AI for Sales

Automate data processing

The most important possession of a sales professional is time. It is essential that sales people prioritize time to focus on actual selling, which means engaging with customers, building relationships, writing proposals, and presenting and closing deals. But doing all this can be challenging because mun-dane tasks, such as data collection, maintaining CRMs and qualifying leads can take up much of a salesperson’s time. Artificial intelligence can automate such repetitive tasks. AI data processing systems can be integrated with CRM software, such as Salesforce, Pardot and Marketo. With data admin handled by AI, sales teams can then spend more time selling.

Discover new customers

Networking, either in-person or via a social media platform such as LinkedIn, is time-consuming and expensive. AI can automatically process social networks for you with a tool called a graph-traversal algorithm, answering queries like “list all colleagues of our existing customer base.”

AI can also increase website conversion. An intelligent agent using supervised or reinforcement learning can learn data, such as visitor geolocation, time of day and tracking information, as well as “live” feedback like mouse tracking. This can enable you to tailor your website to your user’s, which maximizes conversion.

Add virtual sales agents

AI can even do the selling for you through virtual sales agents. The advantage of sales AI over human teams is that artificial intelligence can enable you to respond to every query, even at 3 a.m., making customers feel valued. AI-powered virtual sales assistants are low-maintenance team members. They work 24-7, don’t leave for more money, don’t take vacations or sick days and always arrive on time.

Tools can be simple. Chorus.ai, for example, joins conference calls in the same way a sales administrator would, to record and transcribe con-tent in real time. And chatbots leverage natural language processing to give proscribed or learned answers to customer queries. There are also more complex virtual sales agents who have complex abilities, such as learning from memory and interacting with customers. For example,

Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), a major Swedish corporate bank, now uses a virtual assistant called Aida. This remarkable creation was built by IPSoft and is based on the IPSoft product, Amelia, which SEB renamed Aida. Able to handle natural-language conversations, Aida has access to vast stores of data and can answer many frequently asked questions, such as how to open an account or make cross-border payments. She can also ask callers follow-up questions to solve their problems, and she’s able to analyze a caller’s tone of voice (for instance, frustrated versus appreciative) and use that information to provide better service later. Aida is now interacting regularly with 1 million customers for SEB.

Figure 10: Amelia by IPSoft

Predictive intelligence and intelligent sales

AI predictive intelligence can identify patterns in customer data. Algorithms can analyze millions of data points to find correlations and patterns. This process can identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities. AI predictive analytics can be used to reach out to customers through prompts, offers or assistance to increase conversion and reduce churn.

AI ranking systems help sales teams prioritize leads by maximizing the expected return (i.e., expected profit multiplied by probability of sale). Ranking systems order customers by probability of sale, based on all available customer data.

The goal is intelligent sales automation, which can:

Discover new customers using algorithms to process large prospect lists
Predict the most lucrative customers leading to higher deal values and more repeat business
Identify cross-selling and up-selling opportunities
Automate data processing to reduce admin burden
Gain insight into conversion, customer types and deal size to enable strategic sales management
Employ virtual sales agents that operate 24/7 without breaks and can be continuously improved

The key aspect of sales work that AI can’t automate is relationship building. Sales people in the AI Age will still be reading Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People.