Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more common. Companies develop new AI-powered products, and people realize that this technology can help in many ways. In this article, we will discuss the ways artificial intelligence benefits sales, explain how AI can be overused, and show a few AI tools that might be useful for sales reps.
4 Ways Artificial Intelligence Benefits Sales
Nowadays, you can’t surprise people by telling them you use artificial intelligence for your sales. And while many people understand the importance of investing in hi-tech for better profit and business growth, some companies are still not sure if it’s worth it that much. So, let’s take a look at certain ways AI benefits sales.
Increases Your Sales Team Productivity
According to SnapLogic survey, 81% of employees say AI improves productivity, and 89% of them believe this technology can help them with almost half of their workload. Such high numbers are expected since artificial intelligence is the main tool for business automation.
AI can help sales reps with their daily tasks in a lot of different ways:
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- 🔎 Collecting and analyzing data for them;
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- 💌 Sending emails and scheduling meetings for them;
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- 🗣 And even replying to their clients for them.
So, let’s say artificial intelligence is like your sales representative’s assistant who frees their time for more complex and creative tasks.
Betters Sales Forecasting
Since AI can find and analyze data in a split second, the sales team doesn’t have to spend hours on analytics and can get access to much more informed forecasting. This is because now there are the top sales enablement tools available that can be integrated into the processes.
Artificial intelligence predictable analytics is based on the ability of AI-powered tools to process masses of data from different sources and predict the most likely scenarios. For instance, AI can show possible customer churn based on how sales reps interacted with their clients or based on the last client’s activities with the product your company sells.
Improves Customer Engagement
Kate Legget, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester, pointed out that nowadays, people expect to get better and faster customer service. They don’t want to wait till they have a chance to engage with your team. They want answers and solutions right now. And that’s where AI enters the stage.
Since AI doesn’t sleep and doesn’t require any breaks, it’s a wonderful tool to stay connected with your clients non-stop.
Enables More Personalized User Experience
As we already mentioned, artificial intelligence can collect and analyze lots of data. And data is everything when we talk about personalized customer service. If we have enough information about a client, we can provide them with the experience they need, want, and like.
Some AI-powered tools can not only help you use a client’s personal data manually (like, for example, you can write a personalized email on your own but using the data AI tools provide), but also create personalized responses themselves.
How Not to Overuse AI in Sales?
Even though artificial intelligence is a wonderful technology, and sales teams can benefit from it a lot, sometimes people can rely on AI tools too much.
So, how to take advantage of AI without overusing it?
Make AI Work With You, Not Instead of You
Many sales reps may think that if AI can find, analyze and use data to talk to customers, they don’t have to do this anymore. But people are most likely to buy from people. You can’t build a strong connection with a robot (sorry, Siri, you knew it wasn’t real). And relying too much on auto-replies, even if they’re super personalized, won’t make you any good.
Artificial intelligence is, first of all, a tool. It can free your time from some repetitive tasks, but it won’t work for you full-time.
Always Double-Check
Everyone can make mistakes. And AI-powered tools as well. But while the human mistake is more about attention to detail, which AI has no problem with, the robotic mistake can be more about understanding some data correctly. So, make sure to check everything AI produces.
What AI-Powered Tools to Use?
Any you want and need, actually. There are different sales AI tools for different purposes, and in this section, we’ll show you some of them.
AI-Powered Analytics
Many CRM systems offer AI-powered analytics inside their interface. You can use it to get informed insights about your customers, their interactions with you and your products, and predict further steps of their customer journey.
Your team can choose whatever platform they are the most comfortable with: Salesforce, Hubspot, DealCode, CirrusInsight, or any other.
Chatbots
The other great tool for sales reps is an AI-powered chatbot. If a company uses it in its application or website, customers can get 24/7 support and will most likely be satisfied with the service (people don’t like waiting). Of course, chatbots won’t be able to resolve every issue, but at least they will give an instant response.
There are plenty of different chatbots, so you have what to choose from. HubSpot gives a nice list of AI-powered chatbots in one of their articles, so feel free to check them out. There you’ll also find a Chatbot Builder by HubSpot.
AI Sales Assistant
This tool works just the way it sounds. It’s literally your assistant, but not a human. You can make your AI-assistant schedule meetings, reply to emails, send follow-ups, enter data, and analyze it – basically, complete any simple or repetitive task you have.
Some AI sales assistants can already be integrated into a CRM; some of them might be more focused on scheduling or email generating, so you can use a big complex tool or choose one for a certain type of task.
You can do your research or take a look at this list of a few AI sales assistants and choose for yourself.
AI Email Writer
So, yeah, an AI email writer can be your kind of AI assistant, or some complex sales software can have a built-in email writer.
However, we wanted to single this tool out. Writing a good personalized email is the key to sales success, so you have to consider a Writing assistant to help you out.
AI email writers can help with processing all the information about your prospects you have and sum it up in an email so that the person will feel heard and valued. Most of them can also send those emails instead of you or create personalized responses if you’re busy with other tasks.
A Little Bit of a Conclusion
So, what can we say more? Artificial intelligence is an amazing technology that does make sales reps’ lives easier. And if you know how to use it, you will definitely boost your sales. Thus, we wish you to find your AI-powered tools and take the maximum from using them.