The Bionic Salesperson: A future of fusing Talent with Artificial Intelligence

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas J. Watson Jr., President, IBM (1943)

This infamous quote features regularly on lists of “Tech Predictions that went Hilariously Wrong” and I couldn’t help but be reminded of it when I saw this quote by Ginni Rometty:

“Within a few years, every major decision — personal or business — will be made with the help of AI and cognitive technologies,”

Maybe. Probably. But it's not happening yet. It feels like there is a section of the market, driven by a desire to appear cutting edge and raise share prices, has largely overstated how far we have come with AI, and how much it supports front office business systems.

Without doubt, if we let developments continue, the technology will eventually get to a stage where AI in Customer Experience (CX) Software Suites, including CRM will provide real, actionable input and value for customers, but that is much further away than the “AI evangelists” would like you to believe.

AI, today, offers snippets of raw information – weather reports, news items, etc. Some of it may be useful, but ultimately the information is relevant only in the broadest sense. It is not customised in a way that can be instinctively useful. The much publicised team-up of IBM’s Watson and Salesforce’s Einstein refers to their AI as “combining local shopping patterns, weather and retail industry data from Watson with customer-specific shopping data and preferences”. But that’s not AI! At best, that’s an intelligent search engine.

To be ‘true’ AI, it needs to first know what’s happening in real-time and in context. Once it knows this, it needs to provide human-like coaching support as needed - not just data, but relevant and timely information based on preferences and predicted outcomes. Take the salesperson for example. They would greatly benefit from AI support. What difference would that make? Below, I play-out what I feel a true CRM AI should be able to do to help a salesperson prepare and execute a cold call to a prospect.

Meet the Bionic Salesperson: Working in harmony with AI:

Before the Call:

A seasoned salesperson knows that the prep before the call is just as important as the call itself. So the AI will provide critical assistance during this phase of the meeting-booking process as follows:

1.      AI the prospect’s social and web presence for phrases and quotes that can help you ‘speak their language’. This will help the salesperson show the prospect that they are on a similar plane of communication, helping to build trust

2.      Similarly, AI will also scan the web for client PR and annual reports and find information relevant to the call

3.      AI will check for recent changes in company structure or legislation, and provide feedback on how the sales pitch should be adjusted to account for these developments

4.      AI provides up-to-the-minute information about the prospect’s company, including competitors, performance, margins and revenue

5.      AI suggests the idea time to call based on call-connection/ non-connection timings logged for previous calls to that number

During the Call:

Once the pre-call prep is done and the AI has provided the necessary information, it is time to move in to the call. At this stage, it is even more important for the software to be real-time, feeding information and suggestions to the salesperson via in-ear coaching or onscreen pop-ups. The AI will listen-in to the conversation and provide relevant data that will help the salesperson respond to queries, counter objections and validate statements made during the call with references:

1.      The AI will recommend the most powerful opening value statement to make towards the beginning of the call

2.      AI will sense the tonality of the prospect’s voice and make recommendations to the salesperson on pitch, speed of delivery or whether to exit the call and reschedule

3.      The AI should will prompt the salesperson with quality questions to allow the discovery of necessary information for the first meeting, such as challenges and business requirements

4.      Provide location and date suggestions for face-to-face meetings based on the calendar and convenience of the participants. If the salesperson suggests a colleague for the meeting, the AI should be able to check their calendar as well

5.      Make suggestions as to who should attend the meeting from the prospect’s side by scanning 1st party and 3rd party company data and tracking the relevant positions

6.      Creates an invite mail for all the participants suggested for the meeting, as well as provides suggestions of other participants in case they were not mentioned

7.      Prompt the salesperson to fill in key gaps in the CRM database by asking the prospect the relevant questions

8.      Updates the CRM with the meeting notes, as well as any relevant information gleaned during the call that could be used to fill gaps in the 1st party database. Then it flags other account managers who would find this information useful

After the Call:

1.      After the call ends, the AI should be able to intelligently create a list of prospect challenges and company solutions that can be then imported into a presentation to quickly create a proposal

2.      Additionally, the AI should also check the information the day before the meeting, as well as on the day of the meeting, by scanning news updates and prospect company announcements

3.      The AI should then be able to send a confirmation email to the clients for the upcoming meeting and update the attendees in case of any changes requested

If this seems to be too big, too daunting to expect an AI to be able to handle, that’s because it is. That’s what AI should be able to. After all, it’s called Artificial “Intelligence” for a reason, right?

One potential significant challenge for Salespeople will be their ability to ‘absorb’ new information and suggestions in real-time and use them, and this could be one of the major traits looked for by recruiters as they seek the best sales talent of the future. This talent will be one that newscasters, journalists and television presenters have utilised for many years. They are used to receiving in-ear information from producers and directors and adapting to and then communicating this new information without ‘breaking stride’.

Companies that are able to use true AI to prepare and execute successful client meetings will have a massive edge over the competition. This (could, but may not) need to signal the death of a salesman, but any salespeople that can’t fuse and adapt to the AI support will become superfluous.

Why? Because of Darwin's theory: Survival of the most adaptive. AI will sense, in the moment, how capably the salesperson is using the information that it is providing and will then slow down or speed up it's assistance depending on the actual cognitive ability of the salesperson. This means that the most adaptive salespeople will benefit from higher levels of AI assistance and thus deliver better results for their clients over those companies not using AI or having to temper the support.

#BionicSales