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Simon Lau
April 19, 2020
Cold calls have come a long way, and the days of blindly typing numbers on a dialpad and reading from a fixed script are over.
In the past, sales teams found their target demographic through sheer volume, dialing call after call until they reached the right customer. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and big data empower teams to zero in on potential prospects and tailor sales pitches that speak directly to their sentiments.
Sophisticated algorithms streamline the entire sales process, sorting data, prioritizing leads, and even starting conversations before a human agent takes over. For these teams, AI promises a new future, providing clear roadmaps to build meaningful connections with potential customers.
Here’s how sales teams can embrace new AI cold-calling technologies. Whether you’ve just welcomed AI into your workflow or want to refine your current approach, stay on the line. Otter will help you dial in on success.
4 benefits of AI cold-calling
Great sales reps know that good conversation, trust, and confidence are critical to closing deals. Those traits are uniquely human — so why use AI technologies to call and interact with leads?
Here are four benefits of embracing cold-calling tools to enhance your sales approach:
- Effective lead qualification
Traditional market research used to be a long, laborious process involving countless surveys, focus groups, and mail campaigns. While these methods gather quantitative and qualitative data, they’re often too broad and time-intensive to qualify leads.
Advanced AI algorithms can analyze thousands to millions of data sets simultaneously — something even the most prestigious marketing teams can’t compete with. AI-powered models can even identify which leads are most likely to convert into customers, transforming call lists from shots in the dark into valuable conversations. By concentrating sales calls on the most promising prospects, AI enhances interactions and speeds up the sales cycle.
- Data-driven sales reporting
Any sales strategy — even an AI-powered one — benefits from constant refinement. AI tools gather detailed insights about cold call performance, customer interactions, and the overall effectiveness of a campaign. This information helps sales teams adjust strategies quickly, leveraging data analytics to drive performance based on real-time feedback.
- Automated outreach
AI-powered outreach systems can handle massive volumes of calls and messages simultaneously. Here’s how it works: AI algorithms segment your leads based on several factors, including behavior, engagement history, and demographic data. The system automates the outreach, using conversational AI cold-calling to send personalized messages or phone calls at ideal times. After that, it judges the interaction to decide on next steps.
This process hands the most complex or nuanced conversations to human sales reps, who use the AI’s data to provide a more informed and personalized follow-up interaction. Humans optimize their time and avoid wasting resources on leads that won’t go anywhere.
- Personalized customer interactions
Every customer is different, even if they belong to the same demographic. AI can read between the lines, analyze customer data, and tailor conversations based on people’s online footprints and past interactions. Plus, the best AI cold-calling tools can perform sentiment analysis from the moment you drop your opening line. Adjust your strategy in real time.
How to boost your strategy with AI: 5 cold-call best practices
Like any new work platform, implementing a new AI tool requires careful planning. Here are five ways to successfully transition AI for sales calls:
- Prioritize your needs: AI tools should optimize your workforce’s time, not create more bottlenecks. Sit down with your team and analyze common challenges to closing deals. This helps you prioritize features — like gathering sentiment analysis during live interactions, automating outbound calls, or using advanced data tools to qualify leads — and choose an appropriate AI tool.
- Integrate to innovate: Efficient teams rely on efficient tools. That means choosing AI systems that integrate with the software you already use. For sales teams, CRM integration should be a top priority to simplify data collection and reduce manual data entry (and possible errors) from one tool to the other.
- Leverage human potential: While AI can handle an ever-growing number of tasks, it can’t replace strong human interactions. Use AI to automate repetitive tasks, like automated outbound calls and data entry, to free up your team’s time. Sales reps can then focus on what they do best: building meaningful customer relationships.
- Train everyone: AI tools are new and constantly evolving. Even your most tech-savvy sales reps need comprehensive onboarding. Provide live demos, all-in training sessions, and ongoing support. Follow-up meetings and accessible resources help your team stay up to date and use AI tools to their greatest potential.
- Monitor performance: Regularly audit AI-generated reports and analytics to track their performance. The more you fine-tune the metrics, the more the system will learn about your needs — and the better your success rate.
Top 5 tools to elevate your AI cold-calling strategy
Ready to make your cold-calling strategy extra intelligent? Here are five tools to consider:
- OtterPilot
OtterPilot for Sales adapts its software to work seamlessly with sales teams. It can transcribe calls in real time, perform sentiment analysis on live conversations, and allow managers to chat with sales reps while they’re on a call. And after every conversation, OtterPilot automatically syncs insights and a link to call transcriptions to Salesforce and HubSpot, keeping CRM data accurate.
Additionally, OtterPilot’s AI meeting assistant can handle time-consuming administrative tasks like writing notes, generating sales insights from cold calls, and sending follow-up emails to qualifying leads.
- ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a B2B contact database that uses AI technology to develop accurate insights about millions of companies and professionals. Its searchable functions help you find prospects and build strong call lists.
- Lusha
Lusha is another great resource to find contact information for target prospects. It uses AI to scan the internet for emails and phone numbers of specific people or organizations, saving sales reps time manually tracking contact details.
- Outreach
As the name implies, Outreach is an AI tool that improves client outreach. It performs repetitive, time-consuming tasks (like email sequencing and call analytics) and customizes customer conversations (like creating personalized messages and prioritizing follow-ups), saving you time.
- Crystal
Crystal mines public data to analyze individual prospects' online footprints, using AI tools to develop a personality profile for each prospect. This lets sales reps personalize their approach on every call, upping their chances of closing deals.
Revolutionize your sales strategy with Otter
Ready to transform cold contacts into hot new prospects? OtterPilot’s calling. Schedule a free demo today and learn how Otter can transform your team’s call success rate.
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