Each business has a unique sales cycle that is based on its industry, target market, and clientele. The desire to close agreements more quickly, though, is one that every firm shares.
This post will examine how your sales cycle can be shortened by AI-powered CX automation so that you can contact more clients in the same amount of time.
CX automation: What is it?
In order to save manual labor in support procedures, customer experience automation (CX automation) involves using tools that mimic human cognition capabilities including problem-solving and logical reasoning. By using tools like AI-powered chatbots, voice bots, and live chat, it includes recognising repeated operations throughout customer interaction cycles and automating them.
The use of CX automation technologies in customer care is already widespread, but they also have a big impact on sales procedures. Businesses utilizing customer experience automation reported a 110 percent boost in new leads and a 94 percent increase in conversions compared to the prior year, according to a recent IT short survey.
Additionally, it stated that, as compared to emails and other marketing initiatives, CX automation enabled both B2B and B2C organizations to achieve an average gain in sales effectiveness of 109 percent and an increase in engagement rates of 108 percent.
What connection exists between CX automation and the sales cycle?
The sales cycle is a tactical and repetitive procedure used by sales teams to turn leads into customers, and reducing time-consuming repetitions naturally falls under the purview of automation.
Let’s look at the various stages of the sales cycle that automation can shorten before moving on to how CX automation can help you gain more clients in less time.
Step 1:Finding leads and getting in touch with them are the first steps in the lead scoring process.
Step 2: Determine whether a lead has the intent to buy by qualifying them based on metrics that have been developed.
Step 3: Making contact with qualified leads to present your goods and services as a remedy for their problems.
Step 4: Making the ask and providing the documents to close the purchase and override any objections.
Step 5: Maintaining contact with clients even after the sale is complete to encourage loyalty.
7 techniques for reducing sales time with CX automation
1. Lead generation — Manages incoming inquiries and spots chances for lead creation
If there is no layer of automation, creating quality leads is the first and most difficult stage in the sales cycle. It requires a lot of direct interaction, including cold calling, cold emailing, asking for recommendations, and asking individuals to complete survey questionnaires.
While chatbot lead generation is more interesting and active. Conversational bots can welcome new clients and inquire about their preferences and interests. They immediately capture this information and send the leads to your CRM.
2. Only high-quality leads are qualified via automatic lead scoring.
Every sales representative’s worst nightmare is wasting time on unqualified leads. To determine which prospects are worth your time and which aren’t, it’s critical to rate leads based on various parameters including relevance, budget, demographics, and other product-specific variables.
Chatbots automate the lead scoring procedure and only qualify leads with a low churn rate. Chatbots can help qualified prospects advance further down the sales funnel by responding to their queries about the product and giving them specialized offers after they have been qualified.
3. Behavioral retargeting encourages customers to make purchases more quickly.
NLP and machine learning are used by conversational bots to learn about the behavior of their users. As a result, chatbots can retarget potential customers who are blocked in the sales process and generate fresh prospects without the need for further human work.
The bot contacts these consumers again to fix any issues they might be having and to persuade them to finish the transaction with special deals and discounts. Sales can be accelerated by 15–20% as a result, and customer engagement will also rise.
4. Customer turnover reduction through response time optimization
When it comes to reacting to leads, time is money. According to research, if you respond to a lead within the first five minutes, you have a better chance of converting them into a customer.
You can stay reachable to your customers around-the-clock and reply to their inquiries right away with conversational AI solutions. Additionally, numerous consumers can be served at once by chatbots. You can do this to increase your company’s reach without putting a hardship on your operating budget.
5. Conversational commerce, which uses the strength of messaging services to boost purchases.
According to a survey by Kepios, there are already more than 4.62 billion social media users worldwide. It simply makes sense for businesses to be easily accessible on social media platforms when almost half of the world’s population actively uses them. As a result, conversational commerce develops.
The practice of doing business using messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and others is known as conversational commerce. By meeting clients where they are, it helps businesses to generate four times as many conversions.
6. Payment integrations within chat — Requires less channel switching.
Abandoned shopping carts can be very annoying. Customers frequently lose focus or harbor uncertainties that prevent them from finishing their transaction. Chatbots are useful in situations like this.
Payment gateways can be integrated with your chatbot to streamline the checkout process and increase conversion rates. Customers wouldn’t have to switch between channels to complete a transaction. They would be able to use the chat interface to immediately purchase goods, receive personalized recommendations, and get answers to their questions.
7. After-sale customer service: Encourages repeat business and customer retention
While gaining new clients is crucial, maintaining existing ones is just as crucial. The importance of after-sales support in increasing client retention and satisfaction cannot be overstated. Customers are ensured to feel appreciated and to support the brand with loyalty.
Even after the sale has been completed, RPA and intelligent virtual assistants can be utilised to help clients. You might start by sending automated SMS to consumers to thank them for their purchases and to share information about their orders and shipping status. Using outbound voice bots, you can follow up with them in order to get their feedback and make another transaction.
Conclusion:
Salespeople are constantly under pressure to win over new customers. However, if they spend the majority of their time on tiresome manual tasks, they may get demotivated and trapped in a never-ending loop of waste time that would be better spent nurturing and converting leads.
By automating at least a third of all time-consuming, repetitive sales operations including lead management, fielding inquiries, and gathering feedback, CX automation provides a solution to this widespread issue. As a result, sales representatives are free to concentrate on attracting new clients and developing leads, which boosts conversion rates.