Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the brand experience for customers, with over 75% of companies using AI to accelerate business growth, automate tasks, and provide better customer service.
Dedicated AI platforms help sales teams rise leads (up to 54%), boost sales forecasting, grow stronger relationships with the prospects, devote more time to selling, decrease call time and time to close deals, make upselling and cross-selling more obvious, etc.
Here are 10 main ways AI changes the sales industry.
Customer impact
A massive block of CRM tasks, for which AI is used, is associated with the impact on the client (Next Best Offer/Next Best Action). This impact has different goals: generating leads, cross-selling, closing a deal, retaining a customer, and increasing customer loyalty.
But on the whole, they are all aimed at better understanding customers and offering them individual and valuable products that fully satisfy their needs.
In this case, the sales team first collects the fullest information about a particular customer. They can receive the data both from internal sources (profile in the CRM system, customer responses to previous actions, behavior on the site or in the personal account) and from external, for example, profiles on social networks.
The system can use this data to predict the subsequent actions of the customer and, on their basis, build realistic sales plans, taking into account long-term forecasts of customer demand, and prevent customer outflow.
The collected data can also be used to make targeted offers to customers based on many factors, from a list of regular purchases in a store to likes on social networks.
Top sales engagement platforms allow you to do all of this – and even more. For instance, Revenue Grid sales engagement platform combines three features at once (Revenue Engage – Sales Sequences, Revenue Inbox – CRM and Email integration and Revenue Guide – Pipeline Analytics and Guided Selling), that help you lead your team to repeatable revenue.
This Guided Selling platform concentrates on the critical needs and most important challenges your sales team has, providing consistent guidance on each deal and help sales reps be in the best possible position to win by:
- having complete visibility into the pipeline, deals, and team activity
- gaining a better grip on the sales process
- automating routines
- giving reps the tools that help them to push deals through the funnel
- getting guidance on deals and engagement as easy-to-follow, proactive signals based on AI-analysis, complete communication data, and teams’ own sales processes and playbooks.
Predicting customer experience
Today, AI is being increasingly used by businesses to analyze customer data, identify long-term trends, and customer behavior patterns to predict their future actions.
Sales teams can use this opportunity to offer potential customers the best possible purchase and service experience. When used properly, AI can have a great impact on lead generation and revenue growth.
Shortening sales cycle
Since AI helps you collect relevant customer data, you won’t have to spend a lot of time studying it, which means you will already be ahead of the game.
Other aspects of the sales process, such as administrative and transactional tasks, will be automated and processed by AI. This means you can move prospects down the sales funnel faster, and it also frees up more time to develop relationships with them (as we know, today’s customers are looking for a more personalized experience that you will be able to provide because you won’t be burdened with many other tasks).
Optimizing prices
One of the challenges that every salesperson faces at some point in their career is determining what kind of discount they can give a customer.
Yesterday, such decisions were often made intuitively, or according to standard practice. But today, AI can solve the task of price optimization, extending the functions of the sales team, and providing it with accurate analytics.
5. Sales forecasting
Before the rise of AI, sales forecasting was pioneered by business analyst teams, and despite their efforts, the results were often incorrect and incomplete. One of the benefits of AI for any business is its ability to analyze massive amounts of data much faster than humans.
AI algorithms can now predict a company’s revenue in the next quarter with amazing accuracy. This information enables salespeople to make better decisions, such as knowing exactly where to allocate more resources and manpower to achieve the best results.
6. Receiving signals to push deals forward
This AI feature allows sales teams to capture a range of important metrics so they don’t miss the right moment to sell. The system can be guided by multiple factors: browsing similar products, analyzing reviews, chats, reaction to discounts, and much more.
7. Analyzing leads
A salesperson who works with several potential customers at a time must make decisions about where to focus his time and energy on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.
AI can collect all the historical data about a potential customer and list it according to the probability of a successful closing of the deal. By adhering to the clear algorithm for evaluating potential customers, AI guides the salesperson in the right direction, towards the most profitable deals and prospects.
8. Upselling and cross-selling
Every salesperson knows that the fastest, easiest, and most economical way to achieve revenue growth is to sell more to existing customers. Figuring out which customers can buy more has never been an exact science — until now.
AI can scan a customer’s purchase history, social media posts, and analyze any changes in their behavior. This can greatly increase revenue and lower marketing costs for the sales team.
9. Performance management
Each month, sales leaders assess the distribution of income for each of their sales reps.
AI reinforces this process: now sales managers can use dashboards to visualize which reps have the best chance of meeting their quota. The insights gained from this data allow managers to focus their attention and resources on top reps and deals.
Also, the sales dashboard provides important data such as pipeline performance, forecasts, company’s competition, product performance, etc.
10. Decision-making
When businesses started using AI, it was mostly limited to automating manual tasks such as data entry, customer support, and prospecting.
With today’s ability to analyze big data and integrate with existing software and platforms, AI can measure results, predict future trends, and propose profitable actions.
Thus, decisions are now not made intuitively but based on a balanced analysis of real data that gets into CRM from multiple sources. This process reduces the risk of making wrong decisions, bringing sales reps closer to success.
Thus, sales teams that regularly use AI to make decisions gain a competitive advantage.
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