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Client Overview
Our client is a leading enterprise DevSecOps and application security platform provider that sells into complex, multi-stakeholder environments. Evaluations involve security, architecture, operations, and line-of-business buyers. A small Sales Engineering team supported a much larger pool of Account Executives. By 2025 the pattern was clear: first conversations went off script, technical questions stalled momentum, and follow-ups arrived too late to keep buyers engaged.
“We are losing deals in the first conversation when reps cannot speak with technical authority.”
Head of Sales Engineering
AEs needed credible answers at the moment. SEs were stretched thin. New hires took months to feel confident with routine technical objections. Leadership wanted a way to scale technical credibility without scaling SE headcount or adding process drag.
“I want earlier pipeline conversion and forecast predictability without a hiring spree.”
Chief Revenue Officer
Challenge
SE bottleneck killing deal velocity
AEs handled discovery and early demos, then hit technical questions they could not answer on the spot. Common prompts like “How does your runtime protection compare to vendor X” or “What is a typical enterprise implementation timeline” turned into “we will get back to you.” Scheduling a separate Q&A meeting burned calendar time and context. Prospects lost urgency, internal priorities shifted, and some buyers disengaged before the second call.
Behind the scenes, SEs triaged dozens of requests per week. Much of the work was repetitive Level-1 Q&A that pulled senior engineers away from high-leverage activities like deep demos and proofs of concept. Context switching reduced productivity. The result was a visible coverage gap on early calls and a hidden tax on later-stage deals.
“Our SE time is precious. I need them on POCs and architecture, not repeating FAQs.”
Head of Sales Engineering
Slow new-hire ramp
New AEs needed months before handling routine technical objections with confidence. Classroom training and battlecards helped, but did not translate into on-call performance under pressure. Managers spent coaching time on fundamentals. SEs became a crutch for basic questions. The ramp delay slowed pipeline build and created uneven execution across territories.
“I knew the pitch, but I would freeze when the buyer asked about data-flows or encryption. That meant another meeting and a colder prospect.”
Account Executive, pilot cohort
Competitive disadvantage
Rivals won trust by answering precisely on the first call. Buyers expected clarity in the moment. A multi-step handoff, discovery then schedule SE then validation, felt slow. When competitors framed the technical narrative first, our client was reacting instead of leading. Deals entered evaluations with skepticism that could have been avoided by credible answers during the opening conversation.
“If we are not credible in minute five, we are behind for the rest of the cycle.”
Regional VP Sales
Process friction and scattered knowledge
Technical knowledge lived across docs, decks, and one-off threads. POC tracking created a huge amount of manual work and duplicate effort. The sales engineering lead wanted a single place to see what was happening, without forcing heavy process changes.
“I need one place to look for what happened on the call, which questions came up, and which answers landed.”
Head of Sales Engineering
DeltaGen’s Solution
DeltaGen Virtual SE provides real-time, sourced answers during sales conversations, then suggests a next step that follows the team’s sales methodology. It runs on the rep’s machine and listens locally when the mic or camera starts. It is not a meeting participant. It does not integrate with any video conferencing platform. Consent and storage are configurable by policy, and a zero-retention option is available.
Answers appear as a small on-screen card with 2 to 4 concise bullets plus citations to the company’s approved content. If confidence is low or content is missing, the assistant signals that clearly and recommends a follow-up or SE handoff instead of guessing. After the answer, a simple prompt keeps the conversation moving in line with the team’s process.
“Give motivated reps the right knowledge in the moment, they become productive on day one.”
Head of Sales Engineering
How It Worked
Fast setup
The team connected approved documentation and enablement materials. Scope began with core FAQs, security topics, integrations, implementation patterns, and competitive contrasts. Content was tagged by product area and buyer persona to improve precision. As confidence grew, sources expanded to include selected case studies and objection-handling language that had already passed internal review. No conferencing integration was required. Admins configured consent, retention, and access controls up front.
Real-time assistance
While the AE spoke with the buyer, the assistant detected questions locally and surfaced a compact answer card. Examples included implementation timelines by customer profile, integration specifics, compliance certifications, typical data-flows, and clear competitive contrasts rooted in approved facts. Reps stayed present in the conversation without tab chaos, repeated searching, or sidebar messaging.
The answer card was designed for live use: short bullets, one line per idea, and a visible citation for each point. A one-tap copy option let the rep paste wording into a chat or follow-up email when appropriate. If a question fell outside the approved corpus, the assistant marked it as out of scope and suggested a precise next step, such as a targeted SE follow-up or a document request, which protected credibility and prevented speculation.
Example buyer questions handled live
- Integration specifics: “Do you support bidirectional sync with ServiceNow for incident enrichment?”
Assistant card: “Yes, REST API connector supports create, update, and status callbacks. Typical setup: 2 to 3 hours with admin access. See Integrations Guide, ServiceNow chapter.”
- Data residency: “Can we keep all customer data within the EU?”
Assistant card: “Data processing supports EU region residency; logs and backups remain in-region when EU is selected. See DPA summary, Residency table.”
- Implementation timeline: “What is a typical enterprise timeline for a bank with SSO and SIEM integration?”
Assistant card: “6 to 8 weeks from kickoff to production for large financial institutions. Pre-reqs: IdP access, SIEM ingest URL, pilot group of 10 to 20 users. See Implementation Playbook.”
- Competitive contrast: “Why choose you over vendor X for runtime protection on Kubernetes?”
Assistant card: “Strengths: eBPF sensor overhead under 2 percent in standard clusters, native policy templates for Istio, consolidated policy view across namespaces. Gaps vs X: fewer out-of-box dashboards; mitigation: import pack provided. See Competitive Notes.”
- Pricing posture: “How do you price multi-cluster deployments across three regions?”
Assistant card: “Core is priced per protected workload; volume tiers apply at the account level across regions. Typical enterprise band aligns with 3-region footprints. See Pricing FAQ.”
“I stopped guessing. If it was in our approved content I had the answer, and if it was not, the assistant told me to hand off. That saved my credibility.”
Account Executive, pilot cohort
Post-call intelligence, optional
Where policy allowed, the assistant logged technical questions, competitor mentions, cited sources used, and suggested next steps to the CRM. These entries created a single place to review what prospects actually asked and which answers resonated. When storage was disabled, the assistant still supported AEs live without retaining data. Enablement used the optional logs to refine content, retire stale language, and identify missing artifacts that buyers repeatedly requested.
“The call logs showed us the five questions every enterprise asked. We cleaned up the answers and killed three decks that no one needed.”
Director of Sales Enablement
Structured pilot
A defined group of AEs used the assistant on discovery and technical validation calls. Baselines were captured for first-to-second meeting progression, common technical objections, and SE time spent on Level-1 Q&A. Success signals focused on fewer follow-ups just to answer basics, visible ramp acceleration, SE time shifting to higher-leverage work, and crisp internal ownership through sales enablement. Weekly check-ins gathered feedback, updated source tags, and tuned prompts to match the team’s methodology.
“This has to happen. It is the only way to scale technical credibility without adding headcount.”
Head of Sales Engineering
Key Outcomes
Fewer follow-ups
First calls progressed without adding separate Q&A meetings. Buyers received accurate answers in the moment. Early stages moved faster and stayed focused on business outcomes instead of scheduling logistics.
“We stopped losing a week to calendar Tetris. Questions were answered, next steps were agreed, and momentum held.”
Regional VP Sales
Earlier AE credibility
New hires handled routine technical questions weeks sooner. On-call confidence improved in real conversations, not only during training. Managers reported fewer coaching interrupts for fundamentals and more time on deal strategy.
“Week two, I handled encryption and data-flow on my own. Before this, that would have taken months.”
Account Executive, pilot cohort
Stronger head to head conversations
When competitors were named, AEs articulated factual, sourced contrasts on the spot. Reps anchored comparisons in approved content rather than opinion, which kept evaluations moving and reduced the risk of misstatements that legal or security would need to unwind later.
“We finally told our story with specifics, not adjectives. That changed the tone of the bake-off.”
Sales Director, enterprise accounts
SE time reallocated
SEs concentrated on deep demos, proofs of concept, architecture sessions, and late-stage validations. Routine Level-1 questions shifted to the AE, supported by the assistant. The SE team’s calendar reflected fewer one-off discovery joins and more preparation time for strategic meetings.
“My team worked fewer ad hoc calls and more POCs. Quality went up, burnout went down.”
Head of Sales Engineering
Cleaner enablement and content governance
Optional post-call logs revealed the exact questions buyers asked and which answers were used. Enablement retired low-value slides, filled content gaps, and standardized language that consistently worked on calls. The approved corpus became tighter and more useful.
Cost avoidance path
Leadership validated a lighter way to scale. Instead of rushing to add headcount, the team used Virtual SE to extend coverage while enablement drove adoption and content quality. Hiring plans shifted toward inside sellers who could be productive earlier.
“This helped me argue for revenue efficiency in the plan review. We scaled output without scaling SE headcount.”
Chief Revenue Officer
Impact
Sales execution moved from reactive to prepared. AEs projected credibility on the first call, which protected momentum and earned the right to deeper evaluations. SE leaders protected their team’s time for the work that wins complex deals. Buyers experienced faster, clearer answers with visible citations to approved content, which reduced perceived risk.
Operationally, the assistant became part of onboarding and weekly deal reviews. New reps learned in context, seeing correct answers and sources during real conversations. Managers used optional logs to spot patterns and coach to the moments that mattered. Commercially, the team entered competitive cycles with a sharper story and fewer deferrals to later calls. The organization plans to expand usage across additional product lines and selected customer success scenarios where live technical clarification can rescue renewals and accelerate expansions.
“First calls are now productive, not performative. We earn the second meeting in the room.”
Chief Revenue Officer
About DeltaGen Virtual SE
DeltaGen Virtual SE is a desktop assistant for technical B2B sales teams. It listens locally when your mic or camera starts, detects buyer questions, and shows concise, sourced answers with a suggested next step that follows your methodology. It is not a meeting participant. It does not integrate with video conferencing. Consent and storage are under your control, including a zero-retention option. Teams use it to make first calls credible, reduce SE coverage pressure, and help new reps contribute sooner. It keeps answers grounded in your approved content and makes it simple to hand off to an SE when depth is required.
