Looking for an effective way to upgrade the productivity, efficiency, and performance of your sales team? Now could be the perfect time to consider investing in conversational AI for sales.
Drawing on cutting-edge AI algorithms, natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, and machine learning, conversational AI tools are revolutionizing how sales teams work. Intelligent bots, virtual assistants, and analytical tools are helping sales staff members to identify prospects faster, streamline outreach, nurture leads, and increase conversion rates.
All the while, they’re minimizing operational costs, and ensuring businesses can scale faster than ever before. Whether you’re a small business owner, or a critical part of a sales team, this guide will introduce you to the potential of conversational AI for sales teams, and show you how you can take advantage of the best tools on the market.
In this article:
What is Conversational AI for Sales?
Conversational AI (artificial intelligence) is a type of artificial intelligence that can understand and mimic human conversation. It draws on machine learning and natural language processing capabilities, to ensure computer systems and software can recognize and respond to natural language.
Conversational AI tools come in many forms, from analytical solutions that enable sentiment analysis, to intelligent IVR systems. For sales teams, however, most conversational AI tools take the forms of bots or virtual agents that customers or team members can interact with.
Notably though, these AI chatbots aren’t the same as old-fashioned bots. Traditional bots weren’t really intelligent, they could simply respond to specific terms with pre-programmed replies.
Conversational AI bots, on the other hand, can understand the meaning, intent and context behind questions. They can deliver unique, creative responses to questions, carry out complex tasks, and connect with people just like a human being.
The market for conversational AI tools is growing rapidly, set to reach a value of $44.38 billion by 2031, and the biggest benefit of these tools is their ability to enhance customer interactions. For everything from marketing, to sales, and even customer service, conversational AI is a game changer.
Does your sales playbook include AI? It's time to rewrite your rules of engagement.
The Use Cases of Conversational AI for Sales Teams
Conversational AI is still a relatively new concept, and companies are still discovering its full potential. Businesses in all industries have begun experimenting with conversational marketing strategies, led by AI bots. Many organizations are also using artificial intelligence for customer service, delivering 24/7 personalized support to customers.
For sales professionals, conversational AI can boost efficiency and performance in a wide range of tasks. Here are just some of the most common use cases of conversational AI for sales.
Enhancing Lead Generation and Outreach
Sales professionals spend a lot of time identifying leads, and trying to connect with them for the first time. AI solutions can help streamline this process. Intelligent tools, like the AI agents built into the HubSpot platform, can search for potential leads online that match a company’s “ideal customer profile”, and even connect with those people on behalf of businesses.
For instance, a conversational commerce bot could proactively engage customers on a range of channels, from your website to social media, and introduce them to potential products and services. That bot could then transfer information gathered during an initial conversation to a sales agent, so they can follow up with a more personalized sales strategy.
Transforming Lead Nurturing
Studies suggest it takes an average of eight touchpoints to turn a lead into a customer. However, a lot of sales agents struggle to find the time to follow-up regularly with prospects. With conversational AI for sales, professionals can hand some of the follow-up process over to a bot.
For example, once a company collects contact details from a potential lead, they could use the conversational SMS solution on Clerk Chat to schedule messages to be sent to that lead at specific times, introducing them to additional products, or inviting them to schedule an appointment.
These bots can even follow-up with prospects after they take specific actions, like signing up for a webinar, or requesting a “call back” from a sales professional.
Automating the Sales Hand-Off
While conversational AI bots can handle various aspects of communicating with leads and prospects, they can’t handle the full sales journey on their own. Eventually, a professional needs to step-in to deliver a personalized, human experience.
Fortunately, AI tools can ensure that when this “hand off” does need to happen, leads and prospects are sent to the right agent. They can analyze the details of a customer profile, understand their needs, and send them to the agent with the right skills to close the deal.
These AI bots can even provide agents with up-to-date information about a lead, such as the questions they’ve asked about products previously. Plus, they can assess employee schedules and actually suggest appointment times for future meetings or product demonstrations.
Answering Customer Questions
Customer service and sales often go hand in hand. Before a buyer actually purchases a product, they’ll usually have questions they need answered. Using conversational AI for customer service gives companies the opportunity to answer common buyer questions 24/7.
Chatbots can immediately respond to any messages a company receives about a product, service, or potential deal, helping to streamline the path to conversion. Plus, after a customer converts, these AI tools can enhance satisfaction and retention rates going forward.
Because AI tools help to reduce the customer response time for contact centers, they can help drive loyalty among customers, and ensure any technical issues are addressed quickly.
Improving Sales Training and Coaching
Using conversational AI for sales in the form of chatbots and virtual assistants doesn’t just give your customers an always-on source of support. It can also be an excellent way to provide constant assistance and guidance to your team members.
Agent assist solutions can help guide sales professionals through conversations and processes, providing best-practice tips, sales playbook insights, and even suggested responses to customer objections. Plus, agents can practice their sales skills using these bots too.
For instance, an AI bot trained to act like a customer can help new sales professionals experiment with different sales strategies and pitches, delivering real-time feedback.
Enabling Upselling and Cross-Selling
For companies looking for ways to increase average order value and customer lifetime value, sales AI tools can be extremely valuable. These tools can analyze customer interactions both historically and in real-time, to offer insights into which leads are perfect for upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
They can help sales professionals identify when they should be texting leads with new offers or unique product packages, increasing conversion rates.
Some solutions can even suggest possible upselling and cross-selling messages, based on a customer’s previous purchasing history and preferences.
The Benefits of Conversational AI in Sales
Ultimately, using conversational AI for sales brings a host of benefits to both B2B and B2C companies. The right tools can increase sales, improve customer satisfaction rates, and most importantly – save professionals team. In one survey, 82% of professionals in the sales landscape agreed that AI gave them more time to focus on the parts of their job that mattered most.
On a broad level, adopting conversational AI for sales teams helps companies:
Reduce Costs
One of the most commonly referenced benefits of conversational AI is that it can help to minimize operational costs. With AI tools sending automatic text responses to leads and managing various tasks, like lead qualification on an agent’s behalf, businesses don’t necessarily need to hire as many sales professionals. While AI can’t fully replace sales professionals, it does mean that the team members you have will have more time to focus on valuable tasks.
Instead of dealing with repetitive processes, like answering common customer queries, sales teams can focus on things like building rapport with customers or designing unique sales pitches. This basically ensures companies can accomplish more with less.
Increase Sales and Revenue
Aside from reducing operational costs, using conversational AI for sales can help businesses boost their profitability. These tools can handle things like nurturing leads over time, increasing your chances of conversions. They can also send personalized, conversational messages to customers that help guide them towards a specific product or service.
As mentioned above, they can also support upselling and cross selling strategies, to increase revenue. On top of all that, AI agents can help to make sales professionals more effective, coaching them and guiding them through discussions to increase win rates.
Improve Lead Qualification
One of the major tasks that sales teams need to perform regularly involves sifting through leads and prospects to find the most promising opportunities. Conversational AI can enhance and streamline this process, providing instant insights into which leads your teams should be focusing on. This reduces the chance of sales teams wasting their time on the wrong prospects.
A conversational communication solution for businesses can even ask prospects qualifying questions, to learn more about whether they’re the right fit for a product or service. Plus, it can pass that information onto an agent before they begin reaching out.
Optimize Productivity
As mentioned above, using conversational AI for sales teams means you can hand a lot of the repetitive tasks and processes your employees need to deal with regularly over to a bot. AI tools can handle lead nurturing, handle two-way text messaging conversations, and even transcribe calls.
Plus, these tools can help employees complete other tasks a lot faster too. For instance, they can suggest personalized responses to business messages, help design sales pitches and playbooks, and even generate valuable content with the help of generative AI. This all helps to make your team more productive and efficient.
Boost Customer Engagement and Retention
With conversational AI, companies can connect with customers at any time – day or night. They can use AI to send customized SMS messages to customers instantly, introducing them to new products and services. They can also answer common customer questions, without forcing them to wait around for regular business hours.
When customers convert, conversational AI tools can help guide them through the onboarding process, follow up with additional guidance and help resources, or troubleshoot problems for buyers as they emerge. This all leads to higher customer satisfaction rates and better retention.
The Challenges of Using Conversational AI in Sales
Notably, while the benefits of using conversational AI in sales are huge, there are potential challenges to consider too. First, there are technical issues to address. Conversational tools can do a great job of mimicking human conversations, but they still make mistakes. They need to be trained to understand specific nuanced language, acronyms, and even slang terms.
The best way to overcome this issue is to choose a conversational AI system that’s already been trained on a massive language base and continue fine-tuning your solution over time.
Does your sales playbook include AI? It's time to rewrite your rules of engagement.
Another major issue is the potential for data security problems. Conversational AI models only work effectively if they can access huge volumes of customer data. That means there are always going to be security and privacy issues to consider. You’ll need to ensure the tool you’re using adheres to the data security and compliance regulations in your industry.
This will be particularly important if you’re using conversational AI for insurance, healthcare, finance, or operations in another highly-regulated sector. Don’t forget to adhere to sales and marketing compliance guidelines too. For instance, if you’re using AI for SMS you’ll still need to ensure you have explicit permission to text customers.
The other final major challenge to consider, is how you’ll navigate the human-machine divide. Sales professionals won’t adopt and use AI tools if they feel they’re going to replace them. Plus, if you rely too heavily on bots, you risk harming your relationships with customers.
Make sure you know which tasks are suitable for AI automation and which will demand a human touch. Humans and bots should work seamlessly together in the sales landscape.
How to Choose the Best Conversational AI Tools
If you’re excited by the benefits of conversational AI for sales, and you’re confident that you can overcome the challenges mentioned above, there are plenty of tools and technologies you can tap into to bring AI into your workflows. Here are some quick steps to help you choose the right solution.
1. Consider your Specific Goals and Needs
First, ask yourself what you want to accomplish with conversational AI for sales teams. Are you looking for a solution that will help you automate your B2B text messaging strategy, allowing you to engage, follow up with leads, and answer their questions quickly?
Do you want a tool that can search through profiles and suggest which leads your team should be focusing on? Maybe you’re interested in creating an AI assistant for your reps that can guide them through sales strategies and help them close more deals.
Deciding exactly what you want to accomplish first will ensure you know what kind of features and capabilities to look for in your platform.
2. Assess Tools and Platforms Carefully
Next, examine the range of tools available for your specific use case. How you assess each platform will vary depending on your specific goals. Imagine, for instance, you’re looking for an AI sales SMS solution, like Clerk Chat. You’ll need to think about the features these platforms can offer.
For instance, do they enable you to send personalized automated text messages to customers based on specific triggers or schedules? Do they give you access to an SMS bot that can answer customer questions 24/7, and even ask qualifying questions when you’re assessing leads?
Beyond looking at overall functionality, think about:
- Compliance and security: Which tools have the integrated features you need to ensure compliance? For instance, Clerk Chat offers end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and access to dynamic cohorts so you can track when customers opt-in and opt-out of receiving texts.
- Ease of use: How convenient are these solutions to access and customize? Clerk Chat, for example, makes it easy to get started with workflow text messaging, with convenient templates and workflow builders.
- Scalability: Can the platform scale to suit your future needs? Can it integrate with other messaging channels, for instance, or accommodate an unlimited number of contacts, leads, and endless customer data?
3. Integrate your Solution with Your Existing Tools
Finally, the power of conversational AI for sales really shines when you can embed these tools into your existing workflows and technology. You should be able to hook your bot and enterprise text messaging platform up to the tools you already use.
For instance, Clerk Chat gives you the ability to leverage SMS integrations for Microsoft Teams so your team members can manage conversational AI flows from the platforms they already work with each day. It also allows you to link your system to archiving tools like Smarsh and Global Relay, so you can keep comprehensive records for compliance purposes.
Plus, the platform seamlessly integrates with CRM solutions like Salesforce, ensuring you can tap into customer data to personalize messages and AI interactions.
Future Trends: What’s Next for Sales AI?
Conversational AI is constantly evolving, introducing new opportunities for marketing, customer service, and sales teams. In the future, the opportunities for AI for B2B sales and B2C interactions will continue to grow as tools become more advanced and sophisticated.
Already, we’re beginning to see advancements in NLP algorithms that help conversational bots to understand nuance, intent, and sentiment when dealing with customers more effectively. Innovators in the AI landscape are also developing “agentic AI” solutions that can combine generative and conversational AI tools to manage entire workflows.
For instance, in the future, an autonomous bot will be able to act as a standalone part of a sales team, handling everything from prospecting to qualification, and even customer outreach, without any human oversight.
The convergence of conversational and generative AI is also leading to the creation of bots that can interact with customers in more formats than ever before. Many cutting-edge models can now understand not just what customers type, but also what they say (via voice). Some can also analyze and understand shared images and videos.
In the years to come, the power of conversational AI for sales will continue to grow. Though AI won’t replace the need for human workers, it will make sales teams more productive, efficient, and more effective at earning higher win rates.
Clerk Chat: Convenient Conversational AI for Sales
Ready to unlock the benefits of conversational AI for your sales teams? Start simple, with a comprehensive solution designed to empower your workforce, enhance productivity, improve customer satisfaction, and boost sales.
Clerk Chat’s comprehensive business messaging platform gives businesses access to a suite of tools they can use to strengthen connections with customers. You can use Clerk Chat AI to create sales text messages personalized to the needs of your customers, and send them to leads automatically. The intelligent bot can handle two-way conversations too.
For instance, it can respond to customer queries, guide them towards products based on their profile data, and even close deals on a sales professional’s behalf. Plus, Clerk Chat’s reporting and analytics tools are also enhanced by AI, ensuring you can make intelligent data-driven decisions that facilitate ongoing business growth.
Dive into the new era of conversational AI for sales with Clerk Chat today.
