How AI can help distributors' sales teams sell better

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be one of the most misunderstood technologies. For many people, the phrase “artificial intelligence” conjures images of a distant future in which giant robots are in charge.

But in fact, AI is here today, and most of us already rely on it in our daily lives.

AI technology can perceive, learn and reason, and it can find meaning in data, including text, images, video and voice. And as distributors, you can use that information to help you and your team work smarter, sell more and grow margins.

Specialized tools, like Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 AI for Sales, which became widely available late last year, offer specialized intelligence capabilities. Those capabilities provide valuable, actionable information that your team – including field reps, inside sales, and sales managers – can use to become more productive, and to make your company more profitable.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 AI for sales, your teams will be able to:

• Focus on customers with the greatest potential. Find and prioritize leads and opportunities to direct your efforts to those with the highest likelihood to buy.
• Maintain relationships. With information from Dynamics 365, LinkedIn and Office 365, you’ll be able to identify healthy customer relationships, as well as those that are riskier. That data means you can focus on high-priority customers.
• Personalize customer relationships. Make your communications more personal – and therefore more relevant – to your customers, using embedded insights that recommend talking points and next actions.
• Automate sales execution. Increase your sellers’ productivity with contextual prompts that suggest new records to create, such as contacts and activities, based on data from sellers’ notes.
• Gain detailed sales insights. Dynamics 365 provides data and resources that enable your sales managers to understand sales performance better, and more effectively coach sales reps using seller engagement and productivity metrics.
• Coach effectively. With the intelligence Dynamics 365 can pull from sales call records, you can guide your sales reps to more productive conversations, which leads to increased sales.

The bottom line: AI is here now. And right now, it can help you transform in an area that matters most to your business: engaging with customers.