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Gareth Ryan
Chief Marketing Officer at 24 - 7 Home Rescue
Professional Background
Gareth Ryan is a seasoned board-level marketing and digital expert specializing in the financial services and home assistance sectors. With a proven track record of driving growth and transformation, Gareth excels in creating KPI-focused strategies that engender high engagement among teams. His career is marked by notable successes and strategic initiatives that underscore his capacity to lead organizations towards substantial growth and operational efficiency.
One of Gareth's significant achievements includes the successful acquisition of Checkatrade.com for HomeServe, which not only placed him on the board but also marked a pivotal moment in the company’s growth trajectory. Under his leadership, trade member acquisition saw an impressive growth rate of 67%, while consumer usage also grew by 13% year-on-year. This demonstrated Gareth’s ability to implement effective marketing strategies that resonate with both consumers and industry partners alike.
At HomeServe, Gareth was instrumental in revamping the new boiler and repairs acquisition approach. His strategic initiatives resulted in considerable operational savings exceeding £1 million, alongside generating £20 million in new boiler sales and facilitating over 20,000 paid repairs. This accomplishment speaks volumes about his expertise in navigating market challenges and leveraging them for financial gain.
In addition to these feats, Gareth introduced a digital-first approach at HomeServe, which transformed the company's marketing strategies and customer engagement. Under his guidance, consumer acquisition from digital channels surged from less than 10% to over 50%, while existing customer interactions escalated from zero to over 5 million, marking a significant step change in digital adoption for the organization.
Education and Achievements
Gareth Ryan pursued his higher education at the University of Bradford, where he earned a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Business & Management, graduating with a commendable 2:1. His educational background laid a strong foundation for his comprehensive understanding of marketing principles, business dynamics, and management practices, which he applies with excellence in his professional roles.
Gareth’s career spans multiple high-profile organizations, where he has held a variety of impactful roles. Currently, he is the Chief Marketing Officer at 24 - 7 Home Rescue, where he continues to implement innovative marketing strategies to enhance service delivery and customer satisfaction. Prior to this, he was the Owner of Lock Inn Consulting, helping various businesses improve their marketing ecosystems.
His tenure at HomeServe included several key roles such as Director of Repairs & Installations Marketing, where he orchestrated marketing strategies that significantly improved operational efficiency and sales metrics. Gareth also contributed to the creation of the Home Experts Division, demonstrating his skills in product development and market positioning.
Earlier in his career, Gareth held a senior eCommerce role at Tesco Bank and also served as Director at Handbridge Consulting Limited. His extensive experience at Bank of America across various roles, including Head of eCommerce Marketing for Europe and Head of Acquisition Marketing Channels for Europe, has further cemented his reputation as a leader in marketing and customer acquisition.
Achievements
Gareth’s remarkable achievements make him a distinguished figure in the marketing landscape. Key highlights include:
- Transformative Leadership at HomeServe: Drove the successful acquisition of Checkatrade.com, with a notable +67% increase in trade member acquisition and +13% growth in consumer usage.
- Operational Efficiency Initiatives: Redesigned HomeServe’s new boiler and repairs acquisition strategy that resulted in cost savings of over £1 million and generated £20 million in new boiler sales.
- Digital Transformation: Spearheaded the introduction of digital marketing strategies that elevated digital consumer acquisition to over 50% and scaled customer interactions to over 5 million.
- Deep Industry Expertise: Extensive experience across multiple sectors, including financial services and home assistance, with a strong focus on B2B and B2C marketing strategies.
- Award-Winning CRM Development: Recognized for developing and implementing award-winning Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions that enhance customer engagement and retention.
- Team Development and Leadership: Consistent track record in developing and leading high-performing teams, fostering a culture of innovation and growth.
Gareth's career journey exemplifies his dedication to achieving exceptional results through strategic marketing, innovative thinking, and collaborative leadership. His diverse experience coupled with a solid educational background uniquely positions him as a prominent figure in the marketing and digital domain, driving success in every endeavor he undertakes.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.