Customers
Home to the digital workers. Trusted by Sales, RevOps, and Go-To-Market Leaders.
250% More Outreach, Zero Extra Hires: How Otter.ai Scaled with 11x
Otter.ai scaled outreach and saved over $500K in hiring costs with Alice, an AI-powered, full-service SDR.
.webp)
Matthew Lenhart
Senior Manager, Sales Ops & Strategy at Otter.ai
Rising costs made scaling outbound efforts a challenge
The remote work boom of 2020, followed closely by a massive surge in demand for AI-powered solutions for remote and hybrid teams, drove Otter.ai to shift its platform’s focus from B2C to B2B. To cater to its new user base, Otter introduced new features like real-time meeting transcriptions and collaborative note-taking.
However, the transition wasn’t without challenges. Otter had to restructure its sales strategies and product support to address the different needs of B2B customers. Balancing this shift amid rapid growth — while also supporting B2C users — led to confusion among both customers and prospects. To manage this, Otter hired more salespeople and support staff. But, running parallel outbound campaigns with a limited team of eight account executives, two SDRs, and two managers was daunting, especially without an SDR manager.
Scaling further could cost over $500,000 in yearly salaries. Bringing on an SDR manager alone would add $180,000, with each additional SDR adding around $55,000 per year.
Faced with these unplanned costs, Otter needed a more cost-effective solution to maintain its B2B momentum without adding headcount.
That’s when they found Alice, 11x’s AI-powered digital sales development representative (SDR), and she transformed their outbound efforts.
Alice scaled Otter.ai’s outreach without increasing costs
Onboarding Alice was quick and simple. Because her interface is similar to tools Otter’s team was already familiar with like ZoomInfo and Outreach, it took just two calls with 11x to set up the first campaign. Within two weeks, they were running outbound campaigns at scale.
Alice automated key tasks that previously required heavy manual effort from SDRs, such as lead sourcing, personalized messaging, and campaign management. This helped Otter check off every item on their wish list:
Lower cost: By automating lead generation, outreach, and campaign management, Alice eliminated the need for an in-house SDR manager and reduced the need for additional SDR hires, saving significantly on annual salaries.
High-volume outbound: Alice’s handles a much higher volume of outbound campaigns than traditional SDRs. She processed up to 70 prospects daily, compared to just 15-20 handled by a human SDR.
Personalization at scale: Alice analyzes specific data points, such as job titles, company sizes, locations, and other criteria, to create targeted messages for prospects. This allowed Otter to run A/B tests and experiment with different messaging strategies based on which messages resonated best with specific segments.
By handling initial prospecting and follow-ups, Alice freed up human SDRs to focus on more complex tasks, such as deeper engagement with leads further down the pipeline.
Otter.ai onboarded Alice in two weeks, saving them more than $500K in hiring costs
Implementing 11x's AI-driven digital SDR allows Otter to capture more B2B leads while also supporting B2C customers as they continue to scale. With the money saved by hiring Alice, Otter can confidently expand its outreach without worrying about hiring and onboarding new SDRs.What’s more, Alice immediately delivered significant improvements to Otter's outbound strategy:
Otter plans to further explore 11x's capabilities by expanding into new industries and fine-tuning messaging strategies so they can further enhance lead conversion rates in the B2B market.