Three Ways AI Can Help Sellers Save Time and Sell More

Why are we making the toughest job in business more complex?

Today’s sales reps face the Herculean task of staying motivated, focused, and ready to sell effectively every day. This isn’t an easy task given that, two years into a pandemic, business buyers want to choose how (and then, if ever) they want to engage with a seller.

Sellers work remotely – and often in isolation – without fast access to a manager or co-workers to help confirm an important spec, talk through a pitch, or give a different perspective on a deal. They’re taking all of this on when clients’ budgets are tighter, more rigid, and closely scrutinized.

Yet, when the workday is finally over and they begin to wrap things up, they receive dreaded email reminders like, “Don’t forget to finish mandatory new process training on ______.” One more thing to check off the never-ending to-do list of things that do not drive revenue.

Artificial Intelligence Can Help Lighten the Load

Ninety percent of digital sellers complain that aspects of their job take longer than they should, according to Beagle Research Group’s “Getting Past the Breaking Point of Yesterday’s CRM,” and 98% wish they had superpowers to do their job.

Most sellers likely have annual goals along the lines of “sell more than you did last year.”

But the promises that artificial intelligence (AI) will help them succeed can end up underdelivering. AI scoring can be too static, and recommendations too watered down. Instead of helping salespeople sell more, AI becomes just another step in the sales process –another CRM data monster reps are responsible for feeding.

However, the future of AI-powered sales is here, and it truly is a game-changer in how it helps reps save time and creates a more personalized customer experience.

1. Zero In on Sales with AI Insights

Recently, we at Oracle have been hard at work infusing the entire selling experience with native AI-powered sales intelligence.

Leveraging the power of foundational data, we blend cross-customer experience (CX) marketing and service data with new CRM information gathered by sales reps. Then, we merge this with intelligence from other back-office applications – such as ERP, supply chain, and other front office customer touchpoints and sales channels – to give your reps a more holistic view of the customer. The result: more personalized, dynamic, and prescriptive sales insights that are unobtrusive and precisely placed on the screen to help sellers (and, ultimately, customers) have a better overall experience.

2. AI Powers Guided Selling to Accelerate Sales Cycles

This is key to modernizing customer outreach and converting more leads. Guided selling can help you empower your sellers to focus on the right customers and make it easier for your customers to find and configure the right products and services.

By using technology to respond dynamically to each customer’s unique needs, guided selling can help your reps sell more efficiently to more customers. With this technology-powered approach, sales reps spend less time juggling administrative tasks or manually sorting through long lists of prospects. Removing the guesswork and inefficiencies from the selling process empowers your reps to use strategic recommendations that chart the next-best action for each account. So they can guide customers toward purchasing the right products and services.

3. Make Every Customer Interaction Count

Connect all your business data across advertising, marketing, sales, commerce, and service. Oracle’s solution offers a connected suite of applications that goes beyond traditional CRM to help your sales teams create, manage, serve, and nurture lasting customer relationships. Reps can build a complete view of a customer and every interaction – no matter how, when, where, or with whom they engage. In today’s market it’s even more important that your entire sales and account management teams deliver exceptional customer experiences – from acquisition to retention and everything in between.

Given the challenges of selling today, arming your reps with the tools they need to be successful is mission critical. That’s we have worked hard to harness AI in a smart way that provides sellers everything they need to succeed. Our platform helps remove some of the complexity from selling and makes it easier for reps to focus on their work and achieve better results. Sales reps have one of the toughest jobs in business right now, so let’s give them the support they need…not another CRM field to update.

See how Oracle Sales helps sellers get back to selling: https://www.oracle.com/cx/sales/responsive-selling.