One of the amazing software systems we help our customers implement in their business is Outreach. 

What is Outreach? What does it do? Who can benefit from it? 

This is the right place to dive in to all things Outreach. This is Outreach, Explained. 

What is Outreach?

Outreach is a sales engagement platform, which should not be confused with PaaS (Platform as a Service) products in the cloud computing industry. 

To truly understand Outreach, think of it as a web of connectivity that brings all your sales tools into one place and manages workflow processes designed to improve sales and marketing success rates. 

Does it still sound too complicated? 

Outreach is software designed for sales teams to connect all their other software and to make it easier to manage the team to increase sales. It is robust and engineered to work with a CRM, document management systems, business VOIP services, meeting scheduling and more. This platform is not designed to manage customer relationships, track emails, or put forms on your website. It is designed to provide automation templates within CRMs, to automate and connect various systems, and to give management rules based controls for their sales teams. 

Simply put, Outreach is a system for managing sales systems. And yes, while that is incredibly meta to say, it is the best we can get to describing it simply. 

Who is Outreach for?

Outreach is not for every business. The per-user pricing and robust integrations mean that it is best used for organizations with teams that already have software systems in place and need to take their efficiency to the next level. 

• Salesforce CRM – Although a Microsoft Dynamics integration is in the works, currently Salesforce is the only CRM system integrated with the platform. Businesses who are current Salesforce users or planning to switch to Salesforce would benefit the most from Outreach. 
• Gmail and Outlook – Integrations for Gmail and Outlook are managed on Outreach, so businesses who already invest in Google or Microsoft email and document management tools will benefit from the added controls Outreach provides. 
• Prospecting Large Accounts – Approaching large accounts requires communicating with a diverse number of personas, from the security guard to the CEO. Managing this prospecting and complicated relationship often causes mishaps in sales teams. With Outreach’s automated workflows and discrete user permissions and profile creation, businesses can manage these complicated relationships more effectively. 

Besides integrations and workflow management, the other great thing customers of Outreach appreciate about the platform is its cross-software functionality. Making VOIP phone calls directly from an email saves time and reduces employee confusion. Functionality like that is a key point companies who use Outreach consider before purchasing it. 

Who isn’t Outreach for?

Outreach is not for businesses without sales management software or without a significant sales team. The permissions management facilitates communications between large groups of people and the integrations and workflow manage multiple software systems. Without the people or the software, Outreach will not be used by a customer to its fullest potential. 

For businesses who do have sales teams and software, they should also consider the list of Outreach’s Integrations. Outreach is continually developing new software integrations but if your CRM or email manager does not work with them at this point in time, they might introduce it later. If a business’s systems do not match up with Outreach’s integrations, then Outreach is not for them also.

How much does Outreach cost?

While Outreach does not publish their pricing on their website, current reviewers list their pricing at $100 per month per user with a minimum annual commitment. While this price is liable to change, it shows that Outreach is a premium product designed for sales teams where a 10% yearly average increase per rep is worth more than $1200. 

Outreach does not have smaller subscriptions or a freemium marketing model so businesses who are interested in whether Outreach could work for them should sign up for a Demo. 

Outreach Alternatives

There are many alternatives competing with Outreach on the marketplace. Some of them, like Fileboard, focus on only Salesforce and are not creating multiple integrations with other software. Others, like ToutApp and Yesware are focused on the email tracking side of the platform. Because of their more limited focus, these alternatives also offer cheaper starting subscriptions. But, Outreach’s system is designed to do everything needed to increase sales from the start. Rather than starting a subscription and facing consistent upsells on the software subscription, Outreach offers a solution that gives teams the freedom from the start to supercharge their sales. 

Pros of Outreach

Outreach users have many good things to say about Outreach. The chief positive theme that runs through them all is that this is an engineered platform for increasing sales. 

• Phone calling without leaving apps – Multiple users said the appreciated the ability to place phone calls directly from Salesforce or from their email manager. 
• The automated systems that Outreach had set up are often mentioned in reviews, including automated OOO messaging and resuming from them, follow ups, and email scripts. 
• Too many functions to count was mentioned multiple times as well. 
• Customer service – This one is a mixed bag, about half the mentions of customer service absolutely raved about the service, the documentation and help, even though everyone agreed the system could use some onboarding help. 

Cons of Outreach

While there are not many cons listed on review sites, a couple bear mentioning. 

• Too Many Functions – While this is a positive if you can use them, it does bear thinking about before selecting a robust tool like Outreach. Any business using Outreach will need to spend some time with a qualified integration team to get the best possible use out of their software. 
• Poor Customer Service – The other half of the customer service mentions were negative. One reviewer mentioned the tone of the sales team and another mentioned some unresolved invoicing issues that lead to a cancellation. 

Before selecting any software, businesses should make sure they plan for onboarding the software and how to communicate with the software provider. 

Integrations 

This is one of the most exciting parts of Outreach; their complete integration systems. As of this writing, there are 41 integrations listed on the Outreach Integration Page. These include programs under development, like Microsoft Dynamics CRM and native integrations like Salesforce as well as 3rd party integrations like ZoomInfo sales intelligence and data. Outreach API operates according to REST principles and you can read more about the API at Outreach’s documentation page.

Outreach is an exciting platform designed to take good sales teams and help them become great sales teams through better workflow management, sales software integrations, and more. If your business sales teams are ready to step it up to the next level with an engine that truly drives sales productivity, consider Outreach.