AI in sales: obstacles, issues and benefits

Sean Evers at Pipedrive shines a spotlight on some of the unorthodox yet high-impact sales strategies stemming from artificial intelligence

 

AI is everywhere - helping people perform better. Sales in particular is a battleground for business improvement because it is so central to success, and also able to be measured, tested, and improved, as it’s entirely metrics driven. It’s perfect for testing AI support and experimenting with new approaches.

 

Incorporating AI in sales is a great way to try different strategies while closely measuring results and tracking ROI and improvements to KPIs. Business development people are generally among the first to spot the benefits from utilising new tools and to demonstrate how they’ve enabled higher performance.

 

 

The end destination

Some immediate areas to explore can include predictive recommendations: using search and AI to identify customer and market trends that can inform sales strategy, customer segmentation, or even feedback for product development. Business development execs might also appreciate a co-pilot’s helping hand guiding them through product and pitch options as part of selling a complex deal. GenAI can be very helpful when trained on your offering and messaging, but that use case doesn’t need a particularly sophisticated AI model.

 

More advanced and exciting use cases revolve around personalisation. GenAi solutions are well-placed to develop personalised marketing materials that deliver strong messages at the right time and in the right place. GenAI-enabled chatbots can also help product discovery, offering users browsing the site tailored information and product suggestions that meet their profile or specific needs. And, of course, the digitalised nature of communications means that noting, recording, tracking, and analysing - all the administrative tasks that used to take salespeople away from their primary function - can be configured to happen automatically.

 

It’s worth it. AI can become the hardest-working sales team assistant, taking care of tiresome admin tasks. That frees up time for professionals to spend building relationships, understanding customer needs, and closing deals. These are the things customers - people - understand and value from their suppliers.

 

Our report into The evolving role of AI in sales workload management uncovered that AI adoption is seen as a must-have, with 80% of sales professionals using AI or planning to adopt it soon. And one of the most impactful findings showed that AI users spent more time on strategic activities than non-users. AI may help organisations shift their focus from volume and scale to efficiency and effectiveness.

 

 

The route to success: overcoming obstacles

There are obstacles to overcome on the path to the AI-enabled vision of the future sales function. Beyond obvious barriers such as budgets, procurement, compliance requirements and data security and safety, teams will encounter resistance across cultural factors, training and knowledge, and working practices.

 

For example, in a culturally siloed working environment, where people don’t collaborate within or across teams and departments, AI, like any other strategic initiative, won’t be adopted effectively. If AI best practices and insights from its use are guarded jealously, there will be uneven pockets of excellence.

 

AI integration must go hand-in-hand with conscious collaboration. AI adoption can and should reshape the dynamics within sales teams and the velocity of their interactions with other teams like finance, marketing, and product design. It’s not ideal to have one team moving forward at pace and others acting like an anchor.

 

The same obstacle holds true across roles. It’s not just managers who should benefit from AI tools; sales executives also deserve tailored solutions addressing their specific needs. The business must ensure that AI integration fosters collaboration, aligns with the diverse needs of teams and roles, and brings departments together so that they function as a stronger collective.

 

Unsurprisingly, training and knowledge are also critical to AI success in sales. The report showed a gap in AI adoption rates between managers and salespeople. Comprehensive training empowers teams to leverage AI effectively and ensure that benefits flow across the organisation. Any solution relying on prompt engineering to any degree really should be coupled with training to ensure that users understand how to frame questions, communicate clearly, and apply logical thinking when parsing the AI-suggested results.

 

Additionally, context is key, which only well-rounded users can bring to the human-AI relationship. AI cannot replace a human’s common sense, which includes knowing their market and having a strong sense of reasonable outputs and suggestions.

 

Working practices must also change - for the better. Delegation to machines is a natural part of smarter working in any industry, from carpentry to car sales. Salespeople must utilise AI for repetitive and administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on activities that drive revenue and build customer relationships. This creates a more balanced and productive workflow and gives them something to show off in their next review.

 

 

The route to success: paths to consider

Despite its growing adoption, AI usage is still higher among sales managers (41%) than among salespeople (31%) according to our report. This indicates a need for more accessible AI tools and tailored training programmes. Organisations investing in AI training should ensure that all team members, not just managers, benefit from its capabilities, increasing ROI and companywide benefits. Specifically, role-specific AI training equips managers and salespeople with the expertise tailored to their roles and career paths.

 

Additionally, AI is redefining workload efficiency by enabling smarter delegation. The report finds that 60% of sales professionals prefer to delegate data entry and administrative work to AI, freeing up more time for customer engagement and revenue-generating activities. Delegation, teamwork, interdepartmental collaboration - all the human-to-human side of the business can be reviewed and improved with digitisation, such that people can find more time to speak more about more important topics.

 

All in all, a balance of automation and human interaction is necessary. While AI can handle many tasks, skilled people remain irreplaceable in building trust and fostering customer loyalty, in representing the business, and creatively solving customers’ needs.

 

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Sean Evers is VP of Sales & Channel Partnerships at Pipedrive; their report The evolving role of AI in sales workload management is available here

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and Marco Marca