Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is the development of machine learning to equip a computer with the capacity to perform human-like tasks and (in the world of sales) enhance the analytics of a sales operation.
In other words: AI is smart technology designed to more efficiently handle tasks that will accelerate your business’s growth metrics — and give your humans time to provide that real-life connection to the customers that have made their way to the end of your sales funnel.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- The primary function of AI in sales
- What an “AI engine” is
- How to watch out for software with AI built on as an afterthought
- Start putting AI to use in your business
The primary function of AI in sales
Your sales development reps (SDRs) are overworked. There are high expectations when it comes to what makes a great SDR, and turnover in the industry would suggest that your SDRs are not keen on the pressure – and/or they are unable to meet those demands without burning out.
If ever-increasing workload was a dragon, your SDRs the tired knights, then AI is the chosen one coming in at just the right moment to save the day. Because timing, as they say, is everything.
If you don’t time your sales actions right, even the best sales approach will go to waste. Effective personalized outreach is all about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right message to hit your target audience.
Is AI the way of the future in the sales ecosystem?
According to predictions made by the Young Entrepreneur Council (see the full article on the Forbes website), AI is here to stay through 2022 and beyond – and businesses that aren’t already ready for this change are probably going to fall behind.
(If you’re worried that you’re one of those businesses, stop worrying – we’ve got your back. Read on.)
When automation technology is used correctly, it takes over the simpler, more tedious tasks to free up your live bodies for human-to-human contact that we all crave as customers.
AI generates benefits for your business success
Lead generation, lead qualifying, omnichannel outreach, chatbots developed to answer customer questions, lead nurturing through the sales pipeline – these are just some of the examples of what sales-specific AI was built for.
Beyond leads, think data. AI software will not only interact with your prospects and leads through various channels, but it will store and analyze the data this produces so that you can keep on learning, refining your outreach methods, and personalize your ads to land more sales.
What is an AI Engine
An AI engine is the tool that develops your artificially intelligent system.
The developers have identified areas in which AI will help to accelerate the sales process. They have targeted tasks previously handled by humans and programmed AI software to handle these tasks – eg: qualifying leads, answering basic questions, outreach – in order to free up time for your sales reps to take over the big jobs, like making direct calls to customers.
For those of us who are just discovering the world of artificial intelligence, you may not be aware that you probably use it every day.
With AI tech, Google optimizes your searches, Siri and Alexa can answer your questions, Amazon makes suggestions about which products you want based on your buying history, your social media feeds are full of ads based on recent searches, and so on.
How does an AI engine work?
Once “trained”, the AI engine uses its programmed intelligence to mimic human intelligence – for instance chatbots, programmed to understand certain customer questions and offer the correct pre-written response.
It’s also still intended to act as a computer by using algorithms that analyze data to make predictions – like how likely a lead is to convert into a sale – and send these data-based predictions straight to your sales team so that they can make human decisions about how to connect with the hottest leads.
The big push right now is to integrate these engines into sales and marketing operations to start unifying your sales strategies.
Using an AI engine, you can take the holistic approach to customer engagement through multi-channel or omnichannel outreach. You can be immediately available to customers browsing your brand on your site or social media without expending hours of people-power to do it.
What is AI as an afterthought?
There are a lot of variables you need to consider when you envelop your sales development processes in artificially intelligent technology. Data storage and security, outreach scale and ethics – these are major factors to consider when you’re putting your AI software to work for your company.
Which is exactly why AI can’t be used as a mere afterthought. You can’t just plug it into your existing system without thinking about the larger context. And if you’re not programming an AI system yourself, then you need to be able to trust your software company to have thought of these things for you when you purchase this software from them.
Buyer Beware! Unfortunately there are many sales enablement and sales engagement softwares on the market today that were built with AI as an afterthought. You want a software company who already knows the world of sales, has developed a technology based on that experience, and who are professional enough to cover your bases for you…
This is where we come in.
Put AI to use in your business today
Start a free trial today and put AI software to use in your business to start growing those sales metrics.
Don’t wait – AI-powered platforms with machine learning engines improve their performance based on data. The more data you have, the better predictive lead scoring works – and the more data points you’ll have.
Book an appointment in our calendar and we’ll send you a personalized demo and get you set up with your free trial TODAY.
