How Instabug 2x'd Meetings Booked with Data-Driven Dialing

Imagine your most profitable sales activity is also your biggest time sink. What would you give to streamline it?

When Chase Langley joined Instabug as Director of Business Development in May of 2023, Instabug’s value was an easy sell. Recognized by G2 as a leader in mobile performance, Instabug helps companies “clear the runway” of performance and stability issues, making it an essential tool for some of the world’s largest mobile apps.

But the easiest sell in the world can become a hard sell when your sales team is stuck with low connect rates, high bounce rates, and an inefficient dialer.

“With connect rates hovering at 5.5% and the inability to make more than 50-60 dials in an hour, I knew we had to shake things up,” Chase explains.

Read on to learn how the powerful combination of Nooks and Apollo helped Instabug see a 140% increase in connect rate and every single BDR hit their call quota.

Tackling the data and dialer dilemma

Chase’s goal for his 15-person sales team was simple: help them book more meetings with the right leads at the right time.

But how? 

Chase recognized the need for a two-fold strategy: 1) improve the quality of prospect data so connect rates go up, and 2) adopt a calling platform to increase the number of quality conversations with their prospects.

The team had been using a sales engagement platform that, while convenient for quickly adding contacts to sequences, consistently delivered suboptimal data. The amount of missed opportunities and wasted effort was enough to lead Chase to look elsewhere.

"Word of mouth truthfully led us to Apollo," says Chase. "Apollo’s reputation for having the best mobile contact numbers was a huge selling point. We started testing their data through a third party and immediately saw an improvement in our connect rates. From there, it was an easy decision to make Apollo our official data source."

Improve data quality, check.

As for doubling down on cold calling efficiency and effectiveness, Chase initially had his team try one of the popular auto dialers, but his reps weren’t buying in.

“I just wanted to check with other auto dialers, and when we tried Nooks for two weeks the team absolutely loved it. It was so quick and easy to get started. We were up and running within a day. And the results speak for themselves: the team doubled the number of meetings booked in the first two weeks,” explains Chase.

Apollo + Nooks turn up the dial

Chase’s team quickly adapted to the two new tools, finding that both platforms were not only user-friendly but also delivered immediate results.

Nooks allowed reps to ramp up their call volume within a short period — up to 100 dials in a single hour,  focusing their efforts during optimal times like 8 AM, 11 AM, and 4 PM. 

Reps could also get more tactical. Prospect didn’t pick up? No problem. Nooks’ “Smart List” feature would automatically bump them to the top of the call list for later. And Nooks’ battlecards, talk track, and feedback features allowed for more impactful conversations. Better conversations means more meetings, and more pipeline.

As for Apollo’s mobile data, Instabug saw their bounce rate drop almost immediately. 

Using Apollo’s expansive database and 65+ filters, Chase’s reps could slice and dice their leads however they needed — then automate outreach across email and LinkedIn with sequences. Apollo’s Workflows also empowered them to automatically add prospects to sequences based on buying signals or funneling bounced emails into call-only lists.

Results that speak for themselves

The magic combination of high-quality data and a high-power dialer enabled Chase’s team to transform their outbound process. 

In just 12 months, Instabug saw:

• Cold call volume double 
• Connect rates jump from 5.5% to 8%, with some BDRs hitting 12%
• Bounce rates plummet from 5.5% to 2.5%
• Meetings booked rate on track to double quarter over quarter
• 100% of BDRs meet their cold calls per week goal (it previously hovered around 70%)

As Chase puts it, “We’ve booked more meetings and have seen more production than ever before at Instabug. In fact, we booked 20 meetings in just the last week alone, which is way more than we used to be able to produce.”

A winning combo for cold calling

So much for cold calling being Instabug’s biggest time sink. 

With the right tools in place, Instabug now makes every call count — thanks to Chase's sharp focus on finding the perfect partners in Nooks and Apollo.

“We’ve gone from chasing wrong leads to having qualified conversations. Now, we’re targeting exactly who we need to be targeting,” Chase says. "And the best part is I still feel like there’s so much more potential to unlock with these tools."