Thriving in B2B sales means rapidly adapting to a constantly evolving landscape. Today’s customers are highly discerning and well-informed, making it more challenging than ever before to drive significant revenue growth.
AI has emerged as a game-changer, particularly with the recent surge in generative AI. Sales leaders must understand the significance of AI and how it can empower teams to drive revenue by allowing teams to spend less time on routine tasks and more time doing what they do best: selling.
Many businesses are turning to next-generation revenue intelligence platforms with sophisticated AI-powered ‘generative signals’ capabilities, transforming data across CRM and other communications channels into actionable insights and actions. Generative signals recommend tailored content to individual users, and provides instant AI summaries of opportunities, status, next steps, and personalized action items—all consolidated within a unified view.
Actionable intelligence across the sales pipeline
Traditional sales playbooks fall short as sales teams need help identifying success patterns and adapting to constantly changing market demands. Repetitive tasks, such as defining next steps, setting close dates, and maintaining transparency in pipeline deals, can pose significant challenges. Generative signals transform every team member into an informed decision-maker by providing actionable intelligence at every critical juncture.
These capabilities go well beyond mainstream business tools—and draw from accurate data captured from CRM and other customer channels like WhatsApp, QuickBooks, and Zoom to identify winning customer engagement patterns. They provide real-time, actionable recommendations to elevate sales efforts—generating precise insights and guiding teams to execute the right actions at the right time. By understanding sales reps’ actions across channels, a feedback loop identifies successful strategies, highlights areas for improvement, and introduces ongoing changes to enhance performance.
Generative Signals: Four Keys
Below are four key considerations that should be top of mind when it comes to evaluating AI-powered generative signals capabilities in revenue intelligence platforms:
1. Generate data-driven insights at every stage:
Generative signals should act as a sales co-pilot, recommending actions that align with sales strategies. They should alleviate the burden of tedious and repetitive tasks, allowing sales reps to focus on high-impact activities. They should provide:
- AI-powered opportunity summaries, which analyze CRM data across opportunities and communications channels, and offer a clear understanding of what’s happening in the pipeline.
- Automatic deal status updates, using AI-based insights to identify the next steps for each deal.
- Real-time, actionable guidance to help align strategies with the most winning customer segments, personas, and engagement patterns.
2. Create dynamic playbooks:
AI-driven alerts should be relevant to specific deals, pipelines, and customer communication. Whether a deal is thriving or about to stall, teams need to know precisely when and how to act. A team’s ability to respond effectively and promptly should no longer be dependent on intuition—but powered by intelligent, timely signals such as:
- Alerts on deals at risk, e.g., if a deal is silent or about to stall, enabling immediate actions to secure it.
- Real-time notifications about opportunities that enable teams to stay informed about crucial shifts, enabling speed and agility.
- AI-generated personalized signals for individual team members that help ensure the right person takes the right action at the right time.
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3. Actionable guidance at every stage:
Generative signals should be ‘actionable,’ enabling teams to manage deals directly, initiate Salesforce flows, and communicate with prospects across all platforms where the team works: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Outlook/Gmail, and Salesforce. Signals should enable seamless execution of tasks, easy engagement with prospects, and guidance at pivotal moments such as:
- Contextual alerts and actions, including updating contact information, e.g., all within the Microsoft Teams bot.
- Enhanced communication and timely reminders to call or email prospects.
- Interactive coaching and customizable signals that provide personalized recommendations.
4. Create and customize AI-powered signals for any process or role:
Look for AI-powered signal “builders” capabilities to create and customize signals based on industry data, winning patterns, and strategy. Signals should be easily customizable for accounts, contacts, leads, or opportunities and align with CRM workflow effortlessly without developers or technical assistance. Signals should be customizable to provide unique insights for various roles. For instance:
- For sales managers: The opportunity stage has changed to “proposal price quote.”
- For sales ops: The new lead was not contacted 24 hours after creation.
- For sales reps: schedule a call with an interested prospect in two days.
- For AEs: opportunity is less than ten days from the close date.
- For the VP of sales, the manager-adjusted commitment is 35% lower than the team commitment.
5. Analyze and enhance the sales team’s performance with signals reporting:
Signals reporting features should provide real-time insights that allow sales leaders to dive into how the team interacts with signals. From swift adjustments to fostering efficient communication, advanced reporting capabilities should equip businesses with proactive data-driven tools for coaching meetings and strategy execution—aligning the team’s actions with business objectives. Reporting should provide:
- Real-time data that showcases the impact and efficacy of signals for each team member. These should be adaptable on the fly to ensure optimal performance.
- An in-depth understanding of team interactions to deliver insights into how the sales team engages with their signals. This facilitates more coherent and efficient communication strategies that align with business goals.
Embracing revenue intelligence platforms equipped with AI-powered generative signals marks a transformative era in revenue operations, amplifying the capabilities of sales teams and substantially boosting productivity to secure more deals. RevOps teams wield the power to configure signals, shape sales behaviors, and monitor progress, ensuring the seamless implementation of best practices. How is your business harnessing the potential of generative signals to empower your teams and translate insights into impactful actions that drive revenue growth?
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