Buying signals
A normal CRM has a probability field. This one has the customer’s own words.
In a normal CRM, how ready a buyer is lives in a percentage the rep typed. MADDOX reads the meeting recordings, transcripts and email threads on each deal for the things the customer actually said that mean they are moving toward a purchase — and every one it finds comes with the quote, tied to the conversation it came from. It also finds the moments the customer opened the door to a close, and records whether the rep took it. Your team can add a signal the read missed, confirm one, or dismiss one with a reason. And what counts as a signal is yours: each workspace publishes its own versioned catalog.
How it works
From a conversation to a reading on the deal
One pass per conversation, one card per deal, and a person with the last word.
Every conversation is read for the buyer’s words
When a recording, a transcript or an email thread lands on a deal, it is read once for statements the customer made that indicate movement toward buying. A finding cannot exist without its evidence: each one carries the verbatim quote and the point in the conversation it came from, so “the customer is ready” is something you can click on and read for yourself.
Close moments, and what the rep did with them
Separately, it finds the moments where the customer offered a close — and judges what the rep did next: took it, took part of it, missed it, or went for it before the deal had earned it. What the rep did and what the customer did are stored side by side and never blended into one score, so a rep who asked cleanly and heard “not yet” is never confused with one who never asked.
The Buyer Readiness card, and the human ruling
Each deal carries a Buyer Readiness card: the figures, the signals behind them and the close moments, each with its quote. Anyone who can edit the deal can add a signal from a conversation the read did not catch, confirm one, or dismiss one with a reason. A dismissed signal is kept with that reason rather than deleted, so the record of who ruled what stays readable.
In the product
The customer’s own words, on the deal.
The mechanism
What gets read, what gets written, and what never does
A buying signal is only useful if you can check it. So everything below is built around one rule the owner of this feature set in plain words: it has to tie to the actual conversation where the signal was found.
What counts as a conversation
Meeting recordings and transcripts, and email threads filed on the deal — a rep can paste a thread in and it is read like any other conversation. Documents are deliberately out: nobody says a buying signal in a PDF, and reading one would spend money grading prose nobody spoke.
Email arrives on a deal when somebody files it there. If your workspace has switched on the Microsoft 365 Sent Items sweep — it ships off, and stays off until someone deliberately turns it on — an opted-in rep’s sent mail is filed onto deals as well. Without it, the threads that are read are the ones your team has put on the deal.
A close moment is judged on what the rep said next
The judgement is binary at each check — did the rep ask for the business, and did they stop presenting once the customer had said yes — and the verdict is assembled from those checks rather than from a model’s overall impression. A moment that was never about this deal’s decision is recorded as not applicable, not as a miss.
Going for the close before the deal has earned it is a finding of its own. That is read against the deal’s qualification as it stood at the moment the customer spoke, not as it stands today, so a historical transcript is never re-graded against answers that did not exist yet. And if the recording cannot tell which voice was the rep’s, no close moment is written at all — a “missed” verdict about a person we cannot name would be a diarisation failure dressed as coaching.
A yes that went quiet stays visible
Nothing retires a customer’s yes while the deal is still open. A deal where the customer said yes and then nothing happened is precisely the deal a manager needs to see, so a signal is not hidden because time passed or because the rep moved on. It is retired only when a later read supersedes it, or dismissed by a person who says why.
Your catalog, versioned, published by you
What counts as a buying signal is a judgement about how your company sells, so it is not one list applied to everybody. Each workspace has its own catalog of signal classes — drafted, ordered, tiered and published on one settings screen — and every published version keeps its number, so a signal found last quarter still says which version of the catalog judged it.
When the read finds something your catalog has no class for, it is listed for review rather than forced into the nearest fit: an administrator maps it to an existing class or adopts it as a new one. Publishing a new catalog does not quietly re-run every conversation in the workspace. A re-scan is something a person asks for.
What it costs, and what it needs
This is a paid AI pass per conversation, on by default and bounded by a daily spend ceiling per workspace. An operator can stop it with a single switch, without a deploy, if it ever needs stopping.
It needs conversations to read. A deal with no recording, transcript or filed thread has no signals, and the card says that the deal has no conversation on file rather than implying a quiet customer. When conversations on a deal have not been read yet, the deal page says how many and offers to process them.
Ask Maddox can answer it
Ask Maddox reads the same stored ledger, so “what has Acme been signalling?” or “did we take the close on the last call?” gets the quotes, the meetings and the dates — with no arithmetic of its own, so the answer cannot disagree with the card. It keeps three answers apart that a naive reply would collapse into one empty list: the customer gave no signals, there is no conversation on file to read, or signals exist that have been dismissed.
Who it is for
For MSP sales teams who sell in meetings
If your deals are won on discovery calls and assessments, the evidence of readiness is already being spoken. This writes it down.
- An account executive who wants to walk into the next meeting knowing exactly what the buyer already said.
- A sales manager who suspects deals are being talked past the close and wants to see where.
- An owner who wants forecast conversations argued from quotes rather than percentages.
- A team whose idea of a buying signal is specific to how they sell managed services.
Related
Questions
The things people actually ask.
What is a buying signal in MADDOX?
A statement the customer made in a recorded meeting, transcript or email thread that indicates they are moving toward a purchase, stored with the verbatim quote and the place in the conversation it came from. Which statements count is set by your workspace’s own published catalog.
Does it need call recordings?
Yes. It reads recordings, transcripts and email threads filed on the deal. A deal with nothing on file has nothing to read, and the card says so rather than presenting the deal as quiet.
Can my reps overrule it?
Yes. Anyone who can edit the deal can add a signal, confirm one, or dismiss one with a reason, and the same goes for close moments. Dismissed findings are kept with the reason rather than deleted.
How does it decide whether the rep took the close?
From what the rep said after the customer opened the door: whether they asked for the business, and whether they stopped presenting. The verdict sits beside what the customer did, so asking and hearing “no” is never scored as not asking.
Is it on by default?
Yes. It is a paid AI pass per conversation with a daily spend ceiling per workspace, and an operator can switch it off in one place.
Upload last month’s best discovery call.
Then read what the customer told you, and where the close was.