How AI can improve the sales process and boost digital sales
The Buying Experience
What type of product do you sell?
It is easy to get this wrong. For example, you might assume your product is a daily essential, when in fact it is a complement to existing customer workflows. The answer to the question matters when considering what you should automate and the risks technology poses to your business.
At MSBC Group, we work with two types of company. The first works with physical objects, in manufacturing, construction and logistics. Typically, these businesses have steady cash flows and are able to hold limited cash reserves as a consequence. It is straightforward to determine whether an automation improves this cash flow and increases the client’s margin. The decision to adopt new technology is therefore quick.
The second category involves clients and their customers working in the digital world. These companies keep larger cash reserves because deal flow may be lumpy. There is a long sales cycle and the industry may be regulated, such as insurance, stock market trading and the law. It is harder to prove that efficiency enhancements work because they take longer to have an effect. During that time, other factors may influence an outcome.
As an example, we worked with a FinTech company that provided support to the daily decision making of stock market traders. We built the client an application that curated all the data that traders look at each morning and served it up in an attractive interface that prioritised what the trader needed to know. The decision to trade, however, lay with a portfolio manager who sent instructions to the trader, which sometimes conflicted with the market intelligence our client provided. The internal hierarchy of each of our client’s customers, and the freedom given to each trader, determined how effective our client’s decision support software could be.
Let’s take another example of e-commerce. Three-quarters of online shopping searches in the US originate on Amazon, according to Chain Store Age. These are business to consumer, or B2C searches. Research firm Kurve reveals that two-thirds of business buyers, B2B, start their process by looking at websites. If you want paper towels, Amazon is the best place to find the lowest prices. If you want to compare and contrast products, Amazon is a challenge because it pushes its preferred product your way.
How your business deals with the customer buying experience matters a great deal.
All SaaS is CRUD
The four basic operations of data storage are create, read, update and delete (CRUD). They enable users to view, search and change information. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argues these functions will be performed by AI with continuous access to data. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will disappear, because there is no need to programme specific routines that AI can do with a prompt. How big an opportunity or threat is that to your business?
The AI opportunity lies in automating processes, with the risk that if you don’t, your product will no longer compete. But AI is expensive and technology stacks hard to re-engineer, so the risk may be some years away. The timeframe depends on how great the incentives are to replace your service, and how you sell it.
A traditional automated process is an if, then statement. For instance, an inventory management system works because if we sell an item, then we update the inventory record. If this is all you do with inventory management, then you don’t need to replace this with AI. But if you predict inventory to know when you will need cash to pay a supplier’s invoice, you may benefit from AI.
If you sell a few items a day and restock when inventory reaches a certain level, there is little incentive to update the process. If, however, you sell a lot each day and make regular purchases, AI that tracks the changing rate of sales and predicts when you should restock, will make your process more efficient. Adopting AI means you will not need to keep as much cash in the bank and the savings will pay for the automation many times over.
Predictions become more important when your business deals with live data. Examples can be complex such share trading or managing wildfires, but also everyday processes, such as customer conversations and interactions. When potential outcomes change frequently, automations that lack AI will need to be upgraded.
The next generation product demonstration
If selling requires a product demonstration, then your sales process is at risk from not adopting AI. Customers don’t need a demo of a paper towel, but they might for a fashion item and they do for a trading application. Imagine prospects being able to simulate the experience of using this app.
When we first built the decision making software for our FinTech client, it was not possible to simulate trading. As a result, during demonstrations potential clients put real trades into the software. Many times nothing happened, because the point of the analysis was to highlight exceptional conditions and by definition they are rare. Both sales person and customer stared at the screen waiting for something dramatic to happen, which it almost never did.
Today, using AI, we have the ability to generate synthetic market data and run multiple simulations of what could happen. This allows traders to examine trades that matter to them – their remuneration depends on minimising trading costs and maximising trade completion – and see how the outcome might change. What if market volumes ramp up or down suddenly, how might an unexpected economic announcement impact trading and what happens if breaking news impacts the company whose stock you are trading.
All of these scenarios can be demonstrated by the sales person. The customer gets to feel what it is like to use the system to save money and deliver a better result for their manager. In this case, it is not the product that is changing, but how it is sold.
We are working with a client who uses video to showcase customer experiences. This is common in industries such as architecture, equipment installation and house buying. The client’s competitors show 3D video to customers, allowing them to take a journey through the product. This may be seeing how a factory will be laid out, a kid’s eye view of crawling through a playground, or a couple walking through their new home.
In each case, the video is pre-rendered and doesn’t change. This was impressive a few years ago, but isn’t any more. Using the latest AI, we allow our client to give customers a virtual reality headset. The customer can now explore a factory, playground, or home, and they can move objects and alter the look and feel of the experience. This might mean rearranging the position of machines on the factory floor, altering the height of playground equipment, or swapping out kitchen units into the customer’s preferred colours and materials.
In most markets, three quarters of the value added accrues to a small number of leading companies. These are called category killers. Our client is on track to become the category killer in the digital sales experience software business.
Interaction, Prediction and Personalisation
If you sell an everyday product such as paper towels, predictive AI to maintain inventory levels and reduce working capital requirements will give your business a competitive advantage. AI will allow you to make more engaging videos of customers using paper towels, but you may not need augmented reality to make a sale today.
If your product involves uncertain outcomes, such as stock price movements, or personal experiences, such as buying a home, or conversations with text and speech with customers, somewhere a competitor is figuring out how to automate away your advantage.
If you want to be the category killer in your industry, and to discover how AI automations can enhance your sales process and digital sales, then arrange a consultation with one of our experts. It’s completely free, with no obligation and your data is 100% safe with us. Our clients’ buying experience requires this and our reputation depends on it.
Thought Exercises
- How do I measure the return on investment from productivity tools?
- How big is the incentive to reinvent my market (towels vs trading)?
- How would an interactive experience increase my sales success?