10 Ways to Leverage Conversational AI to Save Money and Boost Sales

AI has exploded over the past 12 months and there is barely a business process or creative task that cannot be enhanced in some way or entirely performed by AI.

There are of course good ways and bad ways to leverage AI.

Asking ChatGPT to write a few inspirational paragraphs for a LinkedIn article, pasting it in verbatim and passing it off as your own work is definitely not the right way to go about leveraging AI.

It’s possibly the laziest use of phenomenal technology and it is incredibly easy to spot.

The same large language models (LLMs) that power services like ChatGPT can of course be leveraged in much smarter ways.

Once such use case is conversational AI.

By connecting an AI chat agent with a LLM and training it on industry or company data and specific products or offers, an Ai agent can conduct stunning two way conversations with humans via messaging apps or even voice calls.

Well trained CAI Agents can typically answer any question a typical lead or customer would ask even if that question is completely off topic, unlike a chatbot that has a limited response matrix and cannot answer anything that hasn’t been pre-programmed.

If you have spent any time trying to navigate a customer service chatbot, you’ll know the potential to go around in circles all day without getting your question answered or battling never ending requests to rephrase or ask a different question to try and find a question the chatbot has been programmed to answer.

It’s a poor user experience.

Enter Conversational AI

Conversational AI brings with it the ability to engage with customers or leads through two way conversations that can span unlimited topics, from your latest product line up to the Monarchs of Bavaria.

And this we can use to our advantage.

A well trained CAI Agent can be integrated into many business processes and do things better, faster and cheaper than any alternative option.

Let’ take a look at 10 ways you can use conversational AI in your business.

1 — Chase Down Hard To Contact Leads.

When a prospect fills in a form on your website or responds to an ad and leaves their phone number, when your sales team dials, do they always pick up?

Some do, but there’s a percentage that don’t. People don’t like picking up unknown numbers these days and that’s the challenge. A recent study found that 44% of people give up after one call. By dial 4, 94% give up and the lead is consigned to the trash.

This is where an AI agent can step in. They never give up and they can meet the prospect on platforms and channels that the leads are more open to starting a conversation.

If you task an AI agent with contacting the uncontactable, they will usually get the job done and get the lead to an appointment or at least confirm they no longer need your help. Either way you know.

Gone are the days where you need expensive staff dialling over and over with minimal results.

2 — Ad Lead Qualification

One major problem for sales people is wasting time on tyre kickers who are not really interested in what you are selling or are not in a position to move forward.

How many unemployed people fill out loan application lead forms on a daily basis. You would be surprised.

You can connect Conversational AI agent directly to your digital ads and take the lead straight into a qualification process. This can happen on many platforms, even TikTok. The lead clicks on the button and is met by the AI agent.

As we know the AI can talk about anything and handle any questions the lead throws at it, but will ask the right questions to ensure the lead qualifies based on your criteria before ever making it through to your sales team.

This means your team spends more time talking to the leads that matter.

3 — Database Reactivation

One of the most popular uses for conversational AI in marketing is database reactivation.

Most businesses with active marketing inevitably gather ton of leads that either went cold or were never reached.

Dumping these leads out to a CSV file and handing them to a trained conversational AI agent is a very effective strategy.

The contact success rates are typically 30–40% and a worthwhile number of those people end up buying.

It’s found money.

A great way to recoup ad spend and the investment made to get those leads onto your database in the first place.

A lot of expensive ad agencies will talk about ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). This is a sure fire way to lift your ROAS without spending another dime on ads, even if the campaign ran a ayear ago.

The results I have seen are nothing short of spectacular.

4 — After Hours Sales Coverage

When the phones switch over to the after hours message, or your website chat widget switches from live support to canned responses the lost opportunity can be massive.

Does this sound familiar:

Sales: Hi Judy, you left a message over the weekend regarding car finance.

Judy: I did, but sorry I managed to organise something elsewhere

Sales: ok, sorry about that, thanks… click

With a conversational AI agent manning the phones, questions are answered, leads are qualified and appointments are made.

AI Agents never sleep, never get sick or need leave. They can be there 24/7 getting the job done., which means you see better results without the staff costs.

5 — Retire Your Setters

If you have a good flow of enquiries coming into your business from ads, online traffic or even purchased leads, you might consider sending these enquiries to appointment setters.

The task is to get them to a sales call appointment with your best closers.

You can task an AI Agent with this job.

Integrating your AI agent with inbound enquiry channels and your CRM and calendar ensures your best leads get to your closers.

The full transcript of the conversation can also be passed to the appointment notes so your sales team are ready for action.

This means you can retire your low skilled appointment setters and bring on more high performing closers.

6 — Retire your offshore call centre

Now this might be a little delicate, but a lot of businesses opt for offshore call centres to handle outbound and pre-sales conversations. Mainly due to the costs being significantly lower than hiring local staff.

The problem is language and strong accents can be challenging for a lot of customers. You might also find call centre staff aren’t the most enthusiastic of your team members.

Conversational AI solves this problem. By taking two-way conversations to a messaging platform (which most people prefer) or deploying a voice solution AI can convert enquiries into appointments 24/7/365

AI can scale as needed. You can set up for thousands of simultaneous conversations for pennies on the dollar.

7 — Dormant Client Reactivation

Like un-contacted leads, most businesses have dormant clients sitting in their system.

You can task AI to engage with your past customers, make them aware of new products that relate to their past purchases and generally get into decent 2 way conversations that let them know you still exist.

E-commerce operators might send generic text or email blasts offering a discount or sale promotion. When you build in deep personalisation with AI, the results are streets ahead of blanket broadcast.

AI can help drive better LTV which reflects in your bottom line.

8 — Policy Renewals

For any periodically renewable product, like insurance, a gym membership even vehicle maintenance you can use a conversational AI agent to do the heavy lifting when it comes to renewals.

A CAI can contact the customer, engage with them around the renewal due, then either get confirmation or book a call to process the renewal with one of your team.

The integration and automation options are practically limitless, as are the cost savings and contributions to your customer satisfaction levels and bottom line.

9 — CRM Relationship Marketing

Keeping in touch with your customers and potential customers is another important task you can give to your Conversational AI Agent.

Sure email blasts are better than nothing, but getting into a two way conversation with your clients and prospects from time to time builds a better know-like-trust bond that ensures they’ll be thinking of you.

Ask them how’s business, how’s the widget performing, did you need an X to go with the Y you bought last month — the possibilities are endless.

Of course if the conversation results in the desire to talk to sales, your AI agent can book the appointment or even live transfer to a sales team member.

10 — Outbound Prospecting

Now I wasn’t sure whether I should include this one, because in some countries it’s frowned upon. But it is very effective.

You can feed your AI agent a list of contact numbers and have it reach out and engage with these prospects. Properly engage.

Then if your dastardly plan involves getting them to a sales call, or an order form, to vote for you or to make a donation, just let the CAI agent know and let it go to work.

None of your team needs to be tied up with this activity which is always a numbers game, until that is your AI agent gets the job done.

So there we have it 10 ways you can leverage conversational AI to save operational costs, provide a better local experience, scale reach and ultimately boost your bottom line, which is what you’re in business to do.

I’m always happy to chat about Ai agents. If you think you have a use case, please get in touch. Book a Call

Thanks for reading.

Alan

P.S. I can help you with Conversational AI for your business

P.P.S. Typically there are no set up costs.

P.P.P.S. I work on a back end commission basis so only get paid when you sell something so there’s zero risk

P.P.P.P.S Why are you still reading — Book A Call