The red flags were always there, but we didn't know how to read the map.
With AI for analyzing sales calls, everything is going to change./Unsplash
Salespeople are at the business front of any company.
They sit on the slice of the company's income and in fact shape its fate.
Competition in the markets is intensifying all the time, especially in times of economic crisis, and no organization can afford to lose revenue due to the malfunctioning of salespeople and their managers.
Sometimes poor performance does not reflect the professional abilities or efforts, but lies in the lack of accurate information in real time.
Happily, all that is about to change.
It is no wonder that the effectiveness of salespeople and their managers has become a central issue that concerns managements of organizations of all sizes and types.
In order to cope, advanced AI-based systems have been developed in the last decade to analyze all interactions between salespeople and customers, including calls, emails, messengers, and more, which are able to understand the interactions and the contexts in the conversation stream, raise red flags that indicate risks in the transaction, recommend steps to close, and more .
The capabilities of this type of system exceed the capabilities of CRM systems, which often include incomplete or inaccurate data.
The advanced systems in the field, based on AI, increase companies' revenues, improve customer satisfaction and offer massive efficiency to salespeople.
Receive advance notice that the transaction ran into a problem
Dan Morjisa./Erin Mary
AI can raise a red flag in a salesperson's email system indicating that a specific transaction has run into a problem.
A red flag can include a phenomenon of "ghosting" on the part of the client, mention of budget limitations or delayed interest on the part of a decision maker in the transaction.
Salespeople do not always know how to recognize the red flags in time and when they discover them they must conduct a thorough search in order to understand whether the deal can be saved.
This can lead to an incorrect prediction that the deal will close - and ultimately to failure to meet the sales forecast.
According to research by Gong Labs, from the moment a red flag is raised, the chance of closing a deal drops by 33%, while the duration of time to close deals that are saved increases by 31%, and it is very likely that the salesperson will not meet the sales forecast for a certain quarter.
This new study by Gong Labs recently analyzed approximately 1 million emails and 30,000 calls from salespeople worldwide and discovered 4 critical phenomena that signal that deals are at risk or on track to close.
Correct and timely identification of these signs increases the chance of closure.
1. Excessive preoccupation with scheduling a meeting signals a loss of interest
The study revealed that if more than 50% of the emails that salespeople send to customers in the advanced stages of the deal deal with scheduling an appointment, the chances of closing drop by 50%.
While other predictive tools may define multiple email exchanges between sales representatives and customers as a positive sign, identifying the context of their content can tell us much more than that.
Exchange of so many emails on the subject of setting a date for a meeting indicates that the client may have lost interest and is not eager to meet and close a deal.
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2. Incorporating "next steps" increases the chances of closing
When salespeople put together a list of next steps to take, the closing rate increases to 70%.
Without specifying the following steps, the details of the transaction may be forgotten and the transaction will be frozen.
The following list of steps creates a commitment from both parties and puts the deal on a practical path to closing.
3. Discussing competitors improves the chances of closing
No salesperson likes competitors, but trying to ignore them involves great risk.
Furthermore, according to the study, mentioning competitors early in the deal improves the chances of closing by 32%.
When the customer mentions competitors it indicates that they have a real interest in making a purchase, they know the players in the market and understand what problems the salesperson's product solves.
Mentioning the competitors at a late stage of the transaction lowers the closing rate by 5% and sometimes the late mention is used by the customers to lower the price during negotiations.
4. Integrating the client's legal department improves the chances of closing
Salespeople tend not to involve the client's legal department in the emerging deal, fearing that it will delay and complicate it.
The research proves that the opposite is true: the integration of the legal department in the email correspondence in the advanced stages of the transaction improves the chances of closing by 260%!
This indicates the seriousness of the client's intentions, especially in large organizations where no transactions can be closed without the involvement and approval of the legal department.
Act proactively using AI
Today, organizations are able to neutralize a significant part of the risks to closing deals that are created during sales conversations and the systems responsible for this are constantly being perfected.
Data labs on a huge scale improve the accuracy of models and provide additional tools to improve the capabilities of salespeople.
For example, a newly launched AI-based system analyzes 300 types of sales signals in more than 3 billion salesperson interactions with customers captured by Gong.
It provides predictions about the closing of transactions with a 20% higher accuracy level compared to traditional predictive models based on information input entered by the seller.
Furthermore, Gong recently integrated Generative AI tools into its business intelligence platform for salespeople.
The new system, based on prompts, includes pre-defined questions or the option to present queries in free language, which produce accurate and relevant answers that allow the sales personnel to deeply understand the state of the transaction, identify developing trends and make better quality decisions.
For example, the salesperson can ask: "Following the conversation I just had with customer X, what are the next steps I should take to increase the chances of closing a deal?".
If until now the salesperson watched the flags that were waved at him, now he can also proactively initiate references of the artificial intelligence systems to the risks, to the opportunities and how to realize them.
That way he and the organization are better equipped to close deals, meet goals and grow.
Dan Murjisa is Director of Thought Leadership at Gong
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CRM
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