Unlike tech, sales is a very unpredictable and unstructured field. The sales domain has been sluggish in adapting AI (artificial intelligence) because of its people-centric and highly dynamic nature. However, as AI technology advances and becomes better and more efficient, C-suite leaders have become more open and are changing the sales industry to adapt to this new tech-enabled environment. AI and generative AI are poised to disrupt marketing and sales in every sector. This is the result of shifts in consumer sentiment alongside rapid technological change.
At the core of sales lies two things: understanding and engagement
A seller’s inability to connect with purchasers throughout their journey, and their lack of awareness of the requirements of their clients, their business, the market, and the overall consumer psychology are surefire recipes for failure in sales. Research indicates that consumers are not only put off by non-personalized attempts at engagement but that response rates for this kind of communication are as low as 1%.
Salespeople can learn how to increase the resonance and relevance of their sales interaction activities with the use of AI. It can also cut down the time needed for numerous procedures and optimize their time and productivity. This goes beyond merely sending out cold emails and improving email composition. The goal is to improve every step of the sales cycle on a granular level to enable salespeople to better engage and understand clients.
Personalization is the key to sales!
AI has the ability to take client’s data such as information from investor conferences, financial reports, etc., and summarize them. This enables sales representatives to generate more personalized and targeted content. It can also give representatives information and insights about the strategic goals of the company, enabling them to identify possible areas where they can be helpful along with areas of mutual benefit.
For example: LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator integrates firmographic insights with first-party data to offer organizational views, such as the relationships between buying committees.
CX in sales can be significantly improved by providing hyper-personalized services based on information extracted from each customer’s behavior, persona, and past purchases. By using AI to provide sales teams with the necessary information and customer insights, sales reps can effectively improve engagement on required touchpoints. AI can also improve sales efficiency and effectiveness by automating and unloading a lot of repetitive sales tasks, freeing up time to interact with current and potential clients.
Sales representatives can use generative AI to create personalized content and messages.
From personalized follow-up emails to providing real-time negotiation pointers, generative AI can help salespeople achieve higher engagement and conversion rates.
Despite the improvements AI brings, its implementation in the industry is still uncharted territory. There are still a lot of concerns that need to be addressed. Several challenges, such as IP theft and infringement, data privacy and data security call for careful governance and mitigation techniques.
Rather than entrusting AI with end-to-end procedures and assigning tasks with complete autonomy, salespeople should use it to assist them in making things more accurate and individualized. To fully take advantage of the future potential of AI, it may be necessary to create new roles in addition to the obvious requirement for human oversight and accountability.
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