The Smartest Thing at Dreamforce: How AI Transforms Sales
Selling isn’t easy. Every day reps face challenges that test their mettle, which is why a massive 45.4 percent of salespeople don’t meet their targets. But thanks to an increase in cheap computing power and accessible data, Salesforce launched a new AI-powered CRM add-on called Einstein at Dreamforce in 2016.
A year later, Einstein is set to wow Dreamforce again with AI’s latest abilities to improve how businesses target leads and close sales. With less than two weeks until the big event, let’s take a closer look at the power of these innovations.
The challenges sales reps face finding the right leads
For reps, generating a lead is the first logical step in connecting your business’ sales process to the buying journey of a prospect. Unfortunately, as this KISSmetrics infographic illustrates, an incredible 79 percent of marketing leads never convert into sales.
Finding high quality sales leads creates its own set of unique challenges. Miscommunication between marketing and sales, information accuracy and time management are just a few obstacles to success that sales teams face.
If reps don’t have access to the right data, at the right time, they will struggle to make sales. By relieving these unnecessary pressures, effective lead generation frees sales reps to focus all their efforts on the right opportunities.
How AI can help with lead prioritization
Einstein Lead Scoring uses the power of AI to spot patterns in your historical sales data, allowing you to sort through your highest value leads based on their likelihood to convert. As a result, reps can predict which leads to prioritize, while also gaining a better understanding of what factors make prospects want to buy.
It’s no secret that most businesses constantly evolve; what a quality lead looks like today can change at any point in the future. Fortunately, Einstein’s machine learning capabilities continually improves the accuracy of its own predictions, future-proofing your lead prioritization efforts.
Let’s say you’re a tech business working in a niche market. By analyzing current sales data, Einstein discovers companies in several industries not previously identified as targets download a whitepaper from your website. Based on your organizational needs, the AI’s predictive abilities will tell you which new opportunities to purse and what leads are the most likely to convert.
The challenges sales reps face closing sales
Generating a greater number of high-quality leads means your sales team will be busy. However, it’s going to end up counting for nothing if your conversion process means those better qualified leads still fall through the cracks.
Having more deals on the go often increases decision times and the number of admin tasks sales reps must perform on a day-to-day basis. In the worst-case scenario, this can cause delays that send prospects cold while increasing the ratio of deals that go dead.
Selling requires a lot of work when you do it right, but it takes even more when you do it wrong. For this reason, making sure your reps have everything they need to get sales over the line is fundamental to success.
How AI can help close sales
Einstein Account Insights analyzes all your sales data to reveal trigger points based on customer sentiment and overall prospect engagement. Using historic signals, it can then provide sales reps with recommendations on the best course of action to increase the likelihood of closing a sale.
AI can also help reps to work smarter with their time. On average, it takes up to six calls to convert 93 percent of leads but due to the time constraints, the typical salesperson only makes two attempts to reach a prospect. Thanks to its AI-powered capabilities, Einstein identifies the best times to make follow-up calls, allowing reps to keep on top of deals, even when workloads increase.
If you’re looking to learn more about all things Einstein during Dreamforce, NewVoiceMedia is hosting a Nov. 6 session called “Conversation Analyzer powered by Einstein Analytics: Unlock Hidden Insights from Customer Conversations.” NewVoiceMedia's latest product, Conversation Analyzer, provides Salesforce customers with a powerful new capability that leverages rep-customer interactions to dramatically enhance the customer experience and drive inside sales and contact center efficiencies. Learn more about the session here.
Click here to see what else we’ll be up to during the big event. Or better yet, book a meeting, so we can give you an in-depth demonstration of how we can help you have more successful conversations.
To learn more about taking your sales strategy to the next level with analytics, take a look at NewVoiceMedia’s whitepaper, Growing business performance indicators: what to measure.
