On the ground, qualification varied by rep. Some sellers qualified aggressively. Others were conservative. Forecast calls turned into back-and-forth. CRM updates and follow-ups ate time. And as the GTM org grew to ~30 people across velocity and enterprise motions, inconsistency started compounding into real risk.

Merge didn’t want audits. They didn’t want policing. And they definitely didn’t want more busywork for sellers.

They wanted MEDDIC reinforced in the flow of work — with AI drafting the updates, sellers owning the decisions, and leadership getting consistent in execution and confidence their pipeline reflected the truth. Scratchpad helped Merge do exactly that.

The challenge

Alex Kean leads a four-person RevOps team responsible for the full GTM system at Merge — marketing ops, sales ops and forecasting, post-sales systems, and product operations.

In 2025, Merge made two shifts that raised the bar for GTM execution:

1. The company moved from a broad “build what you need” motion to defined product lines with clearer ICPs and use cases.
2. Merge launched Merge Agent Handler and entered an exploratory phase to understand how customers would adopt an agentic product.

Those shifts created a new constraint: Merge couldn’t afford “qualification by personality.” Qualification decisions now impacted pipeline health, forecast credibility, marketing targeting, and product investments.

But on the ground, MEDDIC interpretation varied widely.

“We had a lot of internal debate around whether we were over- or under-qualifying,” Alex said. “And the honest answer was that it depended on which rep you were talking to.”

At the same time, seller admin work was creeping upward as deals got more complex:

• Updating MEDDIC fields and next steps
• Summarizing calls for leadership and internal stakeholders
• Prepping for forecast calls
• Writing follow-ups and internal updates

Product feedback added friction too. Insights from sales conversations were spread across Gong, Clay, spreadsheets, and ad hoc summaries. The workflow worked, but it was brittle — and too slow for a new product where learnings needed to be clear and land weekly, not quarterly.

The design philosophy

Merge’s approach to AI is simple: AI should create alignment, not autopilot deals, so Alex and GTM leadership set clear guardrails:

• AI drafts; sellers decide. Rep-facing MEDDIC fields are suggested, never auto-filled.
• Review creates ownership. If a rep can’t defend a field, it shouldn’t be in CRM.
• Disagreement is where coaching lives. The most valuable signal is where rep and AI differ.
• Consistency beats outliers. Reducing variance matters more than chasing one rep’s conversion rate.

“Our CRO is very clear that reps need to own their deals,” Alex explained. “AI should make that easier — not remove agency.”

The solution

Scratchpad was already the primary workspace for sellers at Merge. Sellers liked it for a simple reason: it kept them out of Salesforce while still keeping CRM data accurate.

“We love Scratchpad because it keeps us out of Salesforce… and we can customize it to our own workflows. We’re not going to create a tailored Salesforce experience for every segment… Scratchpad lets folks tailor it to how they work.”

— Alex Kean, Director of Revenue Operations, Merge

That flexibility mattered at Merge, where velocity and enterprise sellers work very differently.

When AI became available in Scratchpad, RevOps didn’t treat it as a shiny add-on. They treated it as the missing execution layer between calls, CRM, and decision-making. Scratchpad gave Merge a way to:

• Draft Salesforce updates directly from calls and deal context
• Suggest MEDDIC updates for review (instead of auto-filling fields)
• Auto-capture backend fields like call summaries and product feedback
• Surface updates and context in the systems teams already use (Salesforce + Slack)

Merge didn’t replace Gong or Clay. Scratchpad reduced the fragile glue work between them.

“Velocity and enterprise work differently. Scratchpad lets both teams run their own workflow without RevOps rebuilding Salesforce every time. The moment you put an AI workflow in front of AEs, they’ll tell you what actually works. Scratchpad made it easy to iterate with that feedback.”

— Alex Kean, Director of Revenue Operations, Merge

What Scratchpad powers at Merge

AI CRM updates

Scratchpad drafts MEDDIC fields, next steps, and summaries after every call. Sellers review and approve in seconds, keeping Salesforce current without forcing reps to live in CRM.

Qualification alignment (MEDDIC)

Scratchpad AI evaluates first calls against Merge’s qualification criteria and generates a simple yes/no assessment. Rep qualification is captured separately. Where they disagree is where coaching happens and where MEDDIC interpretation becomes consistent across the team.

Deal inspection and forecasting

Sales leaders use AI-generated summaries during manager and CRO forecast calls to quickly understand deal health, risks, and gaps without manual prep. Reviews shift from “what happened?” to “what’s the plan?”

Product feedback capture

For Merge Agent Handler, AI form fills capture structured summaries from sales calls so feedback lands in one place and patterns surface earlier in the adoption cycle.

Seller workflows that actually get adopted

Instead of forcing one standard prompt, Merge lets sellers tailor prompts for pre-call briefs, post-call recaps, deal updates, and follow-ups — preserving autonomy while keeping the process consistent.

What changed

Scratchpad didn’t just clean up CRM. It changed how Merge makes decisions:

• Qualification variance decreased. Reps moved toward a shared standard instead of seven different interpretations.
• Better experience for sellers and PMs. By automatically making updates and providing context in the systems these teams already use, they can focus more of their time on the high-impact work they enjoy.
• MEDDIC got reinforced without enforcement. Alignment improved without audits or constant chasing.
• Seller admin shrank. End-of-day update blocks shortened as CRM updates and follow-ups got faster.
• Forecast calls got sharper. Leaders came in with context and spent time on strategy, not archaeology.
• Marketing got clearer signal. A consistent qualification voice reduced noise in lead-quality discussions.
• Product velocity accelerated. By automatically capturing product feedback, Merge is able to ship improvements and new features (e.g., connectors) for AH extremely quickly.

“We get the most value when we start with a real problem — qualification alignment, product feedback, seller efficiency — and then see if Scratchpad can solve it. It’s become one of the most flexible and impactful parts of our RevOps system.”

— Alex Kean, Director of Revenue Operations, Merge

Advice for other RevOps teams

“Start with the problem, not the feature. Scratchpad is flexible enough that we can match it to what we’re trying to solve. Scratchpad helps us reinforce MEDDIC without audits, policing, or busywork.”

— Alex Kean, Director of Revenue Operations, Merge