This team is responsible for creating effective, timely, and easily consumable communications with Sales and Customer Success audiences. Our goal is to help the field sell better, faster, and smarter with communication programs that keep them better informed of organizational/business updates that impact their roles, as well as useful resources that will enable day-to-day work.
For more information about the Field Enablement team, visit the team handbook page.
In order to streamline important announcements and reduce noise for the field team, we operate by a set Field Communications Handbook process. This playbook defines tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 organizational announcements/changes and applies a communication roll-out plan to each. The playbook works on a matrix of two main components:
If you have an announcement or update that you'd like to communicate to the field, please review the process below. Run through the qualifying questions that will assist you in identifying the tier of your announcement. Once you have identified your announcement tier, review the applicable process for your tier and familiarize yourself with the necessary components needed to make an impactful and effective announcement to the field team. We have also included visualizations of this process below.
Once you have identified the tier of your update/announcement and necessary communication components, please open up an issue using the request process below.
For all material requiring legal review, please refer to the Materials Legal Review Process
This update is both highly-urgent and selling-related. It likely includes a knowledge and/or skill gap that needs to be addressed in the field.
Examples: Major process changes, CRO/CEO/e-group calls-to-action, product packaging changes, product marketing major updates
If you answered no to any of these questions, consider the playbook for Tier 2 updates.
There is an upcoming major pricing update that will impact all customers and prospects. The field must be enabled to field conversations with customers regarding the changes. The business DRI will engage Field Leadership, Ops, Enablement and Communications as well as People Ops to discuss overall impact, plan and create enablement materials, facilitate the appropriate changes to sales systems and collaborate on internal messaging to field members.
When the announcement goes live, the CRO or other relevant e-group member will notify the field via field-fyi as well as the closest applicable WW Sales Call, sharing enablement resources, updated/new handbook documentation, and a clearly-defined CTA. Managers will be reminded to cascade information about the update to their teams via the field-manager Slack channel. Field Comms will reiterate the update and recirculate enablement resources via segment updates to field leaders as well as in Field Flash newsletter. Enablement will coordinate a webinar to deep-dive into the update, and field comms will circulate the recording as another reiteration point.
This update is moderately to minimally urgent and selling-related. It likely includes an important update or change that does not involve a major knowledge and/or skill gap, but still has a sizable impact on the field’s ability to sell.
Examples: Process changes, CRO/CEO/e-group announcements, sales/company performance, enablement resources, competitive intelligence, customer stories, channel & alliance partner updates
If you answered no to any of these questions, consider the playbook for Tier 3 updates.
Sales Ops has created a new tag that the field must start using in all opportunities in SFDC. They engage Field Enablement to update SQS materials and Field Communication to ensure that this Wednesday is available to communicate the update. Sales Ops records a quick, 3-minute screenshare briefly explaining the change and showing where to find it in SFDC.
When the change goes live, Sales Ops posts a message in field-fyi on the agreed-upon date sharing the pre-recorded video as well as any new/updated Handbook links. They add mention of it to the WW Field Sales Call agenda. Field Communications includes the update in the update for sales leaders and in the Field Flash newsletter.
This update has medium-low urgency and is not directly related to selling. It is likely relevant to only a niche segment of the field organization and/or is a more general business update that is not time sensitive.
Examples: Outside (non-field) requests for feedback/input, team member changes, general team questions
Once you've reviewed the playbook above and would like to request Field Communications support for a field-related announcement, please follow this process:
Field Announcement::Triage to the issue as quickly as possible. Upon examining the request, they will assign it to a communication tier using one of three tags:
Field Announcement::Tier 1Field Announcement::Tier 2Field Announcement::Tier 3
Field Survey tag will be applied to the issue and Field Communications will work with the requestor to determine if request fits within the survey limits set each month or if plans should be adjusted. (See the "Considerations" sections for Tier 2 and 3 playbooks above.)If you have an internal announcement that is also relevant to GitLab's external Channel/Alliances Partner audience, please use the Field Announcement Request process outlined above and select the GitLab Partners (external) audience in addition to the relevant internal audiences. By selecting this audience, the Field Communications team will engage the appropriate team members in Partner Communications to disseminate the announcement to partners.
If you have an announcement that is relevant only for the external partner audience, please open a Channel Partner Communication Request issue so that the Partner Communication team can assist you.
Some teams, including Strategic Marketing and Competitive Intelligence, are consistently creating new content and resources for the Field team. In the spirit of efficiency, Field Comms creates a container issue for each of these teams each month that serves as an aggregator of new/updated content as well as a collaboration space to allow for these teams to achieve a steady drumbeat cadence of updates to the Field. For example, 1-2 Slack notifications throughout the month sharing new/updated content and a list of all or most-impactful content in the Field Flash newsletter at the end of the month.
These monthly epics can be found in the parent epics below:
Ongoing feedback and participation from the field is imperative to the success of the Field Communications team and its programs. If you have feedback on the current processes or programs, requests for a certain type of content, and/or ideas for ways we can further improve communication with the field, please follow this process:
FC Feedback::Accepted) - Field Communications feedback that will be actioned onFC Feedback::Deferred) - Field Communications feedback that will be deferred until more information is gathered or until more bandwidth becomes availableFC Feedback::Declined) - Field Communications feedback that is declined (no action will be taken)