AI is already influencing sales

AI or Artificial Intelligence applies machine learning techniques to solve problems. Machine learning is based on the concept of computers being able to learn and adapt through analysing patterns and trends in data.

Sales organisations and sales teams are always on the lookout for ways to increase revenue. AI can carry out complex data insights to drive sales and organisational performance. As a sales tool, AI technology allows sales operations to automate and anticipate predictable and regular tasks, to influence sales planning and decision making at a managerial level. AI is already influencing sales in some of the following areas.

Lead Generation

Although many companies prioritise customer service, all sales people know and understand that generating new leads takes time. Sales people devote hours of their week prospecting through sending emails and making calls, in the hope of gaining new clients. This is where AI is playing a major role in saving time. AI can automate personalised engagement with prospective clients via email or website chat bots providing the most relevant information, with the most appropriate tone and wording.

Price Optimisation

Understanding how much discount and flexibility sales employees need to offer can be key to clinching a deal whilst maintaining profitability. AI algorithms can tell a sales people the precise level of discount that they should provide, based on past purchases and deals that have been won and lost. The attributes usually analysed, amongst many others are: industry, company size and likelihood to repeat purchase.

Upselling and Cross-selling

AI algorithms can highlight and alert sales people when clients need to upgrade their existing product or service. The same goes for cross selling. AI algorithms can advise sales people about alternative products which will work with and alongside the client’s current product. Thus, enabling the client to have an all-round better user experience not only with the initial product, but through the relationship that’s been built through the recommendation.

Predicting Employee Attrition

Employee attrition is a paramount concern for Sales Managers. AI applications plugged into the company CRM and can identify high performing and low performing employees using a number of factors, alerting Sales Managers when action needs to be taken. It can also identify whether or not the sales team needs more members, based on factors such as sales revenue generated, client waiting time and number of leads. AI can also give an understanding of  who the top performing sales people are in the team, based on a number of factors such as self-generated vs marketing generated business. Having this knowledge enables Sales Managers to share insights and best practices across the team and employ new sales people with competencies that are consistent with the top achievers.

Where is AI influencing sales management today?

With approximately 62% of businesses now using AI in one form or another to generate growth, it is undeniable that AI is providing benefits to sales teams. It is therefore clear that the future of sales management also lies within the ever improving and evolving AI.

Today, Sales Managers and AI are learning to work with each other. AI allows Sales Managers to predict with accuracy and speed by looking at data such as average deal length, average deal size and stage in the sales cycle. With solutions like Salesdirector.ai the days of number crunching may be numbered for Sales Managers. SalesDirector.ai was created to automate and amalgamate cross departmental data to deliver insights to sales leaders. The platform provides Sales Leaders with key data for coaching their teams to success. With such technology readily available, Sales Management is already becoming more focussed on than upstream reporting. Future Sales Managers will be able to focus more on complex tasks such as handling customer objectives and motivating underperforming sales people.

Will AI replace sales management?

Matthew King of Good AM Ventures has predicted that 95% of sales people will be replaced by AI. This is because of the economic value it will provide and from a sales perspective, most successful sales deals are built on fairly replicable and easy to automate patterns of interactions and relationship building.

Although AI will be able to predict movements, trends and data within sales, it is still in the very early stages. It’s hard to determine the role AI will play within sales management and how it will manipulate the landscape of sales.

A Sales Manager can play a decisive role in winning over a client and gaining their trust, particularly through face-to-face meetings. It is important to recognise at this moment in time most of the decisions in sales still require insight beyond what artificial intelligence can discover from data alone. That being said, there are certain roles that only a human Sales Manager can fulfil. AI can’t (at this time) make empathetic, human decisions. Meaning it can’t replace social interaction between the Sales Manager and their employees, which is such a crucial part of the sales management role. Sales people need the assistance, drive and determination of the Sales Manager behind them to hit their targets. This is something that simply cannot be achieved using machine learning.

Future Sales Managers will spend most of their time on:

• Creating a good work place culture
• Building and maintaining relationships with customers and employees
• Hiring and upscaling a high performance sales team
• Being able to mentor and coach individual sales people to success

AI will still make mistakes (albeit very few), therefore there also needs to be someone looking out for those mistakes and able to correct them. The Sales Manager is the most obvious choice for this role. This means client relationships and leads will need to be monitored more closely so that the big opportunities aren’t misplaced in the vast amounts of data derived from AI.

AI is going to take more time to evolve. It could be 50 years before sales people are sitting face-to-face with a robotic Sales Manager! No matter how sales teams use AI, the decision-makers in the company should see it as crucial to their future and success.