new people on board is also incredibly easy. It is as simple as adding an email address,” says Clarissa.

Copper has saved Udacity significant amount of time on implementation and adaptation. It allows anyone in the team to monitor and administer their sales process, enabling them to collaborate better as a team.

Pipeline & Report - Visibility, Clarity And Velocity

The pipeline report is the first thing Clarissa looks at when she signs into Copper. She says, “most CRMs have various pipeline functionalities. Some times they are over-designed. What I needed was just the clear visibility and functionality of what’s happening in our pipeline stages.”

“I can see how business is moving. In one easy-to-use report, I can see velocity, how fast customers are moving through our sales funnel, and how soon they are going to be real customers,” says Vish. Copper has helped streamline their sales process, while providing clarity of data they need to understand and qualify their customers.

Importance of Data

“We work with huge companies around the world,” says Vish. “As we talk to these customers, and as we learn more about what they need, we keep track of all those things, all those relationships, the people we talk to, where we have opportunities. Copper helps us easily keep track of those things and pursue those opportunities.”

Copper automatically ingests data and provides comprehensive analysis of those data. Vish tells us, “it makes the quality of the data per prospect or per customer just that much better.”

“Better sales is all about better data, absolutely,” adds Clarissa.

Copper is a simple yet intelligent CRM. Give it a try, or learn about what startups in general should look for in a CRM.