Give a POWERFUL advantage to your B2B sales with Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence and its importance in B2B sales
The traditional methods are straightforward. The buyers need a product or service, they contact the vendor salesperson and place the order. But this is a small community of B2B buyers.
There is tremendous dominance of tech-savvy B2B buyers who are seen out on the digital landscape and also playing around with IoT. They use digital technology, online research methods and read reviews before buying. This is the reason why Artificial Intelligence impacts B2B sales. Any B2B sales agent will agree that greater access to customer leads will help them sell more. Artificial Intelligence helps develop smart machines that can think like humans.
Hyper Personalized Experience in B2B sales
Consider walking into a coffee shop and there you get a nice cup of coffee without the milk and sugar that you have been wanting. Think about walking up to your car and the engine roars, the air conditioner adjusts the temperature, and the driving seat refers to the memory that has your name engraved. Your seat gets adjusted according to your comfort.
This is called Hyper Personalized Experience from a UX perspective. These are no miracles and wonders but consider that Artificial Intelligence is at work. Hyper Personalized Experiences will enhance the goodwill and loyalty of your customers in B2B sales. Your AI technology integration can forecast the demand of your B2B buyer and notify you as well as the buyer of procurement. Although the buyer may not have the Artificial Intelligence in place your system will help them to stay updated in terms of stocks so that they don’t have to return the customer without a product.
How does Artificial Intelligence contribute to B2B sales process?
The pre-sales process in B2B is a very complex method, Artificial Intelligence takes the burden off the marketing and sales teams. A salesperson would spend nearly 3 days in a month studying the CRM, scan through the trends, and understand a buyer’s pain points. The possibility of errors remains high. The power of Artificial Intelligence allows marketers to understand their prospects better and thus devise a tailor-made solution to suit every prospect. This enhances the chances of converting a prospect into a customer.
All the B2B sales processes can be understood faster and better by the use of Artificial Intelligence technology. Artificial Intelligence power can understand their exact needs, and pain points and influence the decision-making process. Artificial intelligence is a tool that makes a job easier and consequently enhances productivity.
Use of AI in B2B sales
The business to Business (B2B) selling process can broadly be divided into two groups. These groups are:
- The off-field or internal process by use of Customer Relationship Management
- The on-field or external process by the field marketing and sales staff. The process may involve event management and other filed sales activities as well.
In both cases, Lead Generation is the first task taken up by the concerned marketing and salespeople. Finding Qualified Leads is a time-consuming process. Once the leads go through the sales funnel, digital tools kick in to help resolve many time-consuming issues. This is where AI plays a vital role. The following process helps companies to generate qualified leads:
- Target audience profile
- Artificial Intelligence to segment the marketing data
- Predictive analytics and data
- Improving decision-making process
- Email automation
- Chatbot interaction
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How Artificial Intelligence is helping Companies Boost Volumes in B2B Sales?
The simple answer to this question can be given in two words:
- Augment
- Automate
Artificial Intelligence augments the human resources used in B2B sales and it helps in automating the process.
B2B sales are more complex than the B2C sales process. There are higher stakeholders in this process that include:
- Purchaser
- User
- Advisory panel (in-house or outsourced)
- Decision maker
- Risk management or Compliance
AI was once thought to be a perfect fit for B2C sales because of the high volume of customers and the data. Integration of Artificial Intelligence technology into B2B sales has proved it wrong. Artificial Intelligence does not replace human resources but helps them work faster and better through the use of this digital tool. AI gives superpowers to a team of sales. The practical values offered by Artificial Intelligence are of immense help to the team performing B2B sales.
50% more qualified leads to a 60% drop in costs
Harvard Business Review revealed that the business people using Artificial Intelligence increased their leads by 50%. Efficiency in any kind of work process helps decrease the expenses incurred in the process. Artificial Intelligence technology helps in augmenting to save time that usually gets consumed by the manual process of high-value tasks. This is the reason why the salesforce can spend more time converting qualified leads identified with the help of Artificial Intelligence technology. The cost occurred in employing more manpower and spending time on various high-value tasks is reduced by 60%.
The overwhelming growth of the Artificial Intelligence and its benefits in Sales
Some indicators point to the overwhelming growth of AI in sales. These are based on studies and surveys. For example:
- The growth of Artificial Intelligence in sales is expected to grow to 139%
- Sales representatives waste half of their time on non-productive tasks
- Post pandemic the world realized that Artificial Intelligence and automated processes in sales are advantageous for businesses. It was predicted that 85% of sales tasks will be automated.
- Most buyers expect the sellers to predict their needs. This has become possible with the use of Artificial Intelligence technology.
- The use of Artificial Intelligence by the companies is perceived as an innovation by the buyers. The majority of buyers thus show more intent in buying from such companies.
According to surveys and studies, more than 80% of youth in the West refer to the Artificial Intelligence-driven technology for taking decisions before shopping.
The Indian market has also seen an upsurge in the use of technology that is driven by Artificial Intelligence.
AI has made life simpler through automated services including the use of voice commands to activate services or use search engines for various purposes. The use of voice command has particularly helped the people with eyesight problems
The Artificial Intelligence market has been witnessing exponential growth in the worldwide market. The market is expected to jump to USD 1.5 billion by 2025.
These aspects show the benefits of the machines powered by Artificial Intelligence from the demand aspects of customers. In sales, there is a clear dominance of millennials in all the markets across the globe. This is helping in the adoption of Artificial Intelligence technology by companies at a fast pace.
Intent development and discovery phase in B2B sales process
The Discovery phase in the B2B sales process has already been mentioned above. By integrating Artificial Intelligence technology the discovery process can further be improved by these methods:
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer retention
- Customer loyalty
- Low cancellation and return rate
The intent development in B2B sales deals with another business person and not the end-user. The time, when awareness, consideration and conventions, were the only yardsticks in sales funnels, has gone. The B2B buyer has evolved and drawn into a multi-touch buyer progression system. There is an enormous rise in influencers on online platforms as well as social media. Artificial Intelligence has been making life easier for the B2B sales force to understand the intent of the buyer during the discovery phase.
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Conclusion
We at Beyond Codes think that Artificial Intelligence is helping in more Lead Generation and Increasing Sales volumes. Companies that think ahead, and take timely actions to incorporate Artificial Intelligence in their system, show better sales performance. Artificial Intelligence helps salespeople prioritize their actions that make better sense. This also forms an essential part of sales strategy.
Those who are skeptical about the use of Artificial Intelligence will be left far behind and will find it hard to catch up with the leaders. The most simple and basic example of how Artificial Intelligence is so useful and essential for your business is to compare writing a letter on a tab, a laptop on a desktop and a typewriter. Or calculating a huge volume of numbers manually or by using a calculator. The answer is evident. The only question remains how quickly you will catch up with the leaders in the industry and deploy what will make you a smart and successful business person.
FAQs about AI in B2B sales
Answer. The technology involved in AI gathers information to process for analysis and make predictive analytics. AI can refer to the buyer’s history and analyze the buying pattern and generate positive leads accordingly.
Answer. The role of AI is not only to generate positive and qualified leads but also to study and record customer behavior, predict opportunities, and improve forecasting.
Answer. Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in your business will change you forever. It will influence the strategic and tactical components of your business. It means an automatic business process, insight by use of data, analytics, and engagement of customers and employees. Your employee will always feel enthusiastic.
Answer. Not completely. Artificial Intelligence is a tool that helps in speeding up any process of work and minimizing human errors and thus increasing productivity.
