Salesforce is the customer company.
From breaking down data silos to unifying your sales, services, marketing, customer relations, and IT under a single umbrella, Salesforce helps you focus on providing a unique, satisfying, and wholesome customer experience.
But how is Salesforce leveraging the dominating influence of AI in today’s sales-fuelled market?
According to this State of Sales report published by Salesforce in 2022, 69% of sales professionals confessed that selling has become harder—with the majority spending only 28% of their week in actual selling.
However, there is no time to pause.
With budgets getting tighter and sales forecasts becoming more ambitious than ever, it’s become imperative for sales teams to amp up their efficiency and produce breakthrough results.
And we believe, AI is the way.
In this blog, we take a look at how you can improve sales productivity and see a tangible increase in bottom-line results by adopting Salesforce Artificial Intelligence (AI) in your Salesforce Sales Cloud processes.
The Power of AI In Sales
Can AI really help you sell?
Considering the fact that buyers today have all the information they need at their fingertips, and are less inclined to speak to a seller than read product reviews, knowing how they think and what they prefer has become more important than ever.
According to Salesforce researchers, sellers are nowadays connecting with their buyers on an average of 10 channels. E-commerce platforms and social media networks top the list. And buyer preferences tend to change every now and then, leaving salespeople struggling to connect with them effectively.
This is where AI can help you bridge the gap. As some of the best sales teams in the world would tell you—AI can be used across the entire sales cycle—from following up with leads to closing a deal—in faster and more seamless ways. AI tools help you increase selling efficiency by analysing lead behaviour and needs. It helps you gain insights via data constantly—helping salespeople become more agile in their approach towards potential customers.
Find out how Corptec can help you optimize your sales efforts and propel your growing business to new heights! Reach out to our certified Salesforce specialists for a free Salesforce Health Check today!
How Has Salesforce Harnessed AI for Sales
While compiling their annual State of Sales report for 2020, Salesforce realised that only 21% of sales leaders had adopted AI for their sales processes. On the other hand, 62% of customers reported that they were open to companies using AI to improve their experiences.
Did you notice a disconnect here? Salesforce did!
Therefore, to bridge this gap between traditional sales methodologies and evolving customer experiences, Salesforce developed Salesforce Einstein—the first-of-its-kind comprehensive AI for CRM. Einstein’s integrated set of AI technologies can help you become more predictive about your customers, anticipate newer opportunities, and exceed customer needs. It has been seamlessly integrated into many Salesforce products that comprise the Customer 360 portfolio (such as Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, and the Service Cloud). This means that customisable, predictive, and generative AI can be used across your business to enhance productivity, improve customer experience, and ultimately increase profits.
Let’s explore the 5 key ways in which Salesforce Einstein can elevate your sales efficiency.
5 Ways to Improve Sales Efficiency with Salesforce AI
1. Predictive Lead Scoring
As a sales professional, how often have you struggled to identify promising prospects from a whole pool of marketing-qualified leads?
More times than you can count, for sure!
Salesforce Einstein helps solve this dilemma with AI-powered predictive lead scoring. To start with, it analyses your company’s historical data to understand your business’s lead conversion pattern. Then using machine learning algorithms, Einstein assigns scores to leads based on their likelihood to convert. Thus by predicting which of your current leads you need to prioritise, you are free to concentrate on those opportunities that are more likely to result in successful deals.
Einstein’s predictive lead scoring functionality also takes into account a multitude of factors, such as prospect engagement, company size, industry trends, and past conversion patterns. This enables sales teams to focus on leads with the highest potential, ultimately increasing the efficiency of their outreach efforts and accelerating their sales cycle.
2. Personalised Insights and Recommendations
It’s great that you can now identify the most promising leads out there to talk to.
But what happens if you forget your sales appointment amidst your other responsibilities?
This scenario happens more often than most salespeople like to admit.
That’s why Einstein offers Opportunity and Sales Cloud Insights. By taking personalisation to the next level, Einstein Insights not only predict which deals are most likely to be won but also sends you reminders to meet up with prospects, notifies you when follow-ups are due, and alerts you when key moments in a deal take place. Moreover, through the analysis of customer behaviour, interactions, and previous lead data, Einstein generates personalised recommendations for each prospect.
For example, let’s say a prospect has shown interest in some specific product features in the past. Einstein AI will recommend including content around those features while sending out emails. This level of personalisation not only helps you build stronger customer relationships but also increases the likelihood of closing deals with them.
3. Automated Email Campaigns and Follow-ups
As sales professionals, we all know that timely and relevant communication is crucial in keeping leads engaged throughout the sales process.
But quite often, leads go through the ‘no-response’ state. Simply put, they refuse to reply or respond to sales emails or calls—just when you thought you were chasing a hot lead! (Very frustrating, we know!)
With Einstein’s Send Time Optimization feature, however, you can now boost email engagement with automated email campaigns and follow-ups—ensuring that you connect with the right prospects at the right moments. And by analysing customer interaction and response data, Einstein can help you determine the ideal send time for each email and each prospect, thus significantly reducing the risk of leads going cold.
Moreover, with Einstein Generative AI, you can create personalised email content for each and every lead. The AI tool achieves this by understanding the prospect’s preferences and behaviours and using that data to generate tailored sales pitches that are more likely to resonate with the recipient.
And the best part? Unlike a static template, Einstein creates a new, personalised email every time for the same prospect. This not only saves valuable time for sales teams but also increases the effectiveness of their communication—ultimately accelerating the deal-closing process.
4. Dynamic Pricing Optimisation
Since its launch in 2016, Salesforce Einstein AI has been delivering over 200 billion AI predictions per day. This includes pricing recommendations, based on the analysis of various factors such as market conditions, customer history, and product demand.
According to this article by Forbes, Salesforce Einstein is capable of predicting optimal purchase price and location. By leveraging its AI capabilities, sales managers are now able to capture more revenue by finding out what the prospect is willing to pay and by optimising prices across their customer and product mix.
With its dynamic pricing optimisation, Einstein can help you identify optimal pricing strategies for different deals. By dynamically adjusting pricing based on real-time data and market trends, sales reps can position their offerings competitively and address customer queries around pricing. Einstein can also help you analyse whether existing discounts make sense by correlating deal size to the discounts made. This not only helps streamline the negotiation process but also maximises the likelihood of reaching a mutually beneficial agreement.
5. AI-Powered Sales Forecasting
Do unrealistic sales forecasts ever get to you?
Not only are they highly subjective and made on the basis of poor-quality data but are usually inaccurate and out-of-touch with actual market trends.
In fact, according to this study, fewer than 25% of sales organisations have a sales forecasting accuracy of 75% or greater. And as any seller will tell you, inaccurate sales forecasting can cause plenty of trouble when it comes to predicting sales performances and meeting revenue goals.
This is where Einstein Forecasting comes to the rescue.
By taking the guesswork out of forecasting, Einstein Forecasting leverages AI to bring more certainty and visibility to your sales forecasts. It provides sales teams with predictive analytics to improve forecasting accuracy, get forecast predictions, and track how individual sellers are performing.
The AI platform also goes beyond traditional forecasting methods by continuously adapting to changes in the sales environment. This adaptability ensures that forecasts remain relevant and reflective of existing market dynamics. With accurate sales forecasts, teams can allocate resources more effectively, identify potential challenges in advance, and make data-driven decisions to build stronger pipelines.
So, Can Salesforce AI Help Smooth Out Your Sales Processes Too?
Absolutely. Designed to be deployed for any organisation, regardless of industry, region, or size, Salesforce Einstein GPT can help sales teams advance on their path to cash flow growth. It can help ensure that your sales productivity is at its finest by:
- Helping you prioritise your most important leads
- Offering predictive opportunity scoring
- Improving responses with personalised emails
- Finding contacts in your network who can introduce you to your lead(s)
- Providing personalised sales forecasting
Moreover, following these expert-recommended Salesforce Sales Cloud best practices can help your sales teams perform more competently.
Leverage AI for Salesforce Sales Cloud with Corptec Technology Partners
If we have convinced you of the necessity in adopting Salesforce AI for your sales efficiency, we at Corptec Technology Partners can help you with expert guidance and support to leverage Salesforce Sales Cloud AI for your business needs.
As a trusted Salesforce consulting partner since 2018, Corptec Technology Partners has designed customer journeys for organisations across Australia by helping them maximise the potential of this leading CRM platform. We offer full-cycle implementation of Sales, Service, and Marketing Clouds, and support custom Salesforce integrations with any ERP or third-party applications.
Interested in learning how Corptec can help you optimise Salesforce Sales Cloud and ace your sales goals? Start your Salesforce success journey with us today!
