Generative AI (GenAI) will likely have a tremendous impact on every aspect of business operations, and sales is no exception. Selling in today’s complex and dynamic environment is challenging, and companies are looking for every advantage.
While many companies have invested in CRM, GenAI tools—capable of finding meaning in large datasets—can help sales teams unlock insights from customer databases. Unleashing these insights and making them available to sales teams can lead to greater productivity, better experiences, higher sales, and stronger customer relationships.
Finding and distributing the right insights at the right time
Sales reps must navigate an increasingly complex marketplace and work in an enterprise environment that can be overwhelming. A wealth of customer information may be available but extracting it quickly from existing databases is difficult. Manually searching through a CRM system, personal notes, and reports can be a time-consuming process. The most relevant and useful customer information could be difficult to locate or hidden, and the most effective or impactful insights could remain undiscovered.
Selling teams and their leaders also face the perennial challenges of sales training, change management for new products, sales messaging, and more. This information must be packaged and delivered in a way that is manageable, actionable, and personalized.
GenAI-guided selling: The assistance you always wished for is here
Enter GenAI-guided selling. It works within your existing workplace and applications, combining the power of foundational models with client-specific and organization-specific knowledge within a customer data platform (CDP). This enables salespeople to interact with data using natural language prompts. It can assist in gathering insights and recommending sales approaches by applying advanced analytics to historical customer purchasing data and sales patterns.
This capability provides a personal “intelligent sales assistant” to every member of the sales team and can improve day-to-day efficiency and productivity. It gives them a tool to expand team knowledge, sales techniques, and results with minimal training required.
Some of the potential benefits of GenAI-guided selling include:
- Personalized recommendations: Analyzes customer behavior, preferences, needs, and pain points and suggests the best products, services, or solutions that deliver the most value and impact for each customer. It can also recommend the optimal timing, channel, and message for reaching out to customers and prospects.
- Enhanced cross-selling and upselling: Identifies opportunities for cross-selling and upselling based on customer purchase history, product affinity, and propensity to buy. GenAI can also help sales reps tailor their offers and incentives to match customer expectations and increase conversion rates.
- Improved forecasting and pipeline management: Combines GenAI with predictive AI and analytics to provide accurate and timely forecasts based on historical data, current trends, and market conditions. Sales reps can prioritize their leads and opportunities based on their potential value and likelihood of closing.
- Reduced administrative burden: Automates tedious and repetitive tasks such as data entry, report generation, and follow-up reminders. GenAI can also help sales reps capture and update customer information in real-time and sync it across multiple platforms and devices.
The GenAI-guided selling feature in DigitalMIX™ by Deloitte Digital gives organizations an opportunity to drive these efficiencies in their day-to-day business. From prospecting to follow up, GenAI can deliver real value at every stage of the selling cycle.
Potential use cases include:
- Preparing for a meeting with an existing or prospective customer
- Re-engaging with a dormant client
- Leveraging a current offering to address customer pain points
- Upselling products or services that complement past purchases
- Tailoring a customer pitch to align offering benefits to customer needs
- Introducing new products faster by updating the CRM with product details, helping to auto-train the sales team
4 considerations to get started
There are many factors to consider for GenAI-guided selling. Here are four key areas to consider for a successful implementation:
1) Develop a trusted relationship with a GenAI provider to guide you through this new capability.
2) Educate leadership around the facts and myths of GenAI, including its costs, benefits, and security implications, and gain their buy-in.
3) Identify the sources of customer, product, and sales data you already have. GenAI gets better the more you feed it.
4) Introduce GenAI-guided selling and continue to refine it. Treat your AI like a new employee—train, network, and reinforce to set it up for success.
The future of sales is here
GenAI-guided selling is not a distant vision of the future. It is already changing the way teams work and sell in tangible ways. The right tools can make a significant impact in the way sales teams operate and deliver value to customers. By leveraging the power of GenAI, sales teams are empowered with insights to increase productivity, generate higher sales, and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.
About the authors
Yoni Barkan is a product, technology and innovation leader for Deloitte Digital's asset and solution group, with deep experience in CRM, product development, solution design, and Salesforce. He specializes in building solutions for complex business problems and driving strategic vision, organizational growth and profitability.
Roarke Lynch is a leader, technologist, architect, developer and a problem solver at Deloitte Digital and certified in Salesforce architecture, development and administration. He leads GenAI development and evangelism across Deloitte’s global Salesforce asset portfolio.
Want to learn more about DigitalMIX™ to modernize and streamline your business operations? Connect with Rebecca Bayles for more information.
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Mark de Koo
Mark de Koo is Director in Digital Marketing at Deloitte Consulting in the Netherlands. Working within the Deloitte Digital service line, Mark is focused on the implementation of digital & closed-loop online marketing to create a seamless omni-channel customer experience with real-time personalized customer interaction. He works with tools like (online) marketing automation (e.g. Adobe Marketing Cloud), customer journeys, advanced predictive behavioural analytics and customer lifetime value to maximize customer interaction intelligence. Next to this, Mark has a large experience on leadership and cultural development.