Voice of Customer
Frequency = share of the 115 opportunities-with-calls where a customer articulated the outcome at least once. Bar shade reflects the frequency band. The mint chip on each row shows how many of those deals attached a specific number or deadline to the outcome — the strongest signal we get in a discovery call.
The six outcomes that surface in the largest share of new-business discussions. If a discovery-or-demo conversation surfaced only one aspiration worth acting on, statistically it was one of these. Verbatim exemplars are real prospects from real deals; the mint chip is the quantified target they named.
"start in early April to be live by end of May/beginning of June, aligning with DSG's Q3 goal"
"concern about the proposed November 30th commitment due to ongoing IT system separation"
"implement an FP&A solution by June to be fully operational before the September budgeting cycle"
"handle over 100 locations and continued growth plus PE-firm reporting requirements"
"want a high-level summary for the board instead of the 40-plus-page packet"
"reporting tool to generate camera-ready financial statements and dashboards for the board"
"consolidation in Sage across five entities and a complex, time-consuming budgeting process"
"current challenges like data integrity risks, manual consolidation of 20 departmental budgets"
"consolidate financial planning across the three separate entities under one umbrella"
"need to understand how to connect with Netsuite for two potential customers reaching out this week"
"automating the ingestion of daily/weekly data dumps from their existing systems into Centage"
"pull historical data from our BI platform to calculate percentages for revenue drivers"
"ease of budgeting for approximately 15 potential contributors and seven finance team members"
"involve 13 to 15 budget owners across the organization in budgeting and forecasting"
"streamline workflows for 5 to 7 department heads with secure, automated processes"
"consolidating all operations into a single PDI instance and streamlining our chart of accounts"
"centralize the budgeting process across 15-18 stakeholders in 6-7 practice groups"
"transfer 19 years of historical income statement data into the new system"
Where prospects told us the specific number, deadline, or scope they need to hit. These are the strongest anchors for ROI stories, implementation SLAs, and pricing conversations. 84 of 528 outcome mentions (15%) named a target.
Each cell shows how many opps in that industry articulated this outcome, over the industry's total. Darker mint shading means a larger share of the industry named it — that's where the industry-specific value proposition should lean.
| Outcome | Nonprofitn=21 | Healthcaren=9 | Manufacturingn=9 | Tech · ITn=8 | FinServn=5 | Consultingn=5 | Insurancen=4 | Real Est.n=4 | Bus/Cons Svcsn=3 | Utilitiesn=3 | Retailn=3 | Transportn=3 | Unknownn=20 | Othern=18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Implementation by target date | 1048% | 556% | 222% | 225% | 240% | · | 250% | 125% | 133% | 267% | · | 267% | 210% | 528% |
| Board & exec-ready reporting | 524% | 111% | 333% | 225% | 120% | 240% | · | 125% | · | 3100% | · | · | 630% | 844% |
| Multi-entity consolidated planning | 419% | 111% | 444% | 112% | · | 360% | · | 4100% | 133% | 133% | 267% | 267% | 630% | 211% |
| Automated data integration | 419% | 222% | 333% | 450% | 240% | · | 250% | · | 267% | · | · | · | 420% | 422% |
| Collaborative budgeting across owners | 1048% | 111% | 222% | · | · | 120% | · | 125% | · | · | 133% | · | 525% | 633% |
| One source of truth | 733% | 333% | 333% | 112% | 240% | 120% | 125% | · | · | · | · | · | 315% | 528% |
| Scalable, growth-ready platform | 419% | 333% | 222% | 338% | 240% | 120% | 125% | 250% | 133% | 133% | · | · | 420% | 211% |
| Save analyst hours | 524% | 222% | 222% | 338% | 120% | 120% | · | 125% | 267% | 133% | 133% | · | 315% | 211% |
| Driver-based / KPI planning | 15% | 222% | 333% | 225% | 120% | 240% | 250% | · | · | 267% | · | 133% | 525% | 317% |
| Drill-down & variance transparency | 733% | 222% | 111% | · | · | · | · | 125% | 133% | 133% | · | · | 630% | 422% |
| Get off spreadsheets | 629% | 111% | 111% | 225% | 120% | 240% | 125% | · | 133% | 133% | 133% | · | 315% | 317% |
| Scenario & what-if planning | 210% | 111% | 333% | 112% | 120% | 120% | · | 125% | 133% | · | · | 133% | 525% | 317% |
| Vendor decision & value justification | 314% | 333% | · | 112% | 120% | 240% | · | 125% | 133% | · | · | 133% | 525% | 211% |
| Industry-specific fit | 524% | 111% | 222% | 112% | 120% | · | · | 125% | 133% | · | · | · | 420% | 211% |
| Self-service for non-finance managers | 314% | · | 111% | 112% | · | 120% | 125% | · | 133% | 133% | 133% | · | 525% | 211% |
| Rolling / live forecasts | 314% | 111% | 111% | · | 120% | · | 125% | 250% | 133% | · | · | · | 420% | · |
| Workforce & personnel planning | 733% | 111% | · | · | · | 120% | · | · | · | · | · | · | 315% | 16% |
| Role-based access & security | 524% | 222% | 111% | · | 120% | · | · | · | · | · | 133% | 133% | 15% | · |
| Cash-flow visibility | 210% | · | 111% | 225% | 240% | 120% | · | · | · | · | 133% | 133% | · | 16% |
| Faster close & reporting cycle | 15% | · | 222% | · | 120% | 120% | 125% | · | · | · | · | · | 315% | 16% |
| Reduce key-person dependency | · | · | · | 112% | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | 15% | 317% |
| Other | 15% | · | · | 112% | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | 211% |
Same 115 opps, split by deal outcome. Green-tinted rows mark outcomes that skew toward Won deals more than average — outcomes worth leading with. Red-tinted rows mark outcomes that skew toward Lost deals — signals we articulate poorly, under-solve, or the prospect discovered we can't deliver.
| Outcome (sorted so Won-leaning outcomes sit at top) | Won (18) | Lost (84) | Open (13) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reduce key-person dependency | 2 40% | 2 40% | 1 20% |
| Workforce & personnel planning | 4 31% | 8 62% | 1 8% |
| Implementation by target date | 10 28% | 23 64% | 3 8% |
| Industry-specific fit | 5 28% | 9 50% | 4 22% |
| Cash-flow visibility | 3 27% | 6 55% | 2 18% |
| Other | 1 25% | 3 75% | 0 0% |
| Self-service for non-finance managers | 4 24% | 11 65% | 2 12% |
| Multi-entity consolidated planning | 7 23% | 22 71% | 2 6% |
| Collaborative budgeting across owners | 6 22% | 19 70% | 2 7% |
| Get off spreadsheets | 5 22% | 16 70% | 2 9% |
| Scenario & what-if planning | 4 20% | 16 80% | 0 0% |
| Scalable, growth-ready platform | 5 19% | 20 77% | 1 4% |
| Board & exec-ready reporting | 6 19% | 24 75% | 2 6% |
| Drill-down & variance transparency | 4 17% | 16 70% | 3 13% |
| Save analyst hours | 4 17% | 18 75% | 2 8% |
| Driver-based / KPI planning | 4 17% | 18 75% | 2 8% |
| Role-based access & security | 2 17% | 7 58% | 3 25% |
| One source of truth | 4 15% | 17 65% | 5 19% |
| Automated data integration | 4 15% | 19 70% | 4 15% |
| Faster close & reporting cycle | 1 10% | 8 80% | 1 10% |
| Vendor decision & value justification | 1 5% | 18 90% | 1 5% |
| Rolling / live forecasts | 0 0% | 13 93% | 1 7% |
All 22 canonical outcome buckets, ordered by frequency. Each has a one-line definition and up to three verbatim exemplars in the customer's own words. Mint chips on exemplars mark quantified targets.
Live in time for a specific budget season, renewal, or reporting cycle.
On-demand, presentation-ready board packages, dashboards, and narratives.
Roll up multiple entities, locations, or currencies into one view.
GL, ERP, payroll, BI, and other systems feed the plan automatically.
Department heads and budget owners contribute directly to the plan.
Handles more users, entities, locations, and complexity as the company grows.
Consolidated, trustworthy, version-controlled data instead of scattered files.
Plan by operational drivers and KPIs, not just line-item ledger accounts.
Reclaim time from manual data entry, formatting, and consolidation.
Retire Excel/legacy workbooks for a modern, web-based FP&A platform.
Explain variances and drill from summary to transaction-level detail.
Model multiple futures — acquisitions, FX, growth, risks — quickly.
Pick the best-fit tool and justify the investment to CFO/CEO/board.
Handles the plan structure of a specific industry — nonprofit/grants, hospital, real estate, manufacturing, education, etc.
Managers and leaders can view, drill, and act without finance in the loop.
Continuous re-forecasting fed by fresh actuals, not once-a-year budgeting.
Headcount, comp, benefits, allocations planned at the person/role level.
Right people see only the data they should — permissions, hierarchies, compliance.
Forward-looking cash forecasts and cash-based views to drive decisions.
Compress monthly/quarterly close and reporting turnaround.
The plan is not trapped in one person's spreadsheet or head.
One-off outcomes that don't cluster with any of the above.
Type IN ('New Business','Trial'), StageName != 'Renewal', closed or open in trailing 12mo. Outcome split 18 Won · 84 Lost · 13 Open.verbatim, outcome_type (end_state / quantified_result / state_change / success_definition), is_quantified, quantified_target, confidence, speaker_role.512 free-form normalized_theme phrases were consolidated into 22 canonical buckets in a single LLM pass. Every raw phrase has an exact-string mapping to one bucket; "Other" holds long-tail one-offs (<1%).
departments/product/knowledge/customer-research/outcome-taxonomy-discovery-demo-2026-07-02.md/product:identify-pain-trends — refreshed monthly on the 1st via launchd com.cios.snapshot-pain-trends.