Complete Guide To Conversational AI for Sales

When we think of conversational AI, our minds often jump to chatbots and customer support, right? However, there’s more to it than that.

You can use this technology for sales as well! Don’t believe us? Take a look at these statistics:

• Conversational AI can boost e-commerce sales by 67%.
• Over half (54%) of companies are already using conversational AI.

If you want to know more about using conversational AI for sales, keep reading.

In this guide, we’ll explain conversational AI, offer examples of its use in sales, and provide actionable tips to implement conversational AI effectively for sales purposes.

What is Conversational AI?

Image Source: Goodmeetings

Here’s a simple definition by IBM.

“Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) refers to technologies, such as chatbots or virtual agents, that users can talk to. They use large volumes of data, machine learning and natural language processing to help imitate human interactions, recognizing speech and text inputs and translating their meanings across various languages.”

This technology combines techniques like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to comprehend what you’re saying and provide relevant responses. It’s commonly used in,

• Chatbots
• Virtual assistants
• Automated customer service systems

Related: 10 Best Sales Intelligence Software For 2024

How Does It Work?

Conversational AI works by combining different technologies to understand and respond to human language naturally. Here’s a simplified breakdown of how it typically works:

Image Source: Goodmeetings

1. Natural Language Understanding (NLU): Processes user input (spoken or written) to grasp its meaning by analyzing keywords, entities, and context.
2. Intent Recognition: Identifies the user’s goal by matching input with predefined tasks or intentions that the AI can handle.
3. Dialogue Management: Determines the appropriate response or action based on user intent, managing the conversation flow.
4. Generation of Response: Creates a relevant response in natural language, considering the user’s input and context.
5. Machine Learning and Feedback Loop: Enables continuous learning and improvement by training the AI model with user interactions and feedback.

Example of Conversational AI

Alexa is a virtual assistant powered by conversational AI that can understand voice commands and respond to questions or perform tasks. You can ask Alexa to play music, set reminders, provide weather updates, control smart home devices, and much more, all through natural language interaction.

It’s a prime example of how conversational AI is transforming the way we interact with technology in our daily lives.

Related: How to Use Generative AI for Sales Success

Role of Conversational AI in Sales

Conversational AI in sales refers to the use of artificial intelligence technology to improve sales processes through natural language interactions.

It involves using AI-powered chatbots, virtual assistants, or other conversational interfaces to engage with customers, address their queries, and guide them through the sales journey.

Conversational AI in sales can assist with,

• Lead generation
• Product recommendations
• Order processing
• Customer support
• Upselling and cross-selling
• Feedback collection
• Appointment scheduling

By using this technology, businesses aim to improve customer engagement, streamline sales operations, and ultimately increase revenue.

Use of Conversational AI for Sales – Example

Source: Goodmeetings

One practical application of Conversational AI for the sales team is GoodMeetings. It is a sales meeting insights software that uses conversational AI to streamline meeting management for sales teams. It assists in capturing meeting details, providing automated summaries, and offering real-time assistance during sales interactions. This AI-driven approach boosts sales productivity and helps to close more deals.

Related: 40+ ChatGPT Prompts To Supercharge Your Sales

Benefits of Using Conversational AI for Sales

In an IBM study, 99% of respondents reported that using AI-driven virtual agent technology led to an increase in customer satisfaction.

Using Conversational AI for sales and marketing offers many other benefits like,

1. Better Customer Engagement

Conversational sales AI tools like chatbots create a friendly and accessible way for customers to interact with a business. By promptly answering questions and providing assistance, they make customers feel welcomed and valued, encouraging them to engage more with the brand.

2. Increased Sales Efficiency

With AI-powered assistants handling routine tasks such as sorting through leads and setting up appointments, sales representatives can dedicate their time to building meaningful relationships with customers and focusing on closing deals. This streamlines the sales process and allows for more productive use of time.

3. Personalized Customer Interactions

Conversational AI technology enables businesses to understand each customer’s unique preferences and needs by analyzing their behavior and past interactions. With this knowledge, businesses can tailor their communication and product recommendations to match each customer’s interests, leading to more relevant and engaging interactions.

4. 24/7 Availability

Conversational AI bots for sales are always ready to assist customers, regardless of the time of day. This around-the-clock availability ensures that customers can get the help they need whenever they have questions or need assistance, improving overall customer satisfaction and loyalty.

5. Data-driven Insights

Conversational AI platforms collect valuable data about customer interactions, such as frequently asked questions, common pain points, and preferences. By analyzing this data, businesses can gain valuable insights into their customers’ needs and behaviors, allowing them to refine their sales strategies and make data-driven decisions that drive success.

6. Scalability

Conversational AI for sales allows businesses to handle a large volume of customer inquiries and interactions without increasing staffing levels. As customer demand fluctuates, conversational AI bots for sales can easily scale to meet the needs of the business, ensuring consistent support and service for customers.

7. Consistency

Conversational AI for the sales team ensures consistency in customer interactions by adhering to predefined scripts and guidelines. Unlike human agents, AI-powered assistants deliver the same level of service and information every time, reducing the risk of errors or inconsistencies in communication.

8. Cost-effectiveness

Implementing Conversational AI for sales and marketing can lead to cost savings for businesses by reducing the need for human agents to handle routine inquiries and tasks. With AI handling these repetitive tasks, businesses can allocate their human resources more efficiently, focusing on higher-value activities.

Related: A Complete Guide to Sales Call Reporting: Tips, Templates & Tools

Conversational AI for Sales – Use Cases

Did you know? Sales representatives spend approximately 8.8 hours per week looking for information about their potential customers. Also, they use around 32% of their total time trying to enter data into their CRM system.

But now, you can save all this time by using conversational AI for the sales team. Here are the different ways you can use this technology in sales:

1. Lead Qualification and Generation (Prospecting)

Lead generation presents a significant challenge in both sales and marketing efforts. Nevertheless, the widespread adoption of conversational sales AI tools, such as chatbots, for capturing valuable leads speaks volumes about their effectiveness.

Businesses can deploy conversational AI bots for sales on their websites or social media channels to interact with potential customers and gather their information. This approach is often more engaging and less intrusive compared to traditional contact forms.

By analyzing responses and other cues like sentiments and response frequency, chatbots can assist sales teams in qualifying and scoring leads, streamlining the sales process.

Related: 15 Best AI Sales Tools & Software [2024]

2. Appointment Scheduling

Booking appointments becomes easy with AI-powered chatbots or virtual assistants. These assistants can efficiently schedule sales meetings, product demos, or consultations with sales representatives, reducing manual effort and streamlining the process.

For instance, HDFC Bank uses a conversational chatbot named “Eva”, developed with Google Assistant. Eva facilitates various banking services such as bill payments and ticker purchases for the bank’s cardholders. This integration significantly improved response efficiency, accurately addressing 5 million user queries with an 85% accuracy rate.

3. Product Recommendations

Conversational AI for sales and marketing analyzes data about customers’ browsing history and past purchases to suggest relevant products. When customers interact with chatbots, they receive personalized recommendations tailored to their interests and preferences. This improves the customer experience and increases the likelihood of making a sale.

4. Sales Pitch Assistance

During sales presentations or interactions, chatbots provide real-time support to sales representatives. They offer product information, answer questions, and provide guidance to help sales reps deliver compelling pitches and close deals successfully.

Related: Complete Guide to Sales Battlecards – What Are They and How to Use Them?

5. Customer Support

Conversational AI for sales provides instant assistance to customers by answering their questions and resolving issues. Whether it’s troubleshooting a problem or providing product information, chatbots are available 24/7 to support customers, improving satisfaction and loyalty.

6. Order Processing

Chatbots guide customers through the order process, from product selection to payment completion. They answer questions about products, provide shipping information, and ensure a smooth transaction experience. This reduces friction in the buying process and increases conversion rates.

7. Sales Training and Coaching

Using conversation intelligence technology in sales teams is powerful for coaching and supporting sales agents. Chatbots act as internal resources, aiding sales reps in personalizing and enriching customer interactions. They help with sales pitches, objections, and deal closures, making conversations more impactful.

These tools provide real-time insights for adjusting techniques and strategies and improving win rates. They also store recordings useful for training new team members. With Conversational AI, you can also speed up the onboarding process.

Related: How to Use AI For Sales Training – Tools and Best Practices

8. Follow-up Communication

After a purchase or interaction, chatbots can send personalized follow-up messages to customers. These messages can include order confirmations, delivery updates, or recommendations for related products. By staying in touch with customers, chatbots help foster long-term relationships and repeat business.

9. Custom Feedback and Surveys

Customer feedback and surveys are crucial for understanding your customers’ thoughts and feelings, which ultimately enhances their experience. By showing that you value their opinions, you can improve customer satisfaction and, in turn, increase profitability and sales revenue.

Conversational AI for sales and marketing can help collect feedback and conduct surveys after every interaction with customers. It can also analyze their sentiments during conversations to adjust sales strategies accordingly. Essentially, it’s like peeking into your customers’ minds to better serve them.

Related: 10 Critical Sales Communication Skills For Success in 2024

10. Upselling and Cross-selling

Conversational AI for marketing and sales can also assist in upselling and cross-selling efforts by analyzing customer behavior and preferences. Based on past purchases or interactions, chatbots can recommend complementary or upgraded products to customers, increasing the value of their purchase and maximizing revenue opportunities. This personalized approach enhances the customer experience and fosters additional sales opportunities.

11. Eliminating Note-Taking

Data shows that sales teams dedicate approximately 30% of their time to grasping the main points from sales talks, which often include dull tasks such as note-taking. With conversational intelligence, this task becomes automated, freeing up time to focus on conversations and ask better questions.

It not only automates note-taking but also organizes data neatly. Regular feedback improves the technology, offering better suggestions during calls, and helping close deals faster. Automation also helps track important information and prompts reps for the next steps, ensuring smooth sales progress.

12. Sales Call and Meeting Analytics

Conversational AI for sales aids in call and meeting analytics by recording and transcribing interactions and identifying key topics, sentiments, and engagement levels. It analyzes data to provide insights into customer preferences, objections, and sales performance.

This information helps sales teams refine their strategies, improve communication effectiveness, and identify areas for growth. Additionally, AI-driven analytics enable better decision-making, leading to increased efficiency and success in sales efforts.

Related: Sales Analytics 101: Definition, Tools and Metrics

Best Practices of Using Conversational AI in Sales

Using conversational AI effectively is crucial for achieving desired outcomes, as it depends on data and artificial intelligence. Here are some best practices you can follow for the successful implementation of conversational AI for marketing and sales:

1. Align with Sales Objectives

Before deploying Conversational AI, clearly define your sales objectives and align AI initiatives with these goals. Whether it’s increasing lead generation, improving customer engagement, or boosting sales productivity, ensure that your AI strategy supports these objectives.

2. Data Quality and Accessibility

Make sure that your AI systems have access to high-quality, relevant data to fuel accurate decision-making and personalized interactions. Regularly clean and update your data to maintain its accuracy and relevance.

3. Train AI Models Effectively

Invest time and resources in training AI models to understand your specific sales context, customer preferences, and product offerings. Continuous training and refinement are essential to ensure that AI systems provide relevant and accurate responses to user queries.

4. Balance Automation and Human Touch

While automation can streamline sales processes and improve efficiency, it’s essential to maintain a human touch in customer interactions. Provide options for users to escalate to human agents when needed, especially for complex inquiries or sensitive issues.

5. Monitor Performance and Iterate

Regularly monitor the performance of your Conversational AI systems using relevant metrics such as customer satisfaction, response accuracy, and conversion rates. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and iterate on your AI solutions accordingly.

6. Compliance and Security

Adhere to data privacy regulations and implement robust security measures to protect customer data handled by Conversational AI systems. Prioritize transparency and consent when collecting and using customer data to build trust and credibility.

7. Provide Seamless Integration

Integrate Conversational AI seamlessly into your existing sales processes, CRM systems, and communication channels. This ensures smooth data flow and enables sales teams to leverage AI insights effectively in their day-to-day activities.

Related: AI in Sales 101: Unveiling Tools and Best Practices to Transform Your Sales Strategy

5 Best Sales Conversational AI Software and Tools

With so many sales AI tools vying for attention, we’ve done the research for you. Here are five top conversational AI tools for sales, including pricing details, features, and ratings.

1. Goodmeetings

G2 Rating:4.7

Source: Goodmeetings

According to Gartner, by 2025, around 80% of B2B sales interactions between sellers and buyers will happen online. And one of the best ways to analyze and get insights from these virtual interactions is by using conversational sales AI tools like Goodmeetings.

Goodmeetings is a leading AI-powered platform that uses conversational intelligence to help sales teams close more deals by recording, transcribing, summarizing and analyzing online sales conversations.

With features like call recording, high-quality transcriptions, and AI-generated insights, it streamlines sales processes and improves productivity. Goodmeetings also offers integrations with popular tools like Google Calendar, Zoom, and Salesforce, ensuring seamless workflow integration.

Trusted by revenue teams worldwide, it saves time, boosts efficiency, and ultimately drives revenue growth by helping sales reps perform better using sales meeting insights.

Features

• Record Meetings: Capture important discussions to gather useful insights and details.
• Accurate Transcripts: Get precise written records of meetings for reference and analysis.
• Call Analysis: Study call data to understand performance and find areas to improve.
• Summarized Action Points: Receive short summaries and tasks from meetings to quickly understand key points.
• Screenshare Analysis: Understand customer engagement during screensharing.
• Sentiment Analysis: Evaluate customer feelings during meetings to gauge interest and satisfaction.
• Personalized Reports: Create custom dashboards to monitor specific metrics and goals.
• Deal Intelligence: Understand client performance to make informed decisions and plan strategies.
• Sales Team Performance Tracking: Monitor sales team performance to boost efficiency.
• AI-Based Nudges & Battlecards: Receive guidance and battlecards to handle inquiries and objections.
• Live Coaching: Get real-time guidance from experienced leaders during tough conversations.
• Questionnaires: Automatically collect answers to custom questions for lead scoring.
• Highlight Moments: Note important parts of customer conversations for tailored service.
• Multi-language Support: Serve diverse clients with support for various languages.
• Easy Search: Quickly find information using filters and keywords.
• Topic Identification: Filter and extract key topics from meeting data.
• Meeting Storage: Organize recorded meetings in a central database.
• Track Performance: Monitor essential meeting metrics like talk-to-listen ratio and word usage.
• Integration: Sync Goodmeetings with popular CRMs, video conferencing tools, collaboration platforms and more.
• Security Measures: Benefit from robust security features like data encryption and GDPR compliance.

Pricing

• Professional: $50 per month (billed annually)
• Business: $75 per month (billed annually)

You will also get a 7-day free trial.

Related: Getting Started with the Goodmeetings Notetaker

2. Gong

G2 Rating:4.7

Source: Gong

Gong is a platform for revenue intelligence and conversational AI for sales. It offers insights into potential customers based on interactions from phone calls, emails, and video calls. It provides valuable insights from sales interactions, predicts revenue, and identifies opportunities.

Features

• Capture sales communications
• Call recording and analysis
• Customer scoring
• Real-time nudges
• Deal qualification
• Supports integrations with various apps

Pricing

It depends on the license type you choose.

Related: Gong Alternatives: Gong Competitors You Must Consider in 2024

3. Chorus

G2 Rating:4.5

Source: ZoomInfo

Chorus.ai by ZoomInfo provides recording, onboarding, and performance solutions tailored for sales teams. It includes a built-in training platform to coach representatives using insights from their interactions. Chorus also offers insights on deals, manages relationships, gathers market information, and connects data to help businesses grow their revenue.

Features

• Backed by 14 technology patents
• Capture and analyze customer calls, meetings, and emails
• Deal intelligence and relationship management
• Coaching and collaboration
• Advanced analytics
• Integrates with many other tools

Pricing

Contact the sales team.

Related: 10 Best Meeting Recording Software to Consider in 2024

4. Salesken

G2 Rating:4.9

Source: Salesken

Salesken’s conversational AI for sales gives instant advice during customer talks. It checks if customers like your pitch using current data. Sales reps can quickly tweak their messages for better results. Salesken also tracks customer feelings and helps make talks focused and interesting, boosting conversion rates.

Features

• Cally monitoring and summary
• Pitch score
• Post call analytics
• Transcription and recording
• Coaching and learning
• Revenue insights and predictability

Pricing

Request for a custom quote.

Related: ChatGPT for Sales: 10 Ways to Boost Your Sales Revenue Using ChatGPT

5. Jiminny

G2 Rating: 4.6

Source: Jiminny

Jiminny is a sales communication tool that records customer calls and uses artificial intelligence to find patterns. It then shows insights on a dashboard for Sales and Customer Success teams. You can use it to track and analyze sales conversations to get crucial insights for closing more deals.

Features

• Sales performance tracking
• Sales call monitoring
• Sales call analytics
• Get deal insights
• Pipeline visibility tools 
• Sales coaching tools

Pricing

Contact the sales team for a personalized pricing plan.

Related: 11 Effective Ways To Improve Sales Conversations & Drive More Revenue

Wrapping Up

Conversational AI for sales makes it easier to understand how people talk and helps businesses connect better with customers. It’s like having a smart helper that learns from every conversation. You can use it for almost everything from – lead qualification and personalizing interaction to booking appointments and taking notes during meetings.

With tools like Goodmeetings, your sales team can harness the power of AI to understand customers better and close deals faster. If you want to make your sales team more efficient and close deals faster, give Goodmeetings a try!