Account Research
Produce a full intelligence brief on a target account, framed by the specific decision you're prepping for. Combines firmographics, CRM context, intent, news, scoops, and a similar-company cohort into a TL;DR-led brief.
Overview
The Account Research skill produces a decision-ready intelligence brief on a target company, framed by the specific reason you're pulling it. Tell it whether you're prepping for a QBR, scoping a competitive deal, or qualifying an inbound. The brief is shaped to match: the TL;DR answers why this brief, now, news and intent are triaged against your themes, and next steps tie to specific people and signals.
Under the hood, the skill pulls firmographics, CRM-style narrative context, intent signals, recent news and scoops, and a similar-company cohort in parallel. It then synthesizes the raw context into a single brief. The executive summary sits up top, sections are suppressed when data is thin, and a competitor table is grounded in ZoomInfo's similarity model. If your GTM context is configured, the brief also includes an ICP fit section mapping the account to your offerings, personas, and competitors.
The result is one artifact a rep can read before walking into a call, with every claim tied back to a source.
What It Does
- Purpose-aware framing: Takes a one-line research context (renewal QBR, competitive bake-off, cold outbound) and uses it as the lens for every downstream step.
- Parallel retrieval: Pulls firmographics, account narrative, news, scoops, intent signals, and similar companies concurrently once the company is resolved.
- Intent and news triage: Filters topics and headlines against the brief purpose and your GTM offerings, so you see what changes the call, not generic press releases.
- Past-date and freshness flags: Surfaces inline when CRM-style dates have already passed or when the similar-company cohort spans inconsistent industries.
- TL;DR up top, body below: Executive summary with situation, top three facts, and highest-impact actions, followed by full sections you can scan or skip.
Use Cases
Pre-Call Account Briefing
Before a discovery call, QBR, or executive briefing, give Account Research a one-line purpose ("preparing for QBR, focused on renewal risk and expansion") and get back a brief that answers what you walk in knowing. Engagement history, recent moves, intent themes, and named contacts are all framed around the decision in front of you, not assembled into a generic profile.
Inbound Account Triage
When a new account lands through a form, free trial, or SDR-sourced lead, run Account Research with the triage decision as the purpose ("inbound triage, deciding between AE routing and nurture"). The brief returns ICP fit, fresh growth signals, intent on your category, and any prior engagement, so the routing call gets made against context.
Competitive Deal Prep
Heading into a deal where you suspect a competitor is already in the conversation, ask for a brief framed around displacement angles. Intent signals on the competitor's category, recent product moves, and named stakeholders surface together, giving the AE concrete discovery questions instead of a generic profile.
Skill Definition
The raw markdown Claude uses when this skill is invoked.
--- name: account-research description: Produce a full intelligence brief on a target company — firmographics, CRM/account context, intent signals, recent news, scoops, and competitive landscape — framed by your GTM context and led with a TL;DR summary. Identify the account by ZoomInfo account/company ID (preferred) or by company name, domain, or ticker (which triggers a lookup step). Include detailed context on why the brief is being pulled. --- # Account Research Produce a high-signal intelligence brief on a target company. Lead with a synthesized executive summary, suppress sections where data is thin, and tie next steps to specific people and concrete topics surfaced during research. ## Input The user will provide via `$ARGUMENTS` an account identifier (required) plus optional context: - **Account identifier (required)** — one of: - **Preferred**: a ZoomInfo account/company ID (numeric, e.g. `136118787`). Use directly as `companyId`; skip the search step. - **Fallback**: a company name, domain, or ticker. Resolve to a `companyId` via `search_companies` as a first step (see Workflow step 2). - **Research context (strongly recommended)** — a sentence or two on *why* this brief is being pulled and what decision it supports. Examples: "preparing for a QBR — focus on renewal risk and expansion levers", "competitive analysis vs. Acme — looking for displacement angles", "cold outbound — find the warmest entry point and a credible reason to reach out". This shapes the `account_research` query, intent seeding, news/scoops triage, and the TL;DR framing. ## Workflow 1. **Anchor on purpose.** Read the research context from `$ARGUMENTS`. - If supplied, restate it in one sentence as the *brief purpose* and keep it in mind as the framing lens for every downstream step. - If missing, ask the user once for the purpose. If they decline or say "just general intel", default to **general account intelligence** and state that assumption at the top of the brief so the reader knows the framing wasn't tailored. - Use the purpose to derive 2-4 *priority GTM themes* (e.g., QBR-renewal-risk → engagement health, exec stability, competing vendors, expansion signals). These themes drive seeding and triage in later steps. 2. **Get GTM context.** Call `get_gtm_context` to retrieve your organization's offerings, ICP, personas, competitors, and strategic priorities. Use this to frame findings throughout. If empty, proceed without — and omit the GTM Fit section. 3. **Resolve the company.** - If the user supplied a ZoomInfo account/company ID, use it directly as `companyId` — do not call `search_companies`. - Otherwise, call `search_companies` with the appropriate field (`companyWebsite` for a domain, `companyTicker` for a ticker, `companyName` for a name) and extract `companyId` from the top match. If no confident match, surface the ambiguity to the user before continuing rather than guessing. 4. **Fetch in parallel (retrieval, not filtering).** Treat each tool call as a context-retrieval step. Pull broadly now; decide what's relevant during synthesis. Steps that only need the `companyId` can run in parallel — `enrich_companies`, `account_research`, `enrich_news` (last 90 days, `pageSize: 20`), `enrich_scoops` (last 90 days, `pageSize: 15`), `enrich_intent` (see below), and `find_similar_companies`. - **Tailor the `account_research` query to the brief purpose.** Don't pass a generic "tell me about this account" string. Instead, name the purpose and the priority themes — e.g., *"Preparing for a QBR. Surface renewal status, contract dates, recent engagement, open expansion conversations, named champions and detractors, and any signs of competitive evaluation."* The more context the better. - **Intent retrieval.** Call `enrich_intent` with the `companyId` only — do **not** pre-filter by topic. The goal is to see *what topics this company is actually expressing intent on*, not to confirm hypotheses. Use `signalScoreMin: 60` and `sort: "-signalScore"` so the response is ranked but unconstrained on subject matter. Filtering happens in step 5. 5. **Synthesize.** Each retrieval is raw context — now decide what makes the brief, framed by the user's stated purpose. Apply these principles: - **Intent triage**: review every topic returned by `enrich_intent`. Keep topics that map to the brief purpose, the priority themes, your GTM offerings, or that suggest a non-obvious signal worth flagging (e.g., a competitor's category, an adjacent buying motion). Drop topics that are noise or irrelevant to the purpose. If nothing meaningful remains, replace the table with a one-line note. - **Purpose-weighted news/scoops relevance**: the brief purpose is the primary tiebreaker. Start from the base news priority (PERSON / FUNDING / M&A / PRODUCT > GENERAL_PRESS_RELEASE > GENERAL_NEWS), then promote items that map to the priority themes (e.g., for a competitive brief, a product launch can outrank a routine leadership move; for a renewal QBR, a layoff or budget-cut signal outranks a generic product release). Dedupe items covering the same theme; trim to 5-7. - **Cross-reference**: a new CTO scoop + cloud migration intent → connect the dots, and connect them *to the user's stated goal*. - **Past-date flag**: if `account_research` surfaces dates in the past (renewal, contract end, last activity, scheduled meeting), flag them as needing verification — could be active negotiation, stale CRM sync, or a missed milestone. - **Cohort consistency**: if the `find_similar_companies` cohort spans inconsistent industries vs. the target, flag that the peer set is directional rather than exact. - **Section suppression**: skip the funding table for public mega-caps (just reference the ticker); skip GTM Fit if no GTM context; flatten scoops if only 1-3 returned. 6. **Write the exec summary last.** Re-read the body, then write the TL;DR at the top. The Situation line must explicitly answer *"why this brief, now"* against the user's stated purpose — not just "who they are." ## Output Format ### TL;DR — [Company Name] *Brief purpose: [restate the user's research context in one line, or "general account intelligence (no purpose supplied)" if defaulted].* **Situation.** [2-4 sentences answering *why this brief, now* against the stated purpose: who they are, the dominant story now, where the relationship stands, and the specific signal(s) that make this purpose timely.] **Top 3 facts.** Three most consequential data points across all sources. **Highest-leverage actions.** 1-3 concrete actions, each pointing at a specific person, pilot, topic, or moment. --- ### Company Snapshot | Field | Value | |-------|-------| | Website | | | Industry | | | Employees | | | Revenue | | | HQ | | | Type | (Public/Private) | | Ticker | | | Founded | | | ZoomInfo ID | | ### GTM Fit *Omit if no GTM context was returned.* - **ICP Match**: industry, size, geography fit - **Offering Relevance**: which products map to this account's signals - **Competitive Presence**: any defined competitors in their news/scoops/stack - **Persona Alignment**: do their org charts include your target personas ### Account Context Summarize `account_research`: relationship status, engagement, deal context, named contacts. If any surfaced dates are in the past, note them with a verification prompt (could be active negotiation, stale CRM sync, missed milestone, or closed-deal lag — recommend confirming with the account team). If dates fall within the next 30 days, surface them in the TL;DR instead. ### Intent Signals Show only the topics retained after triage in step 5 — topics the company is actively expressing intent on that map to the brief purpose, priority themes, your offerings, or a non-obvious signal worth flagging. | Topic | Signal Score | Audience Strength | Category | Signal Date | |-------|-------------|-------------------|----------|-------------| Highlight the top 3 and tie them to your offerings or the user's stated context. Replace the table with a one-line note if nothing meaningful survived triage. ### Recent News & Scoops Group news by Financial / People / Product / General if 5+ items span categories; otherwise list flat. For each: headline, date, one-line summary, source URL. Then list scoops — group by Leadership Moves / Growth Signals / Strategic Moves / Risk Signals only if 4+ returned, otherwise flat. Call out timing opportunities (e.g., new CTO → vendor evaluation likely). ### Competitive Landscape If the cohort's industries are inconsistent with the target, lead with a one-line caveat that peers are directional. Then show the top 10: | # | Company | Industry | Employees | Revenue | Country | Similarity | |---|---------|----------|-----------|---------|---------|------------| Note patterns: direct competitors vs. adjacent players vs. peers; how the target compares on size and market position. ### Corporate Structure - **Ultimate Parent / Parent**: if applicable - **Funding**: total raised, most recent round + date + amount. For public mega-caps (revenue > $5B), replace with "Public — see ticker for capital structure." ### Key Takeaways & Next Steps 3-5 bullets connecting the dots across sources, framed by the user's stated purpose. Then suggest concrete next actions — each must reference a specific person, pilot, deal, topic, or moment surfaced above, with a clear rationale tied to the brief purpose. No generic skill mentions or boilerplate. Omit any line that doesn't have a concrete target.
Created by
Rowan Bailey
Senior Director, Product
Provided by
ZoomInfo ↗Capabilities
- Purpose-aware framing tied to your stated research goal
- Parallel retrieval across firmographics, intent, news, scoops, and similar companies
- Intent and news triage filtered to the decision in front of you
- Past-date and weak-cohort flags surfaced inline
- GTM Fit section when your GTM context is configured