What it's actually like to buy your software
Software deals are rarely lost on features. They're lost on a slow reply, a demo that answers the wrong question, a price that takes three calls to get, or a security questionnaire nobody owns. A mystery shop shows you which, next to the competitors who won.
Where we shop a software buying cycle
| Stage | What the buyer does | What we record |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound and speed to lead | Demo form, chat, or a pricing-page request. | How long to a reply, and to a human. Whether the routing matches the buyer's size, or drops them into a nurture sequence. |
| Qualification | The first call, usually with an SDR or BDR. | Whether the questions earn the next meeting or just fill a CRM field. Whether the buyer is handed off cleanly or has to repeat themselves. |
| Discovery | The account executive's first real conversation. | Whether the rep learns the buyer's situation before pitching, and whether it shows up later in the demo. |
| Demo | Live or recorded. | How much of it answers what the buyer asked for. Whether the features they named get shown, or the standard tour plays. |
| Trial or proof of concept | Self-serve or guided. | Time to first value, onboarding contact, whether anyone notices the buyer stalled. |
| Pricing and quote | The number, and how you get it. | How many steps to a price, how clear it is, what was offered without asking, and how it compares with competitors' quotes. |
| Security and procurement | Questionnaires, documents, legal review. | Whether the vendor has answers ready or the deal waits weeks for a SOC 2 report. |
| Follow-up | After the buyer goes quiet. | Whether promises from the calls are kept, and how the vendor tries to close. |
Every stage is shopped for you and for the competitors you name, by the same buyer, on the same script, in the same weeks.
Who commissions one
CROs and heads of sales
Win rates moved and the CRM can't tell you why. A shop shows what prospects experienced before they disappeared.
Product marketing and competitive intelligence
Competitors' real demos, real pricing, and real objection handling, from a buying cycle rather than a website teardown.
Founders
An outside view of your sales motion before you hire the next ten reps or change the pricing page.
Investors
Diligence a company's go-to-market by buying from it, and from its competitors, before the term sheet.
Why a senior buyer, not a panel
A software sales team qualifies hard. A shopper who can't talk about integrations, seat counts, data migration, or a procurement process is found out on the first call, and the rest of the cycle never happens.
We match your shop to a buyer with the right background, you approve the profile, and that one senior buyer runs the whole shop and buys the way your customers do. How we keep it clean.
Tell us your category and the competitors you lose to.
We reply within 24 hours, with a proposed scope and start date to follow.
Request a shop