In essence, the sales activity is an interaction between people. What happens when the sales team decides to adopt Artificial Intelligence tools? Everything works in theory, but how is it in reality? Does it harm human relations?
To answer these questions, we decided to elaborate on this special article. Once in for all, understand the impact of AI for sales and find out if it can be a friend or an enemy of your team.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence is the use of technologies that allows systems and machines to learn and mimic activities connected with human intelligence. This is the case of visual perception, decision making and voice recognition. The goal is to perform cognitive tasks as if flesh and bones people were in charge.
In practice, it is about a set of algorithms that enable machines to make predictions based on data already acquired and, thus, intelligently adapt to situations.
According to a study conducted by IBM, only 1 in 5 organizations do not intend to adopt Artificial Intelligence. Having said that, the question arises:
Does it help or harm my business?
There are some negative points that can make many leaders and managers skeptics about AI. One is the fact that Artificial Intelligence is only as good as the data that is fed into it.
What we mean to say is that there is no magic, because if the data is of poor quality, predictions and automations will be impaired.
There are also those who see another problem in AI: the replacement of salespeople and sales representatives. Part of that is because there is a sci-fi vision when the concept is approached. Many of us think of machines and robots taking human positions.
However, having this thought means underestimating the sales B2B and all the purchase process evolution. After all, a chat bot, for example, can only serve to take orders, but you know as well as us that selling doesn’t mean just taking orders.
There is a strategic part of sales activities that many people forget to consider, to talk about them (and help you answer weather AI harm or benefits your business), check out the next topic:
How can AI be applied in my area?
You saw some points that can be a barrier for the adoption of AI. To be fair, we want to show you the positive side. For that, we separated 5 ways in which AI can be applied in sales area.
- Sales provision and Lead scoring: Which clients are more prone to purchase the products and services of your company and which business are more likely to close business?
- Improves the CRM use: the automated collecting and analysis of large amounts of Prospects and customer’s data. Thus, it provides the salesperson with deeper insights into the current and potential clients.
- Improves precision in predictive analysis: : one of the activities that takes a considerable amount of time for sales managers is predictive predictions. Prediction tools enabled by AI analyses performance patterns to predict possibilities of closing sales.
- Debugging: everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Depending on the situation, an error can cost a lot of money, as is the case of wrongly registered information that may prejudice the salesperson’s contact with the Lead. The AI automates and optimizes many of the sales activities, reducing the chances of error in many process steps.
- Improvement in decision-making: los algoritmos de inteligencia artificial pueden ser entrenados para analizar datos e indicar las tomadas de decisiones más precisas. A partir de eso, gestores pueden evaluar las alternativas que poseen y, a la hora de tomar acción, cuentan con informaciones concretas (y abren mano de las teorías y la parcialidad).
So, what do you have to say? Can Artificial Intelligence help or harm your business?
Here at Prospecta we have a very clear perspective: every strategic sales team needs quality data and technology.
It is true that AI has a lot to evolve, but it has already shown how much it helps to create a commercial team that is more centered on human interaction. That’s because Artificial Intelligence gives sellers more time to be strategic.
What is your opinion on the topic? Share with us what you think about it.