Most document analytics tools today tell you the same three things. Who opened it. How long they spent on it. Which pages they viewed.
And for a while that felt like enough. At least you knew the document was opened. At least you were not completely blind anymore.
But the more I talked to salespeople while building DocMetrics, the more I realized those three metrics answer the wrong question. They tell you what happened. They do not tell you what it means or what you should do next.
A prospect who opens your proposal for 45 seconds and never returns is very different from one who opens it for 45 seconds and then comes back four more times over the next three days. The raw numbers look similar. The reality is completely different. One is disengaged. The other is building an internal case and probably needs your help to cross the finish line.
A prospect who re-reads page 4 three times across different sessions is not just engaged. They are stuck on something specific. Something on that page is either confusing them, raising an objection they cannot answer internally, or making them hesitate before moving forward. A generic follow up will not move that deal. Only a targeted conversation about whatever is on page 4 will.
The silence after sending a proposal is not one thing. It is many different things wearing the same face. And most tools treat all silence the same way which means most salespeople are responding to silence incorrectly.
I have been thinking about this problem for a long time now and I have built solutions for some of it. But I know there are gaps I have not thought of yet because I am building from my own perspective not from the perspective of someone using proposals every single day.
So I want to ask you directly.
If your document analytics tool could tell you one thing it currently cannot what would that be. Not a feature request. Not a technical wish list. Just the one piece of information that would genuinely change how you handle a deal after you hit send.
Every answer in the comments will help me build something more useful. And I will reply to every single one honestly whether it is something I have already built, something I am planning to build, or something I had never considered before.
I actually know a few sales professionals who actively use document analytics, and they'd probably be willing to answer some of your questions for free if you want.