Conversational AI
How do you stay on top of a full sales pipeline, continue to deliver personalized to every one of your outreach, and still discover ways to improve your sales process?
Sales reps spend only 30% of their time selling during an average week. Many high-performing sales leaders feel like there just aren't enough hours in a day to do all of the things they need to do.
You can't do all of this on your own, but with conversational AI, you can. This isn't just a technology that creates automated agents to take the load off your sales team — this is a tool that can transform lead and customer engagement.
Conversational AI goes beyond mere automation and fosters genuine interactions at scale by mimicking human conversations.
We've come a long way from the early agents that many people associate it with, Conversational AI for sales is much more advanced and scalable.
In this blog, we'll explore what conversational AI is in sales, its use cases, and choosing the right tool for implementation.
Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to agents and virtual agents that users can talk to. This technology combines Natural Language Processing (NLP) with machine learning to help imitate human interactions.
If you're wondering whether your sales team needs a conversational AI tool, ask these questions yourself:
If your answers are mostly yes, conversational AI will be a valuable asset for your sales team. Conversational AI can work all day, every day, so you don't have to worry about your lead’s queries and customer's needs, even after business hours.
Pre-sales communication is the primary challenge for businesses.
Only 7% of companies respond in five minutes or less to a prospect who submitted a form. And over 50% don't get back to people until five business days. This doesn't mean prospects are willing to be patient.
So, you either need to work around the clock and burn yourself out, or you can take advantage of technology that helps to expand upon your human capabilities.
A Statista report revealed that process automation and customer service are one of the two most popular applications of AI in American and European companies. Another survey result underlines that customer communication, time and resource optimization, and knowledge management are amongst the top challenges AI and prospective users aim to solve.
Among businesses that have already embraced AI, the top use cases include performing actions based on prompts (56%), analyzing sales data (51%), assisting with prospecting
(49%), and creating or summarizing content (46%).
These findings highlight the diverse applications of AI in sales, showing its extraordinary impact on sales management and operations. By leveraging AI, businesses can reduce time spent on manual processes.
The integration of AI into sales workflows allows teams to focus on high-value tasks, refine their sales tactics, and ultimately enhance productivity. As AI technology continues to evolve, its role
in optimizing sales strategies and performance will become even more integral to business success.
Conversational AI can help you scale your outreach processes and put your pipeline-filling activities at least partially on auto-pilot. This technology automates routine tasks, allowing the sales team to focus on closing deals that need human intervention.
Traditional customer support often faces limitations due to human resources constraints. On the other hand, AI is capable of handling a high volume of inquiries simultaneously, making it ideal for managing peak periods.
According to a recent report from Zendesk, around 80% of customer inquiries can be resolved using AI agents. So, you don’t always need an actual person to handle it. Most customers appreciate having conversational AI that's ready to help them 24/7
Conversational AI can seamlessly operate across various communication channels, including websites, social media, email, messaging apps, and more. This helps you scale your sales efforts without hiring more reps.
Automated transcription services provided by conversational AI platforms help sales teams parse through sales conversations, which is crucial for understanding customer needs and shortening sales cycles.
For example, Synthflow AI can automatically convert and analyze spoken language from sales calls into written text. As a result, the sales team can quickly identify your prospects' primary challenges, and the product/ features that were discussed without having to go through the entire recording of the call.
Sales leaders can use this information to develop campaigns and strategies to address customers' needs and challenges.
Conversational AI technology and automation guarantee quick issue resolution, allowing leaders to focus on refining the overall sales strategy. By using conversational AI for sales, sales teams can provide their customers with 24/7 access to their services, products, and support.
It effectively handles questions before or after sales, like store details, delivery returns, business hours, returns, and warranties. For more complex queries, AI can provide ongoing help like maintenance tips, software guides, and suggestions on how to use the product.
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the business landscape, its role in sales and marketing has become more critical than ever.
For many companies, AI adoption is still in its early stages–focused primarily on content creation, basic task automation and sales efficiency. But the realm of opportunity lies in advancing beyond these initial issues. By diving deeper into AI's capabilities, companies can unlock new levels of productivity, improve decision-making and drive revenue growth in ways that have yet to be fully realized.
Despite the remarkable humanlike capabilities of conversational AI agents and their use cases in sales and marketing, consumers find reassurance when interacting with a human agent. This is why a smooth human handoff is crucial for maintaining customer trust and interest.
Here are a few AI-human handoff scenarios that trigger human takeover from the bot:
With agent-to-human handoff, you make sure both your customers and our customer service agents can confidently use your conversational AI agent to resolve any queries.
According to Hubspot, sales representatives spend around 12% of their workday on scheduling appointments, which includes activities like reaching out to prospects, coordinating times, and matching calendars.
Sales teams need a dependable solution to simplify the booking process, reduce errors, and enhance customer satisfaction. This is where AI voice agents come in, providing a smarter way to schedule and manage appointments.
Furthermore, conversational AI can be programmed to send automatic messages to keep prospects engaged and move them through the sales funnel. This process reduces the chances of errors, such as overbookings or miscommunications, which are common in manual systems.
For instance, Synthflow AI helped Medbelle, a leading personal healthcare provider effectively handle inbound and outbound inquiries, and online appointment booking. With Synthflow, Medbelle was able to book 2.5x more qualified appointments and reduce no-shows by 30%.
With traditional methods, leads were qualified based on superficial factors such as job title or company size. Conversational AI, however, digs much deeper into analyzing lead actual interactions with the brand.
For instance, If a lead consistently engages with a brand or asks detailed questions about a service, conversational AI can score that lead higher.
Depending on the responses and other non-verbal indicators (reply frequency, sentiments, length of responses, etc.), the agent can perform lead qualification and scoring to aid salespersons.
Conversational AI takes a step further by nurturing qualified leads until they are ready to convert. Through continuous, personalized engagement, AI helps keep leads in the sales funnel by sending tailored follow-up messages, offers, or content.
Up to a third of your revenue comes from upselling, and between 70-95% of your revenue comes from upsells and renewals. So, your job is far from over once the initial contract is signed.
Current systems rely on pop offers or product suggestions integrated into customer service chats or checkout processes. These usually feel abrupt or out of context, potentially disrupting the customer's experience.
Conversational AI agents seamlessly integrate upselling and cross-selling into the conversation without interrupting the customer's journey. It analyzes the context of the interaction, and AI agents introduce suggestions as part of the conversation, making it look more helpful rather than pushy.
For example, if a customer buys a camera, the AI can probe better contextual dialogues to understand the needs of the customer, be it wildlife or amateur photography enthusiasts. It can suggest lenses based on their style of photography rather than simply suggesting generic camera accessories. It can also follow up after few months to suggest new accessories or battery replacement to upsell a product
Implementing conversational AI tools requires selecting the right platform that meets the unique needs of sales teams. Here are some of the critical factors to consider when choosing the right conversational platform:
Natural Language Understanding (NLU)Ability to comprehend customer queries in various formats (text, voice, multilingual support).Context awareness to handle complex or multi-turn conversations.Omni-Channel IntegrationSeamless support across platforms (e.g., website, mobile app, social media, messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc.).Sales-Specific FeaturesAbility to understand and refine:Lead qualification and scoringProduct recommendationsSales analytics and reportingPipeline managementScalability & PerformanceHandle a large volume of simultaneous conversations without compromising quality.AI-Driven InsightsAnalytics dashboard to track key performance metrics like conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and frequently asked questions.
Synthflow's no-code, drag-and-drop interface allows users to set up a voice agent in minutes without needing any technical knowledge or coding ability. It can seamlessly handle a large volume of calls across all timelines and languages.
Features:
Synthflow's features are highly advanced, and its use cases are well-suited for any business looking to automate aspects of its sales and marketing seamlessly.
Want to try a free demo to see how you can replace your traditional call centers with AI voice bots? Sign up here.