The retail industry is among many that have seen dramatic changes due to technological advancements over the past few decades.
Online shopping offers buyers and sellers many conveniences that were not possible before.
The future of purchasing was and is mainly focused on simplifying the buying process. Retailers know that a simpler user experience and better customer experience leads to higher sales.
It turned out, however, that simplifying the selling process and making it intuitive for buyers is just as important. These are two sides of the same coin, and both can be significantly enhanced by the use of technology. And lately, we’re finding out that there’s no better technology for this purpose than artificial intelligence (AI).
What does AI mean for sales professionals?
AI is definitely far from being a new concept, and its meaning has significantly changed over time. We use it in many everyday appliances and devices, sometimes without realizing it. However, the public might still imagine evil robots taking control of the world every time AI is mentioned.
Naturally, this doesn’t mean that there are no possible dangers from the misuse of AI, especially given that it’s difficult to predict how exactly this technology will further evolve. AI’s benefits are so widespread that they can be used in so many industries, that it is certain that AI will continue to be a popular and valuable technology. Its effectiveness extends beyond business. It can help us in many areas that we all consider crucial, such as healthcare, education, weather forecasts, disaster response, and many other.
AI’s ability to process and interpret huge amounts of disparate data in ways that no human could manually is its greatest strength. Additionally, its potential to automatically update its algorithms according to feedback, without outside human involvement is what makes its results so impressive. It processes data and adapts to it. This results in high levels of automation for previously difficult or impossible tasks.
How does this impact sales professionals? The entire article will address this question. But let’s get a glimpse of why AI is so important for the future sales profession.
Very often, we hear that this is an era in which data is “the most valuable asset“. Retailers and salespeople need reliable customer data to succeed. The sheer volume of data being uploaded each day (in 2018 it was 2.5 quintillion bytes and is expected to rise to 463 exabytes by 2025) means that even if you have billions of different data points, they are of little use to any business.
Artificial intelligence’s processing power is crucial. AI can sort, organize, and then put into action this data. Vendors can use this data to get to know their customers and prospects. This data can be used to generate leads, monitor pipelines, forecast sales, and communicate with customers in real time.
AI’s ability to interpret data can also help automate tasks and workflows, thereby increasing productivity. It speeds up and smoothens communication within the company. It can also perform repetitive, tedious tasks previously performed by human reps in an efficient and error-free manner.
What is the impact of AI on sales?
AI “taking over” sales doesn’t necessarily mean it will take over our jobs, or that sales reps are going to be obsolete. Retailers will need to embrace AI if they are to stay ahead of the curve.
Salespeople who use AI to help them sell will have an edge over their competition that will be difficult to match. AI is the best way for you to understand your customers by collecting and analyzing data.
It’s also becoming more important for businesses to be available 24/7 via multiple channels to customers. This is where immediateness is key. If you are not available at the right time that the customer is looking to buy something, it could mean losing money. As much as 64% of consumers expect brands to respond and interact with them in real-time. Chatbots can help you at any time, and they are very useful.
AI will not “take over” sales in the sense that it completely automates the entire process without any human intervention. It won’t, at least not anytime soon. It will be a valuable tool for sales teams and human sales reps.
AI sales assistants
Sales reps are able to recognize what they don’t know, and can identify the type of information that would benefit them in increasing their sales. For instance, only 51% of them think that they have sufficient market intelligence on customers and prospects, although more than 80% of those who have this market intelligence reckon that it helps them do their job more effectively. Statistics are more useful when it comes to customer propensity to purchase, next steps, and other valuable customer intent data.
Basically, salespeople don’t like the amount of information they have about people they are trying to sell to. They also think this kind of information would be extremely valuable. This is precisely the kind of information AI can provide. These data must be first collected using various tools. But without proper analysis by AI software, they are almost worthless.
At least not yet, AI cannot replicate human contact and the human touch of a real salesperson. But with valuable data and feedback at their disposal, sales reps do a much better job – in fact, the highest performing sales teams are 2.3 times more likely to use AI-guided selling.
Four uses of AI in sales
Artificial intelligence assistants (AI assistants) are just that, assistants. However, they are extremely useful and will be indispensable in the future. Let’s look at why this is so.
1. 1.
Sales reps spend too much time trying to sell leads to people who are not interested. For instance, when it comes to B2B sales, as much as 61% of marketing teams send leads directly to salespeople, but only 27% of these leads are actually qualified.
This means that three quarters of them are a waste of time. This is a major setback for any company. Sales reps don’t have enough data to know if their efforts will be successful. They reach out to the leads, do their best and pray that it doesn’t go sour.
Many salespeople believe that strong market and customer intelligence can make a huge difference. Tracking prospects and customers online can help you decide who to target.
These data are not provided raw to sales reps for them to draw their own conclusions. AI software does this job for them and automatically recognizes and scores leads based on obtained data. This data-driven scoring improves the efficiency of sales teams and allows them to focus on potential buyers rather than accidental browsers.
AI can also compare these insights with your largest accounts and provide reports to your sales team when there is a high degree of compatibility between these accounts as well as promising prospects. The algorithm that AI uses is also automatically updated as new customers are acquired or existing accounts grow. This leaves less room for error.
The AI algorithm will give you more accurate results the longer it is working and your sales team will be able to spend less time. These leads can be automatically engaged by the AI algorithm in real time and handed over to sales representatives to do their best.
2. 2. Communication with prospects and customers
It’s not enough just to recognize potential leads. It’s very important how and when you reach out to your customers and prospects. AI can be used to help sales teams communicate with customers in many ways.
It allows chatbots to perform their jobs with the aid of natural language processing. It is crucial that companies are available 24/7 to their customers. Chatbots can do this seamlessly. However, a lot of them are not yet proficient enough to carry out complex exchanges, and 86% of consumers still prefer to interact with a human.
Chatbots are useful for customers who need a quick response. In some cases, they can even buy time until a human sales representative is available. Chatbots will become more sophisticated and helpful over time.
AI-assisted communication is more than just chatbots. AI can give salespeople valuable information about potential customers, which can result in significant improvements in communication. AI algorithms can identify the best time to contact customers, for example. This is where the trigger-based timing selection can prove to be extremely effective. AI can recognize a visitor’s interest in a particular line of products and initiate a conversation.
Human reps can use well-interpreted data to help them choose the right tone, language and approach when speaking with customers or prospects. Finally, AI can distinguish between desktop and mobile phone users or identify channels that consumers use to communicate, therefore ensuring they’ll see your message once you reach out.
3. 3.
The overall effect that new technologies have on customer experience is immense. Selling is easier when you combine good customer experience with precise targeting, as was highlighted. In other words, advanced technology-driven selling methods improve CX, and improved CX means better sales. Personalized recommendations are a great example.
The most important outcome of successfully obtaining customer data and processing it is personalization. This allows you to tailor the content and experience to each user. More than 50% of consumers are ready to offer their personal data to companies if that means they’ll start seeing content, offers, and ads that fit their specific interests.
The problem of selling to the right people is solved by having the right leads. Improved communication solves that problem, while personalized recommendations solve the crucial problem of ‘what’. It is vital that every customer receives a unique ” what.
A personalized recommendation algorithm based on AI can make a huge difference in boosting sales for any company. We all know how many recommendations we get at every step of our online journey – whether we use email, social media or simply surf the web.
This is not an accident. This strategy offers huge opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. It also helps consumers purchase exactly what they want even though they are not actively searching for it. This approach is sometimes so efficient that, for instance, as much as 35% of what consumers purchase on Amazon comes exactly from product recommendations.
This is not surprising considering the vast array of customer data that retailers have at their disposal. An algorithm with access to the user’s browsing and purchase history, demographics and preferences, as well as their current online behavior, can quickly identify what they may need and how much they are willing to pay.
AI will improve with new feedback and updated data. This will make it easier to recommend products and offer special deals to customers. An online retailer must have a good product recommendation algorithm to avoid making mistakes.
4. Increasing productivity and performance for reps
AI can improve the interaction between sales and customers, but it also has an impact on how sales teams work inside.
First, AI can streamline workflows and improve efficiency throughout an organization. This includes automating task delegation, prioritizing tasks based upon various objective parameters.
It can, for example, recognize a promising lead and assign it to the most qualified sales rep. It can also delegate tasks and set up meetings based upon the location of leads or sales reps. It can also delegate tasks and set up meetings based on the location of leads or sales reps. In other words it can do some of the job faster than a human manager.
Obviously, this saves the company a lot of time that would’ve otherwise be spent on organizational issues and eliminates some of the annoying noise in communication that can create confusion and chaos.
AI can now analyze the strategies of individual reps and teams and determine what is working and what isn’t. This will allow decision-makers to identify the best practices and then apply them throughout the organization for maximum efficiency.
Conclusion
AI is a promising and highly effective technology that has yet to achieve its full potential. It is used extensively in sales to facilitate both buyers and sellers. The greatest benefit of AI is its ability to provide businesses with valuable insights into their customers.
It could be said that this generation of retailers has a better understanding of their customers than the previous generation. They now have the ability to put their “customer first” philosophy into practice by knowing what their customers want. They will also help their business grow and improve their own performance.
Although such a powerful technology is easily misused and exploited by some, we have the opportunity to make it work for us all and benefit from it. It’s up now to the companies to make that decision.
