Artificial Intelligence exemplifies the complex relationship between humans and machines. It’s a technology that we interact with almost every day, through voice-controlled assistants like Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, which simplify so many of our daily tasks. Yet, most people do not fully understand, and more importantly, trust artificial intelligence.
E-Commerce is one of the major areas where AI is making its mark. Some of the most beloved consumer brands like Amazon and Netflix use this technology to power their recommendation engines, but most people do not realise that it is AI that’s working in the background. Like these popular brands, AI is also increasingly being used by many brands across the globe as a sales tool, and this has made salespeople nervous. There is a lingering fear among most people that the machines will take over our jobs, making human intelligence redundant. The truth, however, couldn’t be any farther from this. In fact, what it can do is make their job a little bit easier. How?
While AI cannot take over everyday activities like data entry, scheduling, and content curation, automation can most certainly help them prioritize which calls to make, who to contact, which prospects to focus on to ensure sales conversions, etc. Considering the amount of responsibility that salespeople and managers have, AI-enhanced sales processes will go a long way in streamlining their efforts. With machines taking care of the analytical work, salespeople can focus their efforts towards applying their human intelligence and taking their interactions with prospective customers to a new whole new level with the help of the machine’s insights.
In sales, AI and human intelligence are two vital halves of an equation. Even with the proliferation of automation across various other business processes, this equation isn’t bound to change. Why? Simply because humans are indispensable to the sales process, and when it comes to interacting with customers, AI can deliver superior results when paired with humans. On the other hand, sales reps will be required to adapt their abilities in order to function in an AI-enhanced sales environment. Some of the key skills that salespersons will be required to incorporate into their job roles are:
