It’s a no-brainer: Your sales team is there to sell your product.
But that might be less true than you think.
In fact, sales reps spend an astounding 64% of their time on non-revenue generating tasks. Shocking, right?
So how can you make time for your sales reps to actually sell without massively increasing your headcount?
Drift’s Conversational AI, or AI-powered chatbots, are ready to engage with your site visitors at all times. Unlike rule-based chatbots, AI chatbots allow site visitors to lead the conversation without using pre-programmed language, which means that AI chatbots respond like any human sales rep.
Here are three ways you can use Conversational AI to accelerate revenue and increase sales productivity.
1. Automatically Qualify Website Visitors at Scale
Today’s B2B customers actually complete 70% of their buying journey before even talking to sales. If you want to make the sale, you have to deliver compelling, personalized experiences for your buyers when their intent is highest.
But just because something is personalized doesn’t mean your reps have to be logged in 24/7.
This is where our Conversational AI comes in.
Drift’s AI chatbots are prepared to greet website visitors 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — across multiple time zones and languages.
This means that you can engage with all of your site visitors, without leaving any prospect unaccounted for.
What’s more, AI chatbots can accelerate the qualification process through conversation. So instead of going through the steps of filling out a form through chat, AI chatbots can ask open-ended questions (like “Do you need help finding the right plan for your team?”) to meet visitors where they are in the buying journey.
Without the limitations of prescribed decision trees, AI chatbots can qualify visitors in personalized, authentic conversations — no forms and no generic qualification questions.
2. Deliver the Leads Your Sales Team Wants
You may have misgivings about letting AI take control of these initial conversations. After all, it’s easy to imagine situations where the chatbot might go off script or respond incorrectly.
But don’t fret. It’s still easy for your sales reps to jump into conversations with the leads that count. AI chatbots simply help you figure out which of your prospects are ready to talk to sales.
How does this work?
Think about all the information that is coming in from your customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, marketing automation platforms, or account-based marketing (ABM) tools. Drift offers multiple tech stack integrations which allow AI chatbots to tap into valuable information about your prospects. Using this data, AI chatbots can then personalize their interactions.
So, with these integrations, your AI chatbot will be able to recognize a high-value target account on your website straightaway. From there, they’ll know to route a sales rep into the conversation.
At the same time, AI chatbots make sure that your other site visitors aren’t being neglected. If the visitor isn’t prepared to buy your product, AI chatbots are equipped to send them educational content and other resources.
But AI chatbots don’t just talk to your site visitors. They also collect data from these daily interactions, making note of who the visitor is or what their pain points are. This means that, after those first interactions, AI chatbots can better personalize the conversational experience for returning visitors.
Most importantly, AI chatbots aren’t one and done. Every conversation they have on your website is another opportunity for them to learn — so they’re improving every single day.
3. Engage in Natural Conversations That Always Move Towards Your Buyer’s Goals
AI chatbots aren’t simply there to move site visitors through the buying process. Because not all visitors are ready to buy when they first chat with you.
Instead, AI chatbots are trained to offer the next best action that the site visitor can take. That could mean anything from booking a meeting with a sales rep to filing a ticket with customer support.
We accomplish all this through our AI, which looks for the intent behind your visitor’s messages. Even if the visitor’s input is misspelled or doesn’t match a keyword exactly, your AI chatbot will still respond appropriately.
What does this look like?
Say you have an unknown visitor on your pricing page. Your AI chatbot will likely start asking qualifying questions, such as “What company are you from?” But, if your visitor requests to connect to a sales rep, the AI chatbot can immediately pivot to that process.
This is what makes Drift’s AI chatbots different. Rather than pushing down one path, AI chatbots can continually pivot to provide the buyer with what they’re looking for at that point in time.
With these features, Drift’s AI chatbots are not confined to the call-and-response of rule-based chatbots. Instead, AI chatbots can engage in natural, free-flowing conversations that are driven by every unique site visitor.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to B2B selling, you need a fast, easy, and personalized experience to net new buyers.
But that’s next to impossible for your sales team to accomplish alone and at scale.
Our Conversational AI promises to increase the productivity of your sales team, while also delivering on those personalized experiences that buyers now expect.
With AI chatbots, you can leave it up to the buyer to decide what it is they want — and they can discover that themselves by asking questions or talking through their specific problems and interests in an engaging conversation.
Most importantly, all of this happens without the visitor ever needing to talk with a sales rep, which means that your sales team can focus on what they do best — selling.
Want to experience firsthand what conversational ai can do for your business? Try a demo today.
