Rough for Sales Teams

What problem does Rough solve?

The problem that Rough focuses on is alignment. Our goal is that you can ensure customer feedback reaches the right people, without endless internal meetings or feature requests disappearing into the void.

As a sales professional, you've probably found yourself in situations like:

• Hearing the same feature request from multiple customers but not knowing if anyone's building it

• Losing deals because competitors have features your product team doesn't prioritize

• Struggling to get customer feedback to influence the product roadmap

• Having prospects ask "when will this be ready?" and having no real answer

• Watching great customer insights from discovery calls get buried in your CRM

Rough is designed to help you bridge that gap between prospect needs and product development. We're made specifically for companies where sales teams are tired of being the last to know what's being built and the first to hear what's missing.

How does Rough solve alignment?

To be honest, we don't. Rough solves the technology side of the alignment problem. The rest of that problem is people, process, and culture. We help with that too, but we're not going to claim that our software is going to fix all these issues overnight.

At its core, Rough is simple. We connect insights to work. We want sales teams to understand what's driving product decisions, and we want product teams to hear directly from customers through your voice. Sometimes features get built because of feedback from one customer call; sometimes it takes hearing the same thing from dozens of prospects. We're not here to judge your sales process, we're here to make sure customer insights don't get lost in translation.

As a sales team, the workflow that Rough offers will feel natural. That's because Rough is built with a default-open philosophy. Everything is public by default. Think of it like giving everyone visibility into the product pipeline the same way you have visibility into the sales pipeline. You can see what features are being considered, what customer feedback is driving decisions, and where your prospects' requests sit in the overall priority queue.

What features does Rough have specifically?

The central hub of Rough is the insights feed. This is where customer feedback from discovery calls, feature requests, and competitive intelligence gets shared with everyone who needs to see it. Instead of customer insights living in your CRM or meeting notes, they're immediately visible to product, engineering, and leadership teams.

When you share an insight from a customer conversation, it doesn't disappear into a black hole. The product team can comment on it, ask follow-up questions, or connect it to work they're already considering. You can see how your specific customer feedback influences broader product decisions.

The decision-making process lives inside what we call a Pitch. This is a term we borrowed from Shape Up. A pitch is a structured document that shows the problem being solved, the proposed solution, and most importantly—the customer insights that drove it. When prospects ask "why should we believe you'll build this?", you can use the actual pitch and show them the customer research behind it.

We use vector embeddings to automatically connect related customer feedback across different conversations and team members. This means when you mention a feature request from a prospect, Rough can show you similar feedback from other sales reps, customer success calls, or support tickets. No more wondering if you're the only one hearing about a particular need.

Lists are how everyone shows their priorities. You have your own wishlist by default—this is where you can highlight the features that would help you close more deals. When you view any feature pitch, you can see who else has it on their wishlist and how they've prioritized it. This gives you ammunition for internal discussions about what should be built next.

How does this help with the sales process?

Rough transforms how you handle feature-related objections and requests. Instead of saying "I'll check with product and get back to you," you can get the actual insights and discussions happening around their needs. You can point to specific customer feedback that led to features being prioritized, or help them understand why certain requests haven't made the cut yet.

When prospects ask about roadmap timing, you can show them the pitch for that feature, the customer insights driving it, and the current priority ranking. This moves the conversation from "maybe someday" to "here's exactly why and how we're thinking about this."

The insights feed also helps you stay ahead of customer needs. You can see patterns emerging across all customer conversations—not just your own. If multiple prospects are asking for similar capabilities, you'll know about it before your next discovery call, and you can position your product more effectively.

What integrations does Rough have?

We currently integrate with Github and Slack. The GitHub integration means you can see when work actually starts on features your customers have requested. The Slack integration lets you quickly capture insights from customer calls without switching tools—just share the feedback directly to Rough from your conversation.

We're happy to explore integrations with CRM systems or other sales tools if that would help your workflow. Just get in touch.

How do I track what's actually being built?

This is where Rough shines for sales teams. Unlike traditional roadmaps that go out of date immediately, Rough shows you the live discussion around every feature. You can see:

• What customer feedback is driving development priorities

• Which features are actively being worked on

• How customer insights from different team members are influencing decisions

• The actual reasoning behind why some features get prioritized over others

When you're in a deal and a prospect asks about a specific capability, you can check Rough to see if anyone else has heard similar requests, if there's a pitch in progress, or if engineering has already started building it.

How do I contribute customer insights effectively?

The best insights you can share aren't just feature requests—they're the context around those requests. Rough treats insights a little differently to other tools. When you share an insight on Rough, it comes from the customer directly. Instead of you saying "Joe needs more reporting", the rest of the team will see an insight from Joe saying "I need more reporting". It's a subtle change, but it puts the people front and centre, instead of reducing them down to data.

Rough's insights feed is designed for this kind of rich context. You can add details about which customers are asking, how much revenue is at stake, what they're using instead, and why it matters to their business. This helps product teams understand not just what to build, but why it's important.

You can also use Rough to share competitive intelligence. When prospects mention features that competitors have, that insight helps the entire team understand market positioning and feature gaps.

What features does Rough NOT have?

CRM functionality - Rough is not a CRM. We don't track deals, manage contacts, or handle sales pipelines. We will integrate with your existing sales tools instead of trying to replace them.

Feature voting - We don't let customers vote on features directly. Sales teams provide context and insights, but product decisions stay with product teams. We've seen too many companies get burned by letting the loudest customers drive the roadmap.

Private deal rooms - Rough is a default-open tool. Customer insights are shared across the team, not siloed within individual deals. If you need to share sensitive competitive information or deal-specific details, those conversations should happen in your CRM or other private channels.

Automated roadmap generation - Rough shows you the thinking behind product decisions, but it doesn't create public roadmaps or commitment timelines automatically. Product teams control what gets shared externally and when.

How does this help with quota attainment?

Better product-sales alignment directly impacts your ability to hit quota. When you can confidently discuss upcoming features with prospects, show them the customer research behind product decisions, and provide realistic timelines based on actual development priorities, you close more deals.

Rough also helps you identify feature requests that are already in progress, so you can time your deals better. Instead of losing a prospect because they need a capability that's launching next quarter, you can show them it's actively being developed and help them understand the timeline.

The insights feed helps you stay ahead of market trends by seeing patterns across all customer conversations. This makes your discovery calls more effective because you're asking about needs you know other customers have expressed.

What sort of support do I get?

We love working with sales teams and it's a part of our product we activ. We're happy to help with custom onboarding to ensure Rough fits into your existing sales process.

Send us an email at hello@rough.app and we'll get you sorted.