Your CRM will never reach its full potential until ALL three of these steps perform well: 1) Probing to move what’s important in the customer’s brain into the salesperson’s brain, 2) Data entry to move these insights into your CRM, and 3) Data mining to turn troves of information into actionable market foresight. AI can help all three… sometimes in surprising ways.
Fill out the form to download ⇨Are you pleased with the insights you get from your Customer Relationship Management software? For most, the promise of CRMs has outpaced the reality. But now, with the clever use of AI in 3 steps, you can finally enjoy the CRM success we’ve imagined since the 1980’s.
Why are high-performing CRM systems a rarity? It’s because all three of the following steps must work well. Imagine your B2B field sales professional visits an important account:
In this paper, we’ll look at how AI helps with all 3 steps. Specifically, we’ll use our very own SalesPrepTM software as an AI example of improving CRM. Why? SalesPrep is unique as an AI system in that it improves all three steps.
Before we talk about effective customer probing (Step 1), let’s discuss its precedent: strong preparation. How can AI help? You enter just three things into SalesPrep software—your customer’s name, your product, and how customers use it—to generate an extensive report.
Great, you’re prepared now, but how does AI help you ask better probing questions? The SalesPrep system includes e-learning on The AIM Institute’s tried-and-true What-Why-Clarify probing method.
You can now practice this probing method with Claire, your AI Guide. You start a conversation with an AI customer about your product and your customer’s application. After you ask the AI customer each question, Claire gives you advice for asking better questions. (Try it yourself using the free 30-day trial at www.SalesPrep.com.)
Most companies cite Step 2 as the main reason for underperforming CRMs: They can’t get their salespeople to consistently enter high-quality customer insights. Our research supports this: Of 12 voice-of-customer skills we studied, “CRM data entry” was rated by B2B salespeople as their least important and least competent skill. (See www.VOCforSales.com.)
AI has been helping many salespeople with their virtual calls, such as a Zoom or Teams meeting. Many fine AI programs can summarize these conversations after they’re recorded. But what about in-person visits?
Let me introduce Paige, the AI ghostwriter (also part of the SalesPrep system). Imagine your customer meeting is over and you’re in the back of an Uber headed back to the airport. You pull out your phone and let Paige interview you about your meeting, as you review your hand-written notes.
This voice interview typically takes only 5-10 minutes and generates 1) a 2-page call report, and 2) a follow-up “recap” you email the customer. The call report can be “mapped” to your CRM so key insights (such as “opportunities”) appear in the right section of your CRM.
What about Step 3: Data mining? The AI added by CRM producers certainly improves this, but could AI applied earlier (like SalesPrep) also help here? We’ve all experienced the “garbage-in-garbage-out” effect in our computer systems. SalesPrep ensures treasures, not trash, are added to your CRM.
The entire SalesPrep system—its e-learning, Claire practice sessions, and Paige ghostwriting—is built on customer “outcomes.” These desired end-results are typically problems to be solved, but can also be improvements customers want. SalesPrep ensures that “outcomes” are the unit of customer insight, and this eliminates ambiguity, obscurity, and variability. It dramatically reduces “garbage-in-garbage-out.”
The problem with AI isn’t finding what it can do for you. It’s sifting through so much it can do and choosing the best over the rest. I encourage you to choose effectiveness over efficiency in critical cases such as CRM performance.
I’ve seen many new technologies in my career (perhaps because I started my engineering classes using a slide rule). But I’ve never seen a technology hit as fast and impactfully as AI.
