Exterro protects data and builds trust by transforming sales operations with Conga

Conga Composer and Conga Sign empower faster deals and smarter workflows

Customer stories

Table of contents

Exterro provides software solutions for e-discovery, data privacy, and digital forensics, helping organizations manage and protect their data during litigation, investigations, and regulatory compliance processes. Their tools streamline data management, ensure legal compliance, and support cybersecurity and forensic investigations for business and government agencies.

For example, fans of popular crime dramas may recognize scenes filled with boxes of files and evidence lockers filled to the brim with seemingly endless documents and notes. But today’s criminal investigations are mostly digital and Exterro’s job is to quickly get the company’s flagship Forensics Toolkit (FTK) software product into the hands of investigation teams—allowing them to close cases faster and with precision.

To keep pace with increasing demand and maintain its reputation as a leader in data risk management, Exterro’s Vice President of Sales Operations, Mary Anguay, knew their sales processes needed to be more agile and scalable. By leveraging Conga’s automation solutions, Exterro has not only accelerated its sales processes by helping the business earn back nearly the equivalent of a quarter’s worth of selling time throughout the year but has also reinforced its commitment to reducing data risk and building trust with customers.

Investigate the challenges

Despite boasting a talented team of tech-savvy sales pros, the 18-year-old Exterro’s sales process was time- and effort-intensive. Every quote had to be manually pieced together, requiring a contract with varying terms and conditions that was sent for the customer’s review, approval, and signature. This whole process could take multiple weeks to complete.

The company’s laundry list of product stock-keeping units (SKUs) and pricing was long, confusing, and headache-inducing. Sales reps knew what went together, but the quote-to-contract process was so manual that each contract could take hours to compile and days for internal approval.

To simplify the process and continue the company’s 30% annual growth rate, Mary sought to incorporate more automation and a different pricing strategy to Exterro’s sales operations. This led her to Conga’s document generation and eSignature solutions.

Trust your toolkit to deliver

Just like ordering a meal deal at a popular fast food restaurant, Mary realized that bundling Exterro's extensive range of products and features could significantly streamline the team's sales operations, leading to faster deal closures—exactly what Exterro promises to its customers.

“Your hamburger and your fries go together with your drink, and you're going to have a cheaper price, obviously, if you buy products together. When our customers understand what products work together and how they work together, our approvals go way faster.”

Mary Anguay

Vice President of Sales Operations

By bundling their product SKUs and creating pricing to match, Exterro not only simplified their offerings but also eliminated outdated approval criteria—speeding up internal approvals by three days. Now sales reps can easily bundle products together and tailor them to the needs of each customer.

Mary knew that the business couldn’t stop there; Exterro needed a complete quote-to-cash process to close deals efficiently. To address this, she brought in Conga Composer and Conga Sign to help solve the remaining bottlenecks caused by the time-consuming manual document generation and signature workflows.

Conga Composer allows the sales operation team to build beautifully branded templates for the sales team that include the company’s pre-approved terms and conditions. These standardized templates guarantee that every quote and contract includes legally compliant language, alleviating the burden on sales reps to make updates and significantly reducing legal risks for the business.

With Conga, sales reps can automatically generate a quote with the click of a button and send it to their customer for signature—eliminating 70 days from the team’s previous contracting cycle.

“In the legal world you might find that people are still a little addicted to wet signatures, but now that we've made it so easy for our sellers to send via Conga Sign, everyone has embraced eSignatures. I had a seller just this week who said I sent my contract out and it was signed within two minutes.”

Mary Anguay

Vice President of Sales Operations

With Conga Sign, Exterro can also automatically route agreements for internal approval and send electronic copies for the customer’s signature—all in a seamless process that’s helped increase the company’s contract win rate by 10 percent.

Use the evidence to earn faster

The Exterro team has earned nearly a full fiscal quarter’s worth of additional selling time by eliminating time-consuming manual quote development and signature processes to showcase a tangible example of revenue velocity.

“I present to our board at least quarterly…When I can show them we're selling more, we have more pipeline, we're growing the company, these things are working. If you're cutting up to 70 days out of your sales cycle for your larger deals, that's a big deal.”

Mary Anguay

Vice President of Sales Operations

For sales leaders interested in achieving similar levels of performance for their organizations, Mary outlines three key steps for doing it effectively:

Map the process from end to end
Identify each step in the sales process—from prospecting and quote generation through contract negotiation and signature—and look for opportunities to automate heavily manual tasks and eliminate unnecessary busy work for the sales team.

Start with low-hanging fruit
Incorporate automation technologies into sales activities like internal approvals and signatures that don’t depend on external factors like customer preferences, budgets, or availability.

Drive adoption
Get everyone bought into the mission, from business executives to key sales and account management influencers. Talk to sales reps regularly to understand their needs and use ad hoc training opportunities to build trust and win over reluctant team members.

Following this philosophy and strategy, Exterro’s sales team is enthusiastic about the tools they have to work with and feel like the company has invested in their careers. More importantly, they feel like they're going to be able to sell more and sell faster because of the streamlined processes—and they do.