It may seem like artificial intelligence would almost exclusively be used for high-tech industries, but surprisingly, this technology can also be applied to sales teams in almost any industry. The term artificial intelligence was first coined in 1955, and is defined as a man-made machine that is able to simulate human intelligence and problem solve issues that are typically reserved for human cognition.

1. HOW
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
CAN HELP YOUR SALES
ORGANIZATION
Mark Hozza

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has always been
the subject of wonder in science fiction
thrillers and real-world applications. As
technology has advanced in recent years, AI
has proven to be successful and relevant in
many industries, including sales because of
its ability to generate new leads and quantify
unstructured data.

3. WHAT ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE IS
AND WHAT IT ISN'T
Believe it or not, the term Artificial Intelligence was actually
coined in 1955 by a computer scientist.
AI is a man-made machine, able to simulate human intelligence
and solve problems that are typically reserved for human
cognition.
Unlike robots, machines that are programmed to complete
physical tasks, AI uses developed software, machine learning,
and sometimes complex algorithms to solve complex problems
and interact with humans in a meaningful way.

4. GENERATING
LEADS
Sales processes are consistently being evaluated for their efficiency and
effectiveness to keep up with the changing times. Not too long ago, sales
representatives followed up on every lead via telephone and worked
tirelessly to increase their closing rates every month.
At some point, you’ve probably had to make a call and are exasperated to
learn that the recipient of your call is a robot rather than a customer
service professional on the other end.
Developers at Conversica have taken notice to this problem, particularly
in the realm of sales and created an AI assistant that interacts with
potential clients through email and phone, generating conversations and
returning inquiries 24/7. Rather than just patching through a leader to an
available sales rep, Conversica assistants are given a human name and
participate in a couple or several interactions to qualify the potential lead
before their information ever gets sent to the reps.

5. Generating promising leads is a challenge for any industry, and
research vendors in the life sciences industry can especially
have difficulty because it’s such a specialized field. Acenna is
an up and coming artificial intelligence application that pores
over research data to come up with quality leads for the sales
department, limiting the amount of time spent sales spends
trying to find prospective buyers.
Gone are the days where sales reps can close leads through
stale template-style emails that are mass sent to potential
leads. Sales reps must be mindful of how they spend their time
and what leads they choose to go after, and with the help of AI
programs like Conversica and Acenna, reps can rely less on
cold-calling and focus their efforts on strong leads.

6. GATHERING
UNSTRUCTUREDDATAAI has incredible potential to gather immense amounts of
unstructured data, data that can’t be found in a database, about
customers and piecing it together in a way that makes sense.
Every sales team has the ability to gather huge amounts of data from
their leads through communications like emails and For example, a
single customer may interact with several social media sites, but up
until recently, compiling this information would be incredibly time-
consuming for someone to do and our machines were not capable of
cataloguing these interactions for a single person. AI is beginning to
be able to create these types of profiles for customers and potential
leads so that the best possible sales rep for that particular client is
assigned to their request.

7. Whileartificialintelligencestillhasawaytogobeforeit’s
completelyseamlessbetweencustomerandmachine,
butnewdevelopmentsshouldbefollowedbysales
teamsthatwanttobeonthecuttingedgeoftechnology
andgivecustomersthebestexperiencepossible.