Why chatbots don’t work for sales teams

Looking to update the tech stack for your sales team? Don’t make the mistake of confusing chatbots for conversational intelligence. They’re the proverbial apples and oranges. Here are the two primary ways in which the two are different (and not even in competition). 

The power to interpret‍

We’re accustomed to seeking help from virtual assistants and chatbots. Google listens to us and answers our searches. Amazon Echo plays our songs when told to. Dom on Messenger places orders for us from Domino's Pizza. Chatbots have come a long way in understanding different languages as well and work well for inbound sales and to offer support. But how persuasive can chatbots be when we aren’t too inclined to engage with them, like customers can be in sales (especially outbound sales) scenarios?

How effective can chatbots be in communicating the true value of your product and your partnership to high-value customers? Especially if they’re outbound leads?

Though chatbots help in minimizing human effort and maximizing operational efficiency, they lack the social and emotional quotient to pick up on subtle cues which often hold the key to clinching large deals. Chatbots are great for first-level conversations where the dialogue follows a structured pattern; conversational intelligence takes over when the exchange is largely unscripted. For instance, a customer expressing dismay over poor customer service on two different occasions. Conversational AI’s ability to parse and understand human sentiment is perfect for inside sales where reps are often at a loss to interpret the customer's reactions or emotions in real time. Salesken, our conversational intelligence platform for sales reps, classifies emotional or sentiment signals in real-time. Our system has over 100,000 inferences allowing it to detect and decode various signals, from words to phrases to tonality to pitch, and then run it through multiple data models. Say your customer sounds low-spirited on the call. Salesken naturally scans for words that mirror these emotions. It can immediately recommend ways (sentences, phrases, words) in which your rep can be more empathetic to your customer during the conversation.

The Purpose to Replace‍

A chatbot automates human interactions. Specifically, simple and straightforward text-based conversations that are easy to predict and program.
If you log onto a banking site or ecommerce portal, you interact with a bot to get the status of your order or ask for a refund or open a bank account. A chatbot thus replaces actual human conversation.

But conversational intelligence works with humans to make them better at conversation. In the case of Salesken, this intelligence is provided in real time.
Salesken makes contextual information available to your sales reps with real time prompts. If your rep is asked how your product compares with the competition, the prompt immediately shows your rep the top differentiators. If your rep is asked how your product suits the customer’s industry, the prompt displays highlights of a relevant case study. Salesken can help overcome the very ‘to err is human’ situations your sales reps find themselves in. “Could you repeat your last question?” “Sure, can I get back to you on that?” “I’m not able to recall”. These are the kinds of roadblocks Salesken can help overcome.

What to do next

Jump onto the bandwagon. The adoption of chatbots is skyrocketing, and you don’t want to be left behind. But when you’re looking for a way to leverage conversational intelligence, don’t settle for the apple (chatbots), when the fruit basket is up for grabs (Hi, we’re Salesken). To get started, read How Conversation Intelligence allows Sales Leaders to see the future.