The Customer Proof of Concept Playbook (+free template)

Proof of concepts are supposed to be helpful in closing sales. They’re meant to speed up deals, prove value, and make clients feel confident signing the dotted line. 

But instead, sales teams find themselves refreshing their inbox, waiting for someone—anyone—to respond. You’re chasing down approvals, updating a project plan for the third time, and wondering if this deal will ever close. 

It’s not that customer POCs don’t work, it’s that they so easily turn into a slog. But with a few key adjustments, you can keep them on track, get results, and actually make them worth doing.

The trick is setting them up the right way so they end with a yes—not a shrug. 

👉🏼 Need a customer POC template? Grab a free, customizable sales proof of concept plan here.

What is a customer proof of concept?

A customer proof of concept (POC) is a targeted, time-bound, and scoped project in the sales process that provides your customers with a small-scale, real-life application of your tailored solution in their own environment. 

A POC primes the client to sign the dotted line on a full-scale deployment when the time comes. 

People also call it a sales proof of concept, sales pilot, proof of value, or guided trial—all of which share the goal of demonstrating real-world feasibility, quantifying your product’s advantages, and showcasing tangible value:

• Can it be done? (Feasibility)
• Why is it better? (Specialty)
• What value does it deliver? (Practicality)

The hallmarks of a POC are guidance and collaboration. You’re not leaving the buyer to click around on their own—you’re designing a mini-deployment project together. 

Are customer POCs worth the effort?

A POC is a proving ground where concept meets reality: show them you can solve their pain points, and the deal follows more quickly. 

And while a standard product demo can show features in broad strokes, a POC drills down to real user workflows, real data, real functionality, and real results in a shorter window than a full deployment.

POCs also “de-risk” the project. Buyers get to try out the solution instead of committing to a full-scale rollout based on flashy presentations. 

‍Sunk-cost stickiness plays a big role, too. They’ve done the hard work of integrating and exploring the product. At that point, walking away feels more costly than moving forward. This extra bit of “stickiness” can make a POC a key step to land and expand and secure long-term adoption.

Plus, a POC helps you learn as much as the customer does. You identify potential hiccups—technical, organizational, or procedural—early on. So, when it’s time to scale, you’re not taking a leap of faith. 

You’ve got data, insights, and a proven track record of success that scales.

When should (and shouldn’t) you run a customer POC?

Consumers today expect a "try before you buy" option. 

For simple self-serve PLG tools like Slack, that’s easy. Potential customers can jump in, use the product, and see the value for themselves. But for more complex solutions—like Salesforce or a data-heavy platform that requires significant integration—showcasing the product’s impact isn’t straightforward.

On finding your place on the spectrum of Slack to Salesforce, Pocus’s Alexa Grabell said on our show Grow & Tell:

“Every single company in the future will have to have some sort of way to ‘try before you buy’ or get a taste of the product in some way—whether that's an interactive demo, a pilot, or really self-serve. Just because people don't want to just be guessing about what they're purchasing.”

You should run a POC when…

You need to build trust with risk-averse buyers 

Some industries—like finance, healthcare, or government—have a low tolerance for unverified technology. A POC demonstrates you can meet strict security and compliance standards in a controlled setting.

‍🧠Pro Tip: Only propose a POC when you’ve already qualified that it’ll be a deal breaker to the client. Something like, "I’m hearing that if our final product solves company-wide integration issues for you, you're in? Great! Let’s validate that and get the purchase order started."

On the other hand, if the customer’s just fishing for a proof of concept as a tire-kicking exercise, the opportunity cost of a POC will outweigh the return on investment.  

You’re dealing with very technical buyers

‍Technical buyers often want to see exactly how your solution integrates into their environment—they’re sticklers for the nitty-gritty of implementation. They’re not just looking for a product that works; they need one that can integrate smoothly without causing disruptions, security risks, or performance bottlenecks.

A successful proof of concept lets you demonstrate technical viability, smooth integration, and the tangible results they care about.

The solution is new, data-heavy, or visually dependent

If your product introduces a new product or approach–-like a predictive analytics platform that analyzes the buyer's supply chain data to highlight inefficiencies—its value may not be obvious until they see it in action. 

When it's a visual solution, like a dashboard that pinpoints bottlenecks and presents cost-saving opportunities—running a POC on buyer data proves not only that it's possible—but also shows that the product works in a way they can understand and trust.

‍Real-life example: Dock customer Champify is a great example of this. Their solution adds valuable data directly into the CRM without a front-end UI. By running POCs, they give customers a clear preview of the data they’ll receive, showing them exactly how the product works and what it will bring to their workflows—something they’d be unable to demo firsthand without a POC project.

To ease into a large-scale implementation

When rolling out a solution to hundreds or thousands of users, a POC with a smaller group—say 20 users from a 500-person deployment—can help show scalability, identify potential roadblocks, and set the stage for a smooth full rollout.

You shouldn’t run a POC when…

You’re stretched too thin to justify the effort

A successful POC requires sales, customer success, engineering, and sometimes product teams on standby. 

So if you’re at capacity—money, time, and personnel-wise—adding a demanding POC can cause internal strain and hurt existing customer relationships. 

For low-ACV deals or transactional sales processes, the effort required to run a POC can outweigh the benefits of closing the deal. If you’re looking at a small contract or a quick, straightforward sales cycle, a well-structured demo or limited trial achieves the same result without draining your team’s time and resources.

You already have strong buy-in

A POC can add unnecessary complexity if the customer is confident in your solution and the decision-makers are aligned. In these cases, it’s often better to focus on finalizing the agreement rather than adding extra steps that can draaaag on the sales cycle into yonder.

You don’t have enough buy-in

For a POC to succeed, both you and the customer need to be fully engaged. If the client isn’t prepared to put in the effort—allocating time, resources, or key personnel—the process can easily stall. 

A POC, therefore, is for that “Goldilocks Zone” between too much and not enough buy-in.

‍💡 Pro Tip: Be very careful not to offer a POC too early on, especially when you have no leverage on pricing with a potential client. More often than not, you’ll end up in a “bake-off” with other companies they’re surveying, and become a small cell in a large feature comparison spreadsheet against your competitors. 

Customer POC best practices

A good POC is about what you show and how you show it. These best practices will help you create a well-organized, clearly defined, and easy-to-execute POC process.

1. Reframe the customer proof of concept as a mutual success plan

Reframe the guided trial and pitch it as a mutual success plan—an agreed-upon roadmap that aligns both sides on what needs to be done, by whom, and how success is defined. 

A simple reframe shifts the conversation away from “vendor evaluation” and toward a more collaborative effort. Your prospects see you as a partner invested in their goals, not just a salesperson pushing a product.

‍🧠 Buyer psychology tip: According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, reframing a problem changes how we perceive it—making it feel more manageable and tinged with possibility. For the client, this means seeing the POC less like a high-stakes evaluation and more like a guided process where they get clear, actionable results to solve their pain points that much quicker.

Keep the focus on what matters to them. Don’t push unnecessary features that only make sense later. Instead, anchor the discussion around their current use cases and priorities. Ask direct questions, like:

• “What needs to happen during the POC for it to feel successful on your end?”
• “Which use cases should we prioritize right now to help you decide?”
• “We’ll bring in our sales and engineering teams—who on your side needs to be involved?”

A POC framed as a mutual success plan makes it less about selling and more about working together toward a shared goal. The result is stronger buy-in, better collaboration, and a clearer path to partnership.

2. Employ the “Five Ws” framework to set clear expectations

Before you dive into the POC, make sure everyone knows what success looks like—define the success criteria, agree on the timeline, and make sure both sides are bought in and ready to deliver. If these things aren't in place, the project can easily lose focus.

Once you’ve set the stage, the “Five Ws” framework can help you stay on track:

• Why: Nail down the main objective. Prove ROI, test feasibility, or show off a key integration.
• What: Keep the scope realistic. Too big, and you’ll get lost. Too small, and you won’t learn enough.
• Who: Get the right people involved—both technical and executive stakeholders. Everyone should know their role.
• With: Confirm the resources. If you need certain data or access, agree on it before you start.
• When: Set hard and fast deadlines. Break it into steps and milestones, so progress is clear.

3. Run your customer POC from a unified workspace

Most POC failures come down to poor communication and disorganized workflows—especially because there are almost 6-10 stakeholders in a typical B2B buying journey.

The back-and-forth emails spiral out of control, tasks get lost in a dozen versions of the same spreadsheet, and teams end up using precious time chasing updates instead of making progress. 

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in a “final_final_FINAL” document hell, you know exactly how easy it is for things to derail. Without clear project management and a centralized source of truth, even the most promising POCs can grind to a halt.

To avoid the back-and-forth purgatory, organize your proof of concept in a shared client workspace—also known as a digital sales room. 

When everything lives in one (Dock) workspace, your team—and your clients—can find exactly what they need, when they need it. This gives you clearer internal visibility and smoothens the handoff process to Customer Success. 

Plus, using a unified enablement platform boosts your win rate by 80%, according to G2. For your internal teams and your clients, a customizable workspace serves as a single source of truth for all stakeholders.

And when it comes to stakeholder access, Dock allows your customers to log in using just their email addresses, eliminating the friction of password resets.

Here’s a quick demo of Dock’s sales rooms:

4. Build a repeatable, standardized playbook

Once you nail a few successful POCs, don’t let that knowledge disappear into the sales team’s collective memory. Document your best practices, successful timelines, and standard checklists in a playbook so future sales reps can replicate the process. 

This is how you scale. 

While every proof of concept is unique, Dock helps you maintain consistency by allowing a customizable POC framework.

Here’s how you can use Dock to standardize your POC process:

1. Build a reusable POC template that outlines success criteria, key milestones, and roles.
2. Add relevant project documentation, success criteria, and tasks into the template.
3. Create a dedicated Dock workspace for each new pilot and share it with your client’s team.
4. As the pilot progresses, use the workspace to track deliverables, gather customer feedback, and share updates in real time.

👉 If you’re looking for a ready-to-use structure, check out Dock’s Sales POC Template.

Customize it as you see fit, then let your team and the client collaborate in real time, right in the same space. This is a POC template that can actually close deals.

5 pillars of a great customer POC template

What steps should actually go into your customer POC? 

Let’s walk through an example customer proof of concept setup between Wayne Enterprises and Hooli—built using Dock.

1. Executive summary

Kick things off by stating the problem your solution is meant to tackle. Are you improving workflow efficiency? Automating a tedious process? Replacing legacy software? Spell it out here. 

Then, outline how you plan to solve that problem within the context of a short pilot. 

For example, our fictitious Wayne Enterprises will work with Hooli to reduce manual data entry and cut weekly reporting times by 50%, with the target completion date set on 1st March 2025 over the course of four weeks. 

2. Stakeholders

Lay out the key individuals from both teams who will drive the POC forward. This usually includes:

• Your team (partner): A primary sales contact, solutions architect, and possibly product/engineering leads for technical tasks.
• Their team (evaluation): An internal sponsor or champion, plus the people in finance, IT, procurement, or legal who might need to sign off.

Here, use Dock’s Contact Cards to showcase every point of contact’s picture—or the key decision-makers’—title, email, phone number, booking link, and more. Lucius Fox will be‌ the primary point of contact for this pilot with Hooli.

List the key people from the start to dodge late problems (like a new boss popping up two days before the pilot finishes) and make sure everyone knows who to tap for questions and approvals.

3. Project milestones

Break your pilot into clear milestones, each with required inputs, expected outputs, and target completion dates. 

Think of them as stage-gate agreements—small commitments that build trust and momentum throughout the POC process.

• Kickoff: Confirm roles, finalize success metrics, and align on timelines.
• Implementation: Map out any technical setups, migrations, or user training sessions.
• Mid-review: Check progress, evaluate any hurdles, and decide if course corrections are needed.
• Evaluation: Present findings, confirm whether criteria were met, and (ideally) move into contract discussions.

Here’s how Wayne Enterprises has whipped up a table in the shared workspace so both teams have an eagle's eye view of the timelines.

And right below, to track progress for each milestone, mirror them by embedding a mutual action plan:

When both sides can see what’s next at a glance, it’s easier to stay aligned and on schedule.

4. Success criteria

These are the metrics or objectives that define when the POC has met its goals. Aim for three or four specific targets—like integration speed, data accuracy, user adoption, or cost savings. 

Co-create them with your client, so both sides share ownership of the results. Because if you dictate them unilaterally, you risk missing the buyer’s real concerns or priorities.

5. Solution overview

Even if the POC zeroes in on one slice of your product, your buyer likely wants a bigger-picture view.

Because a POC can’t live in isolation. A multi-page workspace in Dock brings much-needed clarity and coherence to a proof of concept—especially one involving multiple stakeholders, deliverables, and data sources.

Provide brief demos, product documents, and any relevant customer stories so they can see how the solution could scale or adapt over time. 

Your buyer sees the full picture of how your solution fits into their world. Include any product demos, step-by-step walkthroughs, case studies, and a summary of insights gleaned in discovery, so they understand not just what you’re selling, but why it matters and how it aligns with their goals.

Here, Wayne Enterprises could provide: 

• Product documentation: Wayne Enterprises’ user guides, API specifications, and release notes.
• Training resources: Short video tutorials covering analytics setup, data pipelines, and user dashboard configurations.
• ROI calculator: A spreadsheet to estimate cost and resource savings if scaled beyond the pilot.

Embed any type of content format—videos, slides, PDFs, spreadsheets, you name it—right into your shared workspace. That’s the power of Dock.

‍⭐️ Bonus: Dock’s analytics show you who’s actively engaging and who’s radio silent. Got someone logging in often but not making progress? They might be stuck on something technical. See no engagement at all? Time for a follow-up. Either way, you’ll know exactly how to keep the pilot on track!

Generate your customer POC plan with Dock AI

But here’s the thing—it’s a lot of work for your reps to create all of the above for every sales pilot. 

That’s where Dock’s AI widget comes in. In just a few clicks, you can take a client call transcript and turn that into a tailored POC plan—no more email chains or last-minute scrambling.

Here’s how: 

‍1. Select the Dock AI Widget

‍In the workspace editor, click on Add Section and select Dock AI from the options.

2. Choose “Proof of Concept” as your content type

‍Select Proof of Concept from the list of content types, so Dock AI knows exactly what to generate.

‍3. Pick a source

‍Decide where the POC content should come from.

You can:

• Copy and paste text from a meeting summary or notes.
• Upload a prepared document that outlines initial POC goals.
• Select a recent Gong call recording, where Dock AI can extract insights and details to craft the POC plan.

If needed, add specific instructions for the AI, such as highlighting certain use cases or focusing on particular success criteria. ‍

4. Generate the POC plan

‍Dock AI will produce suggested sections for your POC plan. You can then:

• Refine individual sections with additional AI prompts.
• Add sections one at a time to customize your workspace layout.
• Use the Add All option to quickly drop everything into the workspace at once.

‍5. Edit and enhance within the workspace

‍Once added, the POC sections can be edited just like any other content. You can fine-tune the plan, add additional notes, or generate new sections as needed—making sure that the final POC plan is clear, compelling, and ready to share.

And if you need more content later, simply return to the Dock AI widget and generate additional sections!

Run your next customer proof of concept with Dock

Most sales teams bounce between Google Docs, Excel sheets, and scattered CRM notes, while customers sit in Slack channels and “Re: Re: Re: POC” email threads waiting for updates. It’s a logistical nightmare—and the very problem Dock solves. 

With Dock, you can:

• Generate custom POC plans in seconds: Upload a meeting transcript, and Dock AI will turn it into a tailored proof of concept plan.
• Visualize progress at every stage: Track how the pilot is going with clear timelines, milestones, and easy-to-read dashboards. Everybody sees real-time updates, shared checklists, and gamified progress trackers.
• Centralize goals and content: Document the pilot’s objectives in one place—plus any case studies, ROI breakdowns, or testimonial videos. Your social proof travels with your pilot materials, so it’s all at your customer’s fingertips.
• Collaborate with all stakeholders involved: Invite everyone—Sales, Product, Engineering, and the customer’s team—into one workspace. Assign tasks and subtasks, embed call recordings, and record decisions or next steps without juggling multiple tools.
• Share performance and insights: Show real-time metrics or usage stats as the pilot progresses. Clients can spot improvements or potential roadblocks early, leading to smarter, faster decisions.

Try Dock’s sales proof of concept template now, or sign up for Dock to get your first 5 workspaces for free!