SaaS Competitive Intelligence Case Study: How Competitors Were Selling

SaaS Competitive Intelligence Case Study: How Competitors Were Selling Against a CRM Platform

A CRM vendor with teams in the UK and US was missing out on deals it expected to win. The same thing kept happening: they lost late in the process to two main competitors, usually after a demo and on similar types of deals. The sales team had one idea about why, the product team had another, and the CMO had yet another. But no one had any real proof.

They asked Octopus Intelligence to find out what was happening.

Background

The client had built a CRM platform for professional services firms. It had strong retention, good NPS scores, and a product that customers liked. But win rates for new business had dropped 11 percentage points over eight months. The two competitors taking the deals were both US-based, both well-funded, and both relatively new to the UK market.

What Was Happening

The client had access to loss notes from its sales team, but they were vague. “Lost on price” and “went with a bigger name” were the most common entries. Neither told the product team what to build, the sales team how to respond, or the marketing team how to position. The client needed to understand the actual sales narrative both competitors were using, the objections they had been trained to overcome, and the specific claims they were making in demos.

Key Questions

The client asked us to answer three questions: (plus a few others):

1. What was each competitor actually saying about the client in a competitive sales situation?
2. What features and proof points were they leading with, and in what order?
3. What pricing and packaging were they presenting at the demo stage, and how was it structured?

What We Did

We designed and ran a full B2B mystery shopping programme across both competitors.

1. Persona construction. We built two credible buyer personas that match the client’s target profile: an 180-person professional services firm in the UK evaluating a CRM replacement. We created supporting digital footprints sufficient to pass basic qualification checks.
2. Inbound contact and qualification. We engaged both competitors through their website forms, responding to follow-up calls and progressing through their qualification process as genuine prospects.
3. Full demo cycles. We completed full discovery and demo cycles with both competitors, asking the questions the client’s prospects typically ask and raising the client by name as a vendor we were also evaluating.
4. Pricing and proposal extraction. We progressed far enough in both processes to receive pricing proposals and commercial terms, including discount levels offered at first ask.

The Results

Both competitors had a prepared battlecard response to the client and its offering. Neither mentioned it unprompted, but when we introduced the client as an option we were considering, both had a scripted, feature-specific rebuttal ready. Both referenced an integration limitation that was partially accurate but significantly overstated.

Competitor A led on reporting

Their demo focused on a reporting module that the client’s standard tier didn’t include. They mentioned it in the first five minutes and brought it up two more times. Three customer references were picked to highlight reporting features.

Competitor B led on implementation speed

They promised to go live six weeks after signing the contract and included this in their service level agreement. They made the client seem like a complicated, slow-to-implement choice, without saying the name. This was the most harmful story because it matched what the client already knew people thought in the market.

Pricing was lower than the client’s sales team believed

Competitor A gave a 22% discount on the first negotiation call, even though we didn’t ask. Competitor B included free onboarding in their first proposal. The client’s loss notes hadn’t mentioned either of these tactics.

Our Recommendations

Address the Implementation Narrative

Competitor B’s six-week promise was the most dangerous competitive claim. The client needed a credible, marketable response. Either a faster implementation offer or a clear, evidence-based rebuttal for use by the sales team. Leaving this unanswered was costing deals.

Build a Competitive Battle Card for Each Vendor

Both competitors had specific, repeatable objections and claims. The sales team needed a single-page reference document for each, covering the claims made, the evidence to counter them, and the questions to ask that shifted the conversation.

Respond to the Reporting Gap

The gap was real. Whether the answer was a product strategy roadmap commitment, a partnership, or a positioning shift was a product decision. But leaving the sales team without a response to a question they were being asked in every competitive deal was not sustainable.

Reset Discount Assumptions

The sales team was holding on to price in situations where competitors were discounting heavily at first ask. The client needed a clearer discounting policy for competitive situations to avoid losing deals on commercial grounds when the product could win on merit.

Conclusion

The client’s sales team described the findings as the first clear picture of what they were actually up against. Within six weeks, they had new battle cards, a revised implementation promise, and a product prioritisation decision made on the reporting gap.

Win rate in competitive situations with both vendors improved. The client stopped losing deals it should have won.

B2B mystery shopping is not surveillance. It is the fastest way to understand what you are competing against at the moment that matters: when a buyer is in the room with your competitor.

Octopus Intelligence runs B2B mystery shopping programmes for SaaS businesses that need to understand how competitors sell, what they say, and how they win. We build the intelligence you need to compete.

We are Octopus. The Global People-Powered Competitive Intelligence Agency.

Outsmart your competition. Make the unknown known. Octopus helps you gain clarity in complex markets. With clients and tentacles around the world, we deliver sharp, actionable competitive intelligence through a blend of deep primary (HUMINT) and secondary research. If you’re looking to make smarter decisions, beat the competition, and reduce uncertainty, we’re the partner you want on your side.