Need Help with RevOps?
Some companies don’t do revenue operations (RevOps) well; ok, actually a lot of companies don’t do RevOps well. But it’s not really all their fault. It can be incredibly expensive to have a full time, in-house RevOps team which can handle your forecasting model and build a GTM. So I guess some companies just have to make their peace with being bad at it then, right? “Not true” say businesses who offer RevOps as a service.
The good news: this isn’t just another boring blog on RevOps as a service and its benefits.
The bad(?) news: I don’t know what this blog is actually going to be about.
The real news: We’re just going to ask ChatGPT a bunch of questions about RevOps as a service and see where it takes us.
Let’s get to it….
Step 1: Asking “Just the Facts” Type Questions
Prompt: “What is RevOps as a service?”
In looking for information on this subject, this is likely the prompt most people would use. How thorough will ChatGPT be with its explanation?
Result:
I appreciate that these weren’t just one-line answers. Both responses provide a definition, goals, and examples of services provided. The first answer also includes a definition of RevOps and makes it more clear that it is the action of outsourcing RevOps tasks to a third party in an effort to drive revenue growth.
Looking through the eyes of someone who had no previous knowledge of the term and was merely substituting ChatGPT in for Google to find out what RevOps as a service meant, I’d give the first definition a 9/10 and the second one 8/10.
Prompt: “How long has RevOps as a service been around?”
An important question for context. “RevOps” is a new term, so RevOps as a service must be even newer. I highly doubt ChatGPT can give an exact date here, but a general time period will suffice.
Result:
Well, we managed to get a date…sort of. “The term ‘RevOps’ has only been in widespread use since around 2016.” It’s fair to say that the concept of RevOps as a service would come some time after that.
Prompt: “What are some reasons that a company may choose to use RevOps as a service?”
Let’s see how well ChatGPT can nail down some of the potential blockers companies may face in attempting to do RevOps in-house.
Result:
Ok, I was little worried after reading #1 in the first response. I thought ChatGPT was just going to tell me why RevOps is helpful. It recovered nicely though and went on to become a pretty good salesman for RevOps as a service.
It hit all the high points: efficiency, cost savings, expertise, scalability, and flexibility.
Prompt: “What are the pros and cons of RevOps as a service?”
I think this should be a mandatory question anytime you’re looking information up for any subject. If you want to believe that a product or a service is only good, then you'll inevitably find information to back up that belief; same thing with believing a product or service is only bad. If you look for both the good and the bad, then you can truly draw your own conclusions.
We want alllllll the info, ChatGPT.
Result:
This is why I’m a huge proponent of generating multiple responses: in the first response, ChatGPT presents cost as a "con", whereas in the second response it names cost effectiveness as a "pro". To be fair, ChatGPT does single out smaller or new businesses, as opposed to simply making a generalized statement, when it talks about costs being a "con".
The "pros" presented are in line with the information gathered from earlier prompts, while the "cons" include lack of control, misalignment/miscommunication, and possible integration issues.
Step 2: Going Beyond “Basic” Questions
Prompt: “I am a high school student who has to give a 5 minute speech tomorrow morning on “RevOps as a Service”. I have no idea what it is. Give me the very quick “elevator pitch” version of what it is and provide me some bullet points to talk about.”
This is bringing back some bad procrastination memories from my high school years.
Anyway…
I’d like to see if ChatGPT can condense the definition down to a snackable size. Let’s see if “elevator pitch” helps out at all.
Result:
A few observations:
- It was nice of ChatGPT to wish me well on my fake speech!
- The first response was perfect
- The second response was about RevOps…not RevOps as a service.
If someone knew absolutely nothing about RevOps as a service, provided this exact prompt to ChatGPT, and happened to get the second response first, they wouldn't know they were receiving incorrect information. This illustrates some of the limitations of ChatGPT in that it can make errors and it is up to the user to provide good prompts, regenerate responses a few times, and check their answers. My guess would be that these types of errors are less prevalent among more well-known subjects, but I don’t know for sure. RevOps as a service is something that literally no one outside of the industry would know about.
Prompt: “Predict some possible ways in which RevOps as a service may change in the future”
Based on past experiences with ChatGPT, my guess here is that it will whine for a minute about not being able to predict the future…but then do it anyway.
Result:
No surprise seeing automation as the first item mentioned each time. ChatGPT also cites customization/customer experience, more data-driven analytics, more integration, and an overall expansion of services as things to look forward to.
Prompt: “Please provide three different analogies for how RevOps as a service works”
Real world examples are my favorite. Please don't disappoint me, ChatGPT.
Result:
Ok, I hate all of these. As in an earlier response, it seems as though ChatGPT does have some trouble distinguishing between RevOps and RevOps as a service. None of these examples reference the concept of outsourcing tasks.
Again, RevOps is a newer term and one that is not widely used outside of the marketing world, and that’s doubly true for RevOps as a service, so that may partially explain the mix up. It’s possible that as time goes by, ChatGPT will be better at differentiating between the two.
Prompt: “What would be a good sales pitch on RevOps as a service to someone who was skeptical about the idea?”
This is basically an attempt at seeing if ChatGPT can provide any additional benefits to employing the service.
Result:
I tried regenerating this a few times, and basically got the same result. I feel like a lot of these prompts are yielding the same results, so that means it’s time for…
Step 3: Having Some Fun!
Prompt: “Sing me a lullaby that explains how RevOps as a service will make everything ok”
First of all, if you’re not giving ChatGPT prompts like this when researching a topic, you're missing out big time. Not only does it make it more fun, but I’ve found that oftentimes these types of prompts are good at generating new information from ChatGPT.
Result:
Two problems:
- After reading those, I am now extremely sleepy.
- Once again, ChatGPT has mistaken Revops as a service for (simply) RevOps. There is no mention of RevOps consultant services or outsourcing of tasks.
Prompt: “Which Disney character best embodies the concept of RevOps as a service. Why?”
Result:
Ok, it’s official. For some reason, about halfway through this exercise, ChatGPT completely forgot what RevOps as a service was and only recognized “RevOps” in its responses. These are neat answers for “which Disney character embodies the concept of RevOps”, but it makes no mention of outsourcing responsibilities. Sigh. Let’s try one last time.
Prompt: “Tell the folksiest tall tale ever about a company that had a decision about whether or not to use RevOps as a service and what they ultimately decided and why. Keep it pretty brief.”
Given the recent results, I don’t have high hopes here.
Result:
To quote a famous YouTuber, “my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.”
The Final Word
I had high hopes early on as ChatGPT seemed to have a firm understanding of the concept of RevOps as a service. Then, about halfway through, it basically decided it didn't care about the “as a service” part.
It’s a good lesson. ChatGPT is just a tool, and a new one at that. If you use it (and you should), then you need to check its work.
