How Commvault is Building a Modern Approach to Customer Centricity Using GetWhys

"It’s already cut down the time I spend on the qualitative phase by at least half and I can focus my in-depth interviews on more strategic topics rather than just covering the basics.”

Tyler Vock

Product Market Strategy Director

INTRODUCTION

Meet Commvault

Commvault is a global leader in cyber resilience, backup, and recovery solutions. With over two decades of market leadership, Commvault has evolved from its roots in disaster recovery to a comprehensive platform that now encompasses cyber resilience, GRC and vertical-specific cybersecurity.

In the fast-paced world of cybersecurity, staying close to the customer is more than a best practice—it's a competitive necessity. At Commvault, Tyler Vock, Product Market Strategy Director, has become a driving force behind a new era of customer-centricity. With GetWhys, Tyler has transformed how Commvault listens to, learns from, and acts on the voice of the customer—making research faster, more actionable, and accessible to teams across the business.

CHALLENGE

Establishing a Modern Research Foundation

Building a Research Muscle from Scratch: Due to being in a well defined space with excellent industry analysis and established insights, the need for a robust, ongoing market research function hasn’t always been front and center for companies like Commvault Tyler needed to introduce not just new tools, but a new mindset—one where deeply understanding buyer personas and evolving customer needs was part of every strategic decision.
Cutting Through the Noise: With a diverse customer base—ranging from longstanding users to new adopters of cloud and AI solutions—Tyler was inundated with data, feedback, and opinions. He needed to separate signal from noise, and ensure that the insights driving decisions were both relevant and actionable.
Traditional research methods were too slow and costly for the pace of change in cyber. Tyler needed a solution that could deliver high-quality insights, fast.

Pillars of success

Speed and Agility:

Delivering insights in days, not weeks, to keep up with the market.

Scalability:

Enabling not just researchers, product marketers and other team members across Commvault to self-serve and access insights.

Collaboration:

Making research a team player, integrated into every stage of product and go-to-market development.

SOLUTION

What Commvault needed to succeed

Tyler saw that GetWhys was uniquely positioned to enable his vision. Unlike traditional vendors or generic expert networks, GetWhys offered on-demand, targeted research at no extra cost—he could submit specific research requests and receive tailored interviews and insights within days, without needing to budget separately for them. The platform’s intuitive interface made it easy for both researchers and non-researchers to access, interpret, and apply findings. It also provided rich context and verbatim quotes, allowing Tyler to bring the customer voice directly into executive presentations and make insights more persuasive and actionable.

“I appreciate the ability to see firmographic details, speaker references, and context for the quotes I’m using, which is critical when presenting to senior leadership. It’s gone from being a helpful tool to an essential part of my stack.

Beyond its core functionality, GetWhys stood out for its continuous innovation. The team rapidly iterated and added new features, consistently improving the user experience and research outcomes. For Tyler, GetWhys became a research “co-pilot,” accelerating every stage of the research process and enabling a more customer-centric approach to strategy and execution.

Compass provided instant access to fresh persona insights: frustrations, workflows, motivations, and what buyers actually cared about.

Echo let Tyler test messaging variations and get feedback on what resonated—and more importantly, why.

Implementation

Tyler led the charge in integrating GetWhys into Commvault’s workflows. He quickly onboarded the market research and strategy team, and then expanded access to product marketing and other cross-functional groups. Key aspects of Tyler’s implementation included:

Seamless Onboarding: The intuitive nature of GetWhys allowed for quick adoption, even among team members without a research background.
Workflow Integration: Tyler used GetWhys at the very beginning of research projects to frame problems, throughout the process as a co-pilot, and at the end to validate findings and add persuasive customer quotes to presentations.
Scalable Access: Product marketers and strategists were empowered to self-serve, reducing bottlenecks and democratizing access to customer insights.

RESULTS & IMPACT

Accelerating Insights, Elevating Impact

With GetWhys, Tyler dramatically reduced research time—cycles that once took weeks or months were shortened to just days. This shift enabled faster decision-making and greater agility across the business. The need for expensive, time-consuming focus groups and interviews was significantly reduced, freeing up resources for higher-value activities.

“It’s already cut down the time I spend on the qualitative phase by at least half and I can focus my in-depth interviews on more strategic topics rather than just covering the basics.”

The quality of insights also improved. Tyler could tap into multiple customer perspectives, validate hypotheses, and bring the customer voice directly into executive presentations, leading to more informed and confident decisions. These verbatim quotes and persona-level insights helped break through internal echo chambers, align stakeholders, and drive action across teams.

Importantly, Tyler’s approach made research scalable. By democratizing access to insights, he enabled a broader set of teams—especially product marketers and strategists—to self-serve and build customer understanding without formal research training.

“It’s been helpful for non-researchers on my team, like product marketers, who can now run their own qualitative research without needing to become full-time market researchers.”

Through this combination of speed, quality, and accessibility, Tyler helped embed customer-centricity into Commvault’s culture and operations.

Looking Ahead

Tyler plans to further expand the use of GetWhys across Commvault. His vision is to establish a center of excellence for market research, featuring GetWhys as a core capability. By empowering more teams—especially those without a traditional research background—to access and apply customer insights, Tyler aims to multiply the impact of his work and continue leading Commvault’s journey toward modern, scalable customer-centricity.

Thanks to Tyler’s leadership and GetWhys’ unique platform, Commvault’s continuing to define a dynamic market and deliver on its promise of cyber resilience for customers worldwide.

INTERVIEW

Interview with Tyler Vock about the impact of Commvault

Interviewed by Lotti Brinks from GetWhys

Lotti: Let's start with a quick introduction to you and Commvault.

Tyler: Absolutely. My name is Tyler Vock, and I work at Commvault. I've been there a little over a year now, primarily doing market research and strategy within the marketing department. I partner closely with the product organization and the field organization as well.

A bit more about me — I've been in market research, corporate strategy, market strategy, and growth strategy roles for about 12 years. In terms of Commvault, it's a pretty established business, been around for 20 to 25 years. It first came onto the scene in the early days of the backup and recovery space, which really took off after 9/11 when disaster recovery became a critical need.

Over the years, as cloud technology has grown, we've pivoted to what we call cyber resilience. This now includes not just disaster recovery but also cyber recovery and cybersecurity, helping businesses stay resilient through various incidents — whether accidental, like natural disasters, or malicious, like cyberattacks.

It's a really interesting market, which is why I think GetWhys is so great for us. This market has evolved a lot over the past few years, with many new entrants, making it a dynamic and exciting space to be part of.

Lotti: That’s a great overview. Given how much the market has changed, I’m curious about how this impacts customer research. What are the biggest hurdles you’ve faced in this area?

Tyler: Absolutely. I'd say there are a couple of major challenges, some unique to Commvault and others more broadly applicable.

First, because Commvault has been around for so long, it’s a well-documented space. There are excellent industry reports and established insights, which means the need for a robust, ongoing market research function hasn’t always been front and center. We have user research to improve the product and customer experience, but foundational market research — like deeply understanding buyer personas and evolving customer needs — hasn't been a strong muscle for us historically.

The second challenge is a bit of a double-edged sword. In some companies, it can be tough to find actionable insights because the data is too generic. We have the opposite problem. We have customers who have been with us for 20 years, alongside others who are using our newer cloud products like Metallic, which have only been around for a couple of years. This creates a mix of perspectives and needs, making it hard to cut through the noise and identify what’s truly important.

GetWhys has been helpful in cutting through that noise, helping me focus on what actually matters and avoid going down rabbit holes based on outlier feedback.

In some companies, it can be tough to find actionable insights because the data is too generic. We have the opposite problem.

Lotti: That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like a significant part of the challenge is managing the sheer volume and variety of insights.

Tyler: Exactly. That's one of the reasons why GetWhys has been so valuable. It allows me to quickly identify the real, high-impact insights from the broader noise.

Lotti: So, before GetWhys, how did you typically conduct market research? What were the main limitations?

Tyler: Great question. In the past, I would usually start with qualitative research to understand a problem or opportunity better, then move to quantitative methods to validate those insights. For more structured, well-understood topics, I might flip that process.

For example, I often start with open-source research to get a broad sense of a topic. If it feels like the insights will be highly variable or segmented, I might follow up with focus groups or in-depth interviews (IDIs).

However, this traditional approach can be incredibly time-intensive. Coordinating interviews, finding the right candidates, managing logistics, and synthesizing insights can drag out for weeks. I've had qualitative phases alone that took three weeks, which is a long time when timelines are tight.

Lotti: That sounds incredibly resource-intensive, both in terms of time and cost.

Tyler: It really is. Focus groups, for instance, can run up to $40,000, depending on the participants and incentives. And even with that investment, you still have to synthesize all that information afterward. It’s a huge lift.

Lotti: So, how has GetWhys changed this process for you?

Tyler: It’s been transformative. I started as a user in the early days, and now as a customer, I've seen the product evolve rapidly. What started as a promising but still developing tool has become incredibly user-friendly and efficient.

Today, I can submit a research request, go back and forth a bit to refine the brief, and then have targeted, high-quality insights delivered in days, not weeks. That’s a massive time saver.

I also appreciate the ability to see firmographic details, speaker references, and context for the quotes I’m using, which is critical when presenting to senior leadership. It’s gone from being a helpful tool to an essential part of my stack.

It’s gone from being a helpful tool to an essential part of my stack.

Lotti: That’s awesome to hear. So, how do you use GetWhys to collaborate with your broader team?

Tyler: It’s been a great fit for cross-functional collaboration. I use it at the very beginning of projects to form a baseline understanding, but I also come back to it throughout the process for deeper dives.

It’s also been helpful for non-researchers on my team, like product marketers, who can now run their own qualitative research without needing to become full-time market researchers. It’s a steep learning curve for some, but the payoff is huge — they can get high-quality insights without a lot of hand-holding.

Lotti: That makes a lot of sense. It’s great that it’s becoming such a core part of your workflow. So, looking ahead, how do you see yourself using GetWhys in the future?

Tyler: I see it continuing to be a core part of my stack. It’s already cut down the time I spend on the qualitative phase by at least half, and I can focus my in-depth interviews on more strategic topics rather than just covering the basics. I expect it’ll become even more integrated as it continues to evolve.