IT AutomationCommercial PrioritiesCompetitive ResilienceClosed-Lost Intelligence
How Resolve Used Lost-Buyer Evidence to Sharpen Its GTM Strategy and Reduce Closed-Lost Deals by 78%
Through ongoing independent interviews with lost buyers, Decode helped Resolve uncover why opportunities were stalling, sharpen its ideal customer profile, and strengthen qualification, positioning, and sales execution.
78%
Reduction in quarterly closed-lost opportunities
15 / Quarter
Independent closed-lost buyer interviews
GTM-Wide
Insights informing targeting, messaging, and sales decisions
"Decode has fundamentally changed how we understand our market, our pipeline, and why we lose deals. The structured interviews and dashboard insights have helped us sharpen our ICP, messaging, and sales process in all the right places. These insights are now a critical input into go-to-market decisions across the organization — and have helped us reduce losses by 78%."
— Erin Anderson
VP Marketing, Resolve
Why they reached out
Resolve, an IT automation company, was expanding into the IT service desk market. But nearly 70% of lost opportunities went silent — and Resolve didn’t know why.
The problem was concentrated early in the sales process.
Prospects would express interest, attend discovery calls or demos, and then disappear without explaining their decision.
Resolve had plenty of hypotheses. Maybe buyers weren’t convinced by the demo. Maybe they couldn’t justify the ROI. Maybe the timing was wrong, or the solution didn’t fit their existing environment.
But CRM loss reasons couldn’t distinguish between these possibilities.
The commercial problem: Resolve was investing sales resources in opportunities that repeatedly stalled or disappeared, without the buyer evidence needed to understand what was going wrong—or which prospects should have entered the pipeline in the first place.
Leadership needed to uncover the real reasons behind these losses before deciding what to change across targeting, qualification, messaging, and sales execution.
~70%
of closed-lost opportunities involved buyers going unresponsive
76%
of lost opportunities were concentrated at Stage 1
1 in 3
of opportunities reached Stage 2 with a credible project, funding, and buying intent
Their biggest unanswered questions
01
Why were so many interested buyers going silent?
Were prospects losing confidence in the product, struggling to justify the investment, or simply not ready to prioritize an automation initiative?
02
Were we targeting and qualifying the right opportunities?
Which companies, buyer roles, technical environments, and buying conditions represented genuine sales opportunities—and which were unlikely to convert?
03
Was our value proposition clear enough to win internal approval?
Did buyers understand the financial ROI, Resolve’s differentiation, and how the solution would work alongside their existing ITSM platforms?
04
What needed to change to improve pipeline quality?
Where should Resolve adjust its ICP, discovery process, qualification criteria, messaging, and sales execution?
What Decode did
Decode established an ongoing program of 15 independent closed-lost buyer interviews every quarter, reaching prospects who had stopped engaging with Resolve’s sales team.
Rather than relying on CRM loss reasons or internal assumptions, Decode speaks directly with buyers to uncover what actually influenced their decisions.
The interviews investigate:
Buyer fit and readiness: whether prospects had a genuine need, an active initiative, budget, and the right organizational circumstances to purchase
Value and ROI: whether buyers understood the financial and operational benefits of Resolve’s solution and could justify the investment internally
Product and competitive perception: how buyers understood Resolve’s differentiation, integration capabilities, and relationship with existing ITSM platforms
Decision barriers: what caused deals to stall, lose urgency, or disappear after initial interest
Re-engagement opportunities: what would need to change for a lost buyer to reconsider
Each conversation is independently conducted and analyzed to uncover root causes, identify recurring patterns, and validate or challenge Resolve’s assumptions.
Decode delivers the findings through its dashboard, including interview summaries, recurring loss themes, actionable recommendations, and potential win-back opportunities.
Resolve uses this evidence across sales, SDR, marketing, product, and executive leadership discussions.
The result is an ongoing source of buyer evidence that helps Resolve decide where to focus and what to change.
15 / Quarter
Independent closed-lost buyer interviews, every quarter
Ongoing Program
Root causes, recurring patterns, and validated assumptions
GTM-Wide
Insights informing targeting, messaging, and sales decisions
Decode's Results & Findings
01
The ICP was too broad, and weak opportunities were entering the pipeline.
What Decode uncovered
Independent buyer conversations revealed that some prospects were never strong sales opportunities to begin with. They lacked near-term initiatives, had competing internal priorities, weren’t ready to implement a solution, or didn’t fit the customer profile Resolve was best positioned to serve. In the initial five-interview pilot, all five buyers described major internal changes or competing priorities that prevented them from moving forward—even when they recognized potential value. The evidence validated a critical internal suspicion: Resolve’s targeting and early qualification weren’t consistently separating genuine opportunities from general interest.
What Resolve changed
Resolve tightened its ideal customer profile, reconsidered which companies and roles to target, and placed greater emphasis on qualifying buyers earlier. Its new sales leader began introducing a structured qualification methodology, with closer scrutiny of buyer readiness, technical fit, and whether an opportunity had a credible path forward.
Commercial implication
A more disciplined pipeline, with fewer poor-fit opportunities consuming sales resources and greater focus on buyers with a genuine reason to purchase.
02
Buyers saw potential value but couldn’t justify the ROI internally.
What Decode uncovered
Technical interest wasn’t translating into a sufficiently compelling financial business case. In the initial pilot, three of five buyers struggled to translate Resolve’s value into financial ROI that would support internal approval. Buyers needed a clearer connection between Resolve’s automation capabilities and measurable outcomes such as reduced ticket volumes, engineering hours recovered, operational efficiency, and cost savings. Without that financial justification, even supportive champions struggled to advance opportunities.
What Resolve changed
Resolve used the findings to identify weaknesses in its discovery process and value communication. Leadership prioritized establishing ROI earlier in sales conversations, understanding the buyer’s operational environment, and helping sellers connect technical capabilities to the business outcomes decision-makers cared about.
Commercial implication
A clearer foundation for building business cases, supporting internal champions, and identifying whether an opportunity has sufficient commercial urgency to progress.
Some prospects misunderstood how Resolve fit alongside their existing IT service management platforms. Rather than recognizing Resolve’s integration capabilities, certain buyers perceived it as a potentially duplicative or competing solution. This created avoidable concerns about implementation, compatibility, and whether Resolve was the right fit for their technology environment. The interviews also highlighted the importance of understanding a buyer’s existing ITSM tools and integration requirements earlier in the sales process.
What Resolve changed
Resolve used this feedback to identify gaps in product positioning, technical discovery, and how its sales team explained the solution. The evidence informed discussions about which technology environments to prioritize, which questions sellers needed to ask earlier, and how to better communicate Resolve’s role alongside existing systems. The interviews also surfaced opportunities for more informed re-engagement with buyers whose objections were based on misunderstandings.
Commercial implication
Clearer differentiation, more relevant qualification, and stronger conversations with buyers whose original objections may have been addressable.
The Business Outcome
Decode helped Resolve move from guessing why buyers disappeared to understanding the specific factors behind its pipeline losses. Armed with direct buyer evidence, Resolve tightened its ICP, strengthened qualification, and identified improvements to its messaging and sales process.
Before
~70% of lost opportunities involved buyers going silent, without a reliable explanation of why they stopped responding or what might have changed their decisions.
76% of lost opportunities were concentrated at Stage 1, before deals could become properly qualified.
An overly broad ICP and inconsistent qualification consumed sales resources on prospects who weren’t necessarily a strong fit or ready to buy.
Hypotheses about ROI, positioning, technical fit, and timing remained unvalidated, with no independent buyer evidence to prioritize improvements.
After
78% reduction in quarterly closed-lost opportunities, with stricter qualification contributing significantly to the improvement.
A sharper ICP and more disciplined sales process, refined through direct buyer feedback.
Clearer priorities for ROI development, technical discovery, and communicating Resolve’s value and differentiation.
Customer evidence from ongoing interviews and the dashboard informing decisions across sales, SDR, marketing, product, and executive leadership.
78%
Reduction in quarterly closed-lost opportunities
15 / Quarter
Independent closed-lost buyer interviews
GTM-Wide
Insights informing targeting, messaging, and sales decisions
The 78% figure refers to the reduction in the number of quarterly closed-lost opportunities, not lost revenue, churn, or win rate. Stricter qualification contributed significantly to the reduction, and the improvement represents a cleaner, more disciplined pipeline—not a verified increase in win rate or recovered revenue. Resolve’s underlying opportunity counts are not published.
Are you losing deals without knowing what needs to change?
Decode independently speaks with the buyers who walked away to uncover why deals are lost, challenge internal assumptions, and give your teams evidence to improve targeting, messaging, and sales execution.
