AI for Sales - How AI is transforming Sales in 2022

“AI is in the ‘golden age’ and solving problems that were once in the realm of sci-fi.” -  Jeff Bezos

Forbes research shows 86% of companies are already leveraging the benefits of better customer experience with the use of AI. And, as more and more businesses adopt AI, 25% of companies expect to see revenue growth during 2021. 

In coming times, Artificial Intelligence is going to transform the way business processes work, including sales.

Needless to say, AI capabilities are near limitless, and that it is, in itself, a powerful phenomenon. It controls corporate process automation and gathers data analysis findings. Several enterprises on a global level are making the most of AI to enhance employee and customer engagement. 

AI contributes to the revenue growth of companies by cutting costs, automating workflows, streamlining customer-service operations, and providing smarter data analysis and insights.

How can AI Help Sales Teams?

AI for sales helps in studying the deals better, finding the ones you lost and won and then, combining all the data points together. It suggests efficient techniques that may help you approach leads in a better way and how to close them faster. AI may also provide tactics to retain your customers once the service is provided.

After all, sales are not just about making transactions, but about building long-term relationships. Happy customers have more likelihood of bringing more prospects to your business. and this gives you enough opportunities to nurture and eventually close them. 

With AI in place, you will easily perform crucial tasks, like compiling data, choosing leads for the next steps, using different approaches to nurture leads, and improving customer profiles. 

You can imagine the  future AI holds for sales reps--  helping them fetch leads, build long-term relationships with clients, automate repetitive tasks, prioritize better and gain a 360-degree view of data analytics 

What are the DOs of technology in Sales?

• Map out every stage of your sales process and identify if there are any gaps to fill 
• Place your trust in the technology, but do validate it often, so you stay on the right track
• While making technology decisions, bring all the sales team members into it. Be sure that everyone is on the same page, only then will they be able to buy in on its huge potential
• Keep a check on your technology investment on a regular basis. In the tech world, everything changes abruptly and nothing remains stagnant for long. 
  

What Are the Possible AI Use Cases in Sales?

Popular use cases of AI in sales include: 

Automatic Sales Forecast 

Artificial Intelligence enables accurate and effective sales forecasting based upon earlier sales results and current customer contacts. It allows business leaders and sales reps to make smarter business decisions when laying out goals, prospecting, and budgeting. 

What automates the forecasts is advanced predictive analytics, which takes off the burden from sales leaders by automating forecasts and providing professionals with more transparency in enterprise management.

All the automation is carried out by digitizing human knowledge, like teaching a computer to think like a human sales planner. Of course, it is enriched with data from inside and outside of the corporation. It takes a considerable amount of time, but, at the same time, increases business agility.

With Salesken’s Pipeline Reviews, you can now gauge the true health of your pipeline - know if your team is on track to meet their revenue targets, identify the leads that have high Purchase Intent, and target them with the right messages to increase conversions.

Sales Enablement

Usually, sales reps utilize their 10-15 years of industry experience to decide which lead is worth taking up. But, with AI, the hassle is almost gone. Artificial Intelligence systems make the most of data coming from sales reps teams to determine the prospect’s likelihood of making the buying decision. 

Once you have a bunch of leads in the system, it’s time to prioritize them. There are plenty of website identification tools available that manage to put priority levels on leads. (To name a few, HubSpot Sales Hub, Leadfeeder, Act-On, and many more.) These tools facilitate you to find leads that visit the website but leave after leaving their contact details. You identify the lead quality and then these platforms send reports to sales reps inboxes.

Now, comes the part where sales reps serve the lead with personalized content that meets their unique requirements. With this, sales reps are able to convert leads into prospects and prospects into customers and eventually, retain them with effective customer service. 

With Salesken, you can now identify leads that have high purchase intent, know the conversation history, and target them with the right messages, at the right time to improve conversions.

Sales Coaching

Artificial Intelligence can now play a very important role in Sales Coaching. It will now be possible for Coaches to identify where Reps are going wrong, and provide personalized feedback to help Sales Persons. Sales Trainers can now know how Top Reps tackle objections, handle tricky customers and situations, and replicate winning strategies across the team. 

Onboarding and Training a new could take anywhere between 6-9 months (source: Hubspot), but Conversation Intelligence platforms can reduce the onboarding time of new reps significantly. Trainers can now identify key coachable moments, and provide personalized training to the Reps.

With Salesken, you can not only identify what your Reps are doing right and where they need help but also provide Real-Time Assistance, to navigate conversations towards success.

Build Accurate Buyer Personas

With Advanced Conversation Analytics tools, you can now understand the actual needs and concerns of your buyers. You can now identify what motivates your customers to purchase the product, which features in your product they love and use often, and what their main concerns are with regards to your product. Knowing this can help build your Ideal Customer Profile, and tailor your sales pitch and proactively address your customer’s concerns. 

Marketing teams can create collaterals that accurately address the pain points of their target customers, and improve their campaign performance.

Conclusion

Ever since the dawn of artificial intelligence, this futuristic technology has been improving and getting better AI for sales holds a promising future ahead, and salespeople are likely to enjoy making promising deals and streamlining the revenue and business processes. 

With so many perks being associated with the adoption of AI technology, it is up to sales-centric businesses to leverage this innovative technology and embrace it fully, today to stay not just relevant but competitive in future