Kourse helps entrepreneurs build and monetize online communities using school, YouTube ads, and AI. Their outbound sales team was relying on Go High Level for calling — but prospects weren’t picking up, and there was no visibility into local time zones or call performance. After switching to CloudTalk, pickup rates roughly doubled (from ~10–15% to ~30%), and the team went from needing 20–30 calls per booking to 1 meeting every ~9–10 calls.
About Kourse
Kourse is an online education and community growth company. They help creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs make money with online courses — using school communities, YouTube ads, and AI to build audiences and scale revenue.
The sales team works inbound-first: leads opt in through a landing page, and an SDR follows up immediately by phone. The team also reaches into free school communities to identify and contact promising prospects directly.
Challenge
Calling Into the Unknown: No Local Numbers, No Timezone Visibility
Before CloudTalk, Kourse ran outbound calls through Go High Level. The calling module was functional, but it was missing two things that matter most for connection rates: local numbers and prospect timezone visibility.
People weren’t answering as much.
The team was calling a global audience — prospects in the US, UK, Australia, and across Asia — with no easy way to know what time it was for the person on the other end. Calls showed up as non-local or unfamiliar numbers, which drove answer rates down.
It’s just having the local numbers. On CloudTalk you can actually see the exact time for them, so sometimes I don’t call people when they’re sleeping.
The process was also slower and less intuitive. GHL’s calling interface was buried inside a larger CRM stack, which added friction to every dial.
Evaluation
The Sales Manager Saw It First
The switch to CloudTalk wasn’t the result of a long procurement process. Kourse’s sales manager evaluated the options and landed on CloudTalk — drawn in by the pickup rate improvements it delivered.
Our sales manager was very excited about implementing it because of the pickup rates.
From the SDR’s perspective, the choice felt obvious once they started using it. CloudTalk’s browser-based dialer launched in its own tab, kept calling clean and focused, and showed the information needed to call at the right time.
It’s not complicated like GHL where you have everything else and then the calling thing in the top right. This one is just calling. It keeps things simple and clear.
Solution
A Clean Dialer Built for Outbound
Kourse’s CloudTalk setup is lean by design. The SDR team — one to two reps — uses the browser-based app to work through call lists, respond to inbound leads from Slack notifications, and follow up with prospects who haven’t completed their sign-up form.
The automatic country code matcher was the immediate unlock. By ensuring calls appeared as relevant local numbers, it raised answer rates from the start. CloudTalk also showed each prospect’s local time directly in the interface — a small feature with a real impact on when calls went out.
Call recordings became part of the daily workflow too. Reps review their own calls end-of-day, and the sales manager uses recordings for targeted coaching — listening back on specific conversations when an SDR flags something worth reviewing.
At the end of the day I can review the recordings. I can even download them and send to the next person who’s going to be speaking to the prospect.
The team tracks daily performance manually: calls made, pickups, and booked appointments. CloudTalk’s own call count data gives them a quick cross-reference without needing to dig through a CRM.
Results
From 1-in-25 to 1-in-10: The Numbers After the Switch
Over roughly four months (late November through early March), Kourse made 239 outbound calls through CloudTalk. The numbers tell a clear improvement story:
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~30% pickup rate — up from 10–15% on Go High Level
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25 meetings booked from 239 calls — roughly 1 booking per 9–10 dials
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~70–75% show-up rate on booked calls
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Estimated ~$22k–$27.5k in total contract value generated from that activity
Before CloudTalk, it took 20–30 calls to book a single meeting. A big part of the drop-off was calls showing up as unrecognized numbers — prospects in other countries simply didn’t pick up.
We saw roughly a 2–3x improvement in call efficiency and booking rate after switching to CloudTalk.
The simplicity of the tool matters too. Reps aren’t navigating a multi-purpose CRM to make a call. They open a tab, dial, and focus.
