The sales team knew what good research looked like. The problem was doing it consistently, for every account, without it taking over the week.
The challenge
Before any outreach, a salesperson would read the prospect's website, look for recent news, work out who to contact and write a first message. Some people did this thoroughly and some did not. The notes lived in personal documents, so when an account changed hands the research was usually done again.
The team wanted the same standard of research on every account, kept in one place, without handing the relationship over to a machine.
What we built
A research desk of fifteen specialised agents, organised in four groups:
- Gathering. Agents collect public information on each account: the company's own site, recent announcements, open roles and the products it uses.
- Checking. Agents verify facts against their sources, discard anything out of date and flag gaps instead of guessing.
- Scoring. Agents score each account against the customer profile the team agreed, and explain the score in plain language.
- Drafting. Agents write a one-page brief and a first message in the team's voice, citing where each point came from.
Every brief is written to the CRM against the account, with its sources attached. Agents never send anything themselves: a salesperson reads the brief, edits the message and decides whether it goes.
How we delivered
The Blueprint defined the customer profile, the sources the agents could use, what a correct brief looks like and what the agents must never do. We built the evaluation set first, from accounts the team had already researched by hand, and measured every agent against it before release. Gathering and checking went live first, followed by scoring and drafting once the team was happy with the quality of the research.
What changed
Every account now gets the same research, written to the same structure and stored where the whole team can see it. Salespeople start from a checked brief and a draft message rather than a blank page, and every claim in a brief can be traced back to its source.
