AI Opportunities in Sales Processes and Software

October 2022

Welcome to The Cirrostratus Group October newsletter.

This month's newsletter focuses on AI opportunities in sales processes and software and the information is applicable to SaaS providers from two perspectives. First, the use of these tools in your own sales process and second as examples to get you thinking about how to use AI in your own product no matter what application area it focuses on.

Paul Ressler

The Cirrostratus Group

AI Opportunities in Sales Processes and Software

Smiling business man wearing wireless headset make conference video call looking at laptop screen_ happy salesman customer service support agent helpline representative talk by online chat in office

A recent Harvard Business Review article addresses the question of whether AI can really help you sell. The conclusion is yes and that it applies across all levels of selling processes from transactional to strategic collaborators. One quote from the article is that "Unfortunately for sales leaders, implementing AI-based sales processes isn’t as simple as downloading new software." This statement outlines the opportunity available to SaaS software providers that provide software for sales, simplifying the implementation of AI for sales.

An example of easily incorporating AI into sales software is Zoom. Zoom now has a conversation Intelligence offering called ZoomIQ for Sales. A brief description is in this blog post. Many of the sales conversations these days are on Zoom so collection of the data is easy and the offering provides speech analytics and automatically generates summaries and next steps as a tool for the seller. It also provides value to sales management and marketing. This is a great example of adding AI to your SaaS offering in a way that is easy to implement and results in significant value to the customer.

Other examples of how AI is being added to sales tools are in the recently released Forrester Wave for Sales Engagement Platforms. One of the interesting items in this year's Wave is that the providers use of AI is a specific criteria both at the high level and at the specific evaluation criteria level. You can download a free copy of the report here. Outreach, Groove and Salesloft are the three companies identified as leaders by Forrester. No surprise that all three of these providers have very strong AI capabilities.

Resources From The Cirrostratus Group

The Cirrostratus Group Services

Learn more about The Cirrostratus Group's services here.