5 ways AI is boosting productivity in sales conversations

In its seemingly short (but realistically long) presence in the market, artificial intelligence is transforming the way sellers sell.

AI technologies can reduce labor-intensive tasks, help sellers prioritize their day, and connect revenue teams across the customer lifecycle.

At Salesloft, we’ve seen extraordinary results with the first AI-powered revenue workflow platform. (One customer saw a 62% increase in meetings booked with 44% fewer activities.)

But it’s easy to fall behind the trends if you’re not following AI closely. Which is why we’re going back to basics to reveal five benefits of using AI in sales, with a special focus on AI in sales tools.

We’ll cover:

1. Email template generation
2. Lead scoring and prioritization
3. Making decisions with data
4. Getting from insights to action
5. Automated tasks

1. Email template generation

Drafting email templates for your outbound efforts can be a daunting task. Whether you are starting from scratch or refreshing your existing cadences, creating content that hooks your buyers is an experimental and time-consuming process. 

With the support of AI generative text in emails, sellers can unlock their productivity so they can spend more effort on core selling activities that help them build pipeline and close deals faster. 

While there are many benefits of using AI as part of the email templating process, these are some of the easiest ways to get started:

• Brainstorming: Generative AI can be a great brainstorming partner for email template generation, as well as an effective way to freshen up stale templates
• Onboarding: Using AI can provide reps with high-quality templates that are constantly learning from the best-performing content
• Personalized content: AI can analyze a salesperson’s previous email interactions, prospect data, and other information to suggest personalized content like case studies or best-fit products

Email drafting with artificial intelligence

When using AI prompts to draft emails, the key to success is being specific in what you ask the AI to do. The more instructions your team provides, the better results they’ll get. 

Tell the AI who you are targeting, what your key messages are, and how long you want the email to be. Then run an A/B test with different subject line variations. You can also try writing the prompt from the perspective of your buyer to identify common pain points, fears, wants, and aspirations. 

No matter how you use it, It’s important that your team provides input and constraints to guide the AI in creating the email’s tone, style, and messaging.

 2. Lead scoring and prioritization

Your reps need to identify the most promising leads from the very beginning so they don’t waste time chasing the wrong prospects. 

The best AI tools for prioritization will be integrated directly into your workflow so your sales team can focus on taking action with high potential leads, saving time and resources.

Sellers typically have to determine which one-hundred leads out of the thousands in their pipeline will convert, and there’s no exact science to nailing it every time. But sales-focused AI tools can help sellers identify which leads to pursue based on a multitude of factors, including their online behavior and engagement history. 

As a result, reps can focus their efforts on the highest-potential leads, increasing conversion rates and saving time and resources.

See it in action 

Salesloft’s Conductor AI thinks like a full cycle seller to prioritize your workflow so that you stay focused on the most important deals and the prospects that are most likely to convert. Ellie Fields, our Chief Product Officer, takes you behind the scenes in this video.

3. Making decisions with data

AI-powered sales tools are helping salespeople make smart decisions using data. They can dig into past data and machine learning tricks to predict if a deal is likely to succeed or not. And they can analyze which stage the deal is in, how much time has been spent on it, and if the prospect is showing any interest.

AI can also spot signs that a deal might be going south. It can nudge the seller and say, “Hey, something’s up with this deal!” and may suggest things like reconnecting with certain stakeholders involved or addressing specific issues that are holding the deal back.

But AI isn’t just about predicting the future — it’s about making things happen right now. AI tools can tell sellers which buyers are most interested, thanks to their ability to analyze signals from your tech integrations, so reps can engage with prospects at the perfect time. 

Forecasting with AI

Sales leaders can use AI to validate forecasting and identify risks in pipeline. This helps leaders make smarter decisions about where to focus their efforts, set achievable goals, and adjust their strategies as needed. AI can change its predictions as new information comes in, giving a more up-to-date picture of what’s ahead. 

4. Getting from insights to action

AI plays a crucial role in helping salespeople follow up faster and more effectively after meeting with prospects by automating tasks and providing valuable insights.

AI-powered sales tools can automatically schedule and send follow-up reminders to salespeople after meetings with prospects. These reminders may be based on predefined triggers or insights from previous conversations. This ensures that no leads or opportunities are neglected, leading to quicker follow-up and improved engagement.

If one of your sellers has a call scheduled with a customer they’ve spoken to before, AI can gather information from their last call to help the new one go more smoothly. Then it can help you with email sentiments to identify common objections or make adjustments that your sellers should be aware of with prospects and customers. 

AI generated call summaries for reps and leaders

AI can review a conversation transcript, summarize the call, and call out the action items for your seller, taking the burden of going back through the video and conversation notes off the seller, and allowing them to get back into closing the deal much faster. And for sales leaders, that means being able to review the call notes without delay.

Pro tip: Be cautious about directly copy-pasting your call transcriptions into free generative AI tools. These tools may be using your sensitive call transcription data to train their models. Plus, copy-pasting transcripts from dozens of calls can take a lot of time! Instead, look for a platform that allows you to do everything in a single, secure platform and has protections in place to protect your data and privacy. 

Sellers only spend about 28% of their time talking to customers. AI can handle the data-heavy aspects of sales, so reps can focus on building relationships, providing value, and closing deals. 

These tasks include:

• Out of office detection 
• CRM data enrichment
• Competitor analysis
• Lead qualification
• Follow-ups
• Content recommendations
• Deal engagement scoring
• Customized reporting
• And many more

Which AI technology is right for you?

There’s a lot of AI out there to choose from. If you want to expand your sales team’s current AI capabilities, make sure you know what sort of artificial intelligence you’re buying into first — and make sure it’s integrated into your workflow, and not a piece of standalone technology that complicates your process.

Machines aren’t right 100% of the time. So you should give your team of sellers the ability to review and edit the AI-generated notes that directly affect them. Look for AI technologies that have these safety features already built in. Ethical AI in your sales workflow should always denote that it was generated by a machine, never misrepresenting itself as a person. Your AI should also always allow a human to edit its findings. 

AI at Salesloft 

At Salesloft, we strive to make AI explainable, human-centric, and integrated into the workflow. We know how much data privacy and protection matters to you, so you can rest assured that we put strict processes and agreements in place to keep your data safe.

Salesloft is the only AI-powered revenue workflow platform that brings certainty to every revenue action and customer interaction. Close more deals, forecast more accurately, and coach teams to success throughout your revenue organization.