AI is everywhere and sales teams are no exception. As it continues to evolve, the question arises: what role will AI play in the future of sales? We know that sales is one thing and one thing only, human connection. The more we understand the customer, the better we learn their pain point and pitch our offering leading to successful sales. Here, AI can excel as it can analyze customer data to a degree humans simply can’t. With machine learning and natural language processing, it can improve sales pipeline, and customer engagement, qualify leads, and identify potential customers - all while empowering sales teams to boost vital relationships.
How does AI do it? AI stands for artificial intelligence, meaning these AI bots are programmed to copy our cognitive abilities. They are built based on intelligence components like problem-solving, memory, decision-making, and reasoning. You can also include predictive abilities based on past experiences, that is where predictive AI comes into existence. Taking all this into account, this is what AI can do for sales. It provides features that solve problems, help make decisions, prioritize, and even plan things, like followup emails, based on reasoning.
Artificial Intelligence In Sales
AI sales technology is not invented like any other technology, rather it is embedded in sales tools. It is steering performance management to optimize sales operations. These CRM tools like Salesforce and Suite CRM, assist in customer relationship management. It streamlines work for customer-facing teams including marketing, sales, and support. Below are some ways AI can be part of effective sales strategies in the coming years.
AI Sales Assistant
CRM tools can act as sales assistants where they can assist sales reps in preparing to close the deal. How? They can study patterns and trends thus identifying areas for potential sales opportunities. The dashboard will show the sales rep a complete view of all the lined-up meetings, with key points extracted from the relevant email threads, and then generate replies and make sales possible. Exciting, isn’t it? You’ll be able to follow up with all the potential leads by having their summaries right in front of you! You’re never missing any sales opportunity, which means maximizing your business revenue.
AI Sales Automation
Automating your tasks is not just like setting up a trigger for a domino effect to happen, rather it can be a whole systematic automation with proper workflows. You can automate your entire sales funnel where you mature a lead and convert it into your customer. Just as with generative AI capabilities, you curate a highly personalized email with a higher conversion chance.
AI Sales Forecasting
AI is a much more powerful tool than it seems. It’s not just limited to text generation, it also has predictive analytics. It can analyze trends and patterns and forecast sales helping you supercharge your efforts to leads having the highest chance of a conversion. This ensures the sales quota is met at the end of each quarter, so your sales team feels productive and active seeing their fruitful efforts.
Product recommendations
This might seem like a drop in the ocean but it is a big thing when it comes to what AI in sales and marketing has come to achieve. Combined with gen and predictive AI, you can create various upsell and cross-sell opportunities resulting in increased sales.
For instance, incorporate this into your website or e-commerce platform and target your customer who shows interest in a product. Here you’ll be able to pitch more products with the ‘you may also like’ or ‘things that go with this’ section. There is not just a sales opportunity but marketing assistance as well. Ever gotten a “We saw you liked our knitted t-shirt”, email? Marketing teams use data of customers showing interest in products and leaving sites by putting products on the wishlist. Then with AI-generated promo emails, you can push them to buy products leading to greater sales. Similarly, with this robust AI, you can create various high-yielding opportunities.
AI-powered chatbot
You might know about chatbots assisting customers with queries and other product suggestions. Previously it was all about a completely scripted chatbot that was limited in its knowledge, but today add AI to your chatbot and empower it with generative AI. It can assist your customers with all the questions. Try it! A customer on the website enquires about their order, the chatbot will just ask for the order number and pull the status from the company database, instantly boosting customer satisfaction. This can also work for product suggestions where the customer will ask for assistance or advice from the rep just as they would in a normal brick-and-mortar store. The chatbot then guides them on the things suitable for the event etc. Again more selling opportunities.
Live Audio transcription:
As the world came together, conversations started to happen over the phone and the same goes for sales. Today we have moved from telephone to virtual calls online. Sales reps mostly use video conferencing sites like Zoom and Skype. If you have CRM software, you can easily think of it as sales AI tools. With its AI incorporation, it helps generate more revenue. What happens is that when you integrate your video conferencing app into your CRM, the AI in the CRM is so advanced that it can transcribe your live calls so you can later study your calls in detail to catch better opportunities. Additionally, the AI chatbots can actively listen to your conversations and pull out information on competitor mentions for you to gauge what your customers are looking for. It can also generate responses to live customer queries better opting for your sales rep to deal with customer deals hands-on.
Conclusion:
To sum up, AI has the potential to revolutionize sales, with the way sales teams operate and interact with customers. By leveraging AI capabilities of data analysis, automation, and lead generation, the sales team can focus, on building trust and fostering long-term relationships.
Do you think it's time to integrate AI into your sales strategy? Consult with our AI experts to discover where AI can benefit you. Schedule a meeting with us today and witness the effectiveness of AI in sales.
