AI sales coaching is the latest in call center training tools. It uses AI agents and data to provide you with the most sophisticated coaching for your call representatives, but how necessary is it for your call center today? Most call centers use AI sales coaching tools in their workflow and are seeing increasing sales and customer engagement.
When used with your CRM, it can become one of the most useful sales agent tools. We'll show you how it works and, more importantly, how to use it effectively without adding additional confusion.
Are you interested in learning how to add AI sales coaching to your workflow? Book a demo with one of our call representatives, and we'll walk you through your process to see how AI sales coaching can help increase your ROI.
What is AI Sales Coaching?
AI sales coaching is the implementation of AI to train your sales agents. This can be done in many ways, but it generally involves managers sending recordings, transcripts, and call notes to an AI agent trained on the subtleties of customer sentiment. Once the AI receives the data, it analyzes it and provides an action plan for your sales representatives.
After the AI creates the initial plan, managers can review it and make any adjustments needed for their specific field. For instance, if you're in the life insurance space, you'll want the AI sales coaching to focus on security and compliance features and an agent's ability to de-escalate situations.
Of course, you can train the AI agent to focus on any call center metric if you notice your call center representatives lacking in a particular area.
Types of AI Sales Coaching
Depending on your call center, you can prioritize different types of AI sales coaching. Each one increases your call center's quality assurance and productivity. Here's what you need to know and how to discern which one is right for you:
AI Analyzing Information & Providing Feedback
A basic AI sales coach analyzes the data it's provided and gives actionable feedback for your sales agents. This relies on your managers manually sending call data to your agents or an integration between your CRM and AI agent.
Throughout each call, the AI agent reads the transcript or listens to calls live, determines customer sentiment, checks for compliance statements, and applies the proper call disposition. This is the best way to get feedback on your customer journey map.
AI Roleplay & Simulation
The second type of AI sales coach involves direct interaction with an AI simulation, which requires a more sophisticated AI model. Essentially, managers upload a curated list of calls to the AI agent, and it develops a customer's personality.
These help your agents train for potentially frustrating situations or unusual scenarios. You will need to train these AI agents to adopt the new personality throughout the entire interaction since it could change depending on the AI's desire to comply with your call representative.
What Does Your Team Need?
Ideally, your team will need both kinds of AI sales coaching agents to be most effective. However, if you can only invest in one kind of AI sales coaching, we recommend investing in one that analyzes your calls and provides feedback.
While AI roleplay and simulation are helpful, they require an advanced AI model that your call representatives can't manipulate. Plus, if you have a call manager, they can act as the customer in roleplay situations.
Ultimately, an AI sales coach is only one of the AI customer service tools you should use.
How AI Sales Coaching Works
Your AI sales coach will follow a few steps to provide the most relevant recommendations. However, everyone's workflow is different, so while this is a standard series of steps, it can look different depending on your process.
Here's what an average AI sales coaching session will cover:
| Steps | Description |
|---|---|
| Capture | If your AI agent integrates with your CRM and dialer, it should capture every conversation coming from the call representative it's focusing on. Without a CRM integration, you will have to upload the conversations manually. |
| Analyze | Once the AI coach has call information, it does a deep call analysis and flags any events you asked it to focus on. |
| Score | If you've given your AI agent a scorecard, it should provide one filled out with a detailed explanation of each call. This way, your AI agent has a basis for their recommendations. |
| Surface | For immediate recommendations, your AI must capture calls as they are occurring. In this step, an AI agent suggests recommended phrases during a live call. |
| Coach | After the call is finished, the AI will begin coaching you based on what you've fed it. This can look like a detailed, step-by-step list for what you should do on your next call or flagging weak phrases used throughout the call. This is the most important section for your coaching. |
Consent, Recording Laws & Data Privacy in AI Sales Coaching
If you work in sensitive fields, such as insurance, you must abide by consent, recording, and data privacy laws. Your AI sales coach should flag these and notify your call representatives if they aren't complying with state and company standards. These standards can also increase customers' trust and confidence in your company.
Before your sales coach can use any call data, the customer must consent to having their information used for further analysis.
How to Integrate AI Sales Coaching
AI sales coaching should integrate seamlessly with your current workflow. If you run sales coaching within your company or offer call center training, you only need to add AI sales coaching to the start of your process. Once you're ready to start training, send the calls you want your AI agent to analyze, and it'll give you a detailed report you can use to improve your business.
One benefit of AI sales coaching is that you can pull from all your call recordings, not just a small number. This gives you a comprehensive view of your call health that you can use to improve your call center metrics.
Measuring AI Sales Coaching Success
If you're already running AI sales coaching, you must track all the metrics to ensure it benefits your business. When your metrics are falling short, it's time to re-evaluate your workflow. Here are just a few of the metrics you can use:
Leading Indicators
Leading indicators are metrics you can use to measure future success. Here are a few leading indicators you can use:
- Ramp Time: The time it takes for a new agent to reach company standards.
- Talk Ratio: The amount of time an agent spends speaking and listening during a call.
- Objection-Handling Rate: Measures how an agent handles objections.
- Playbook Adherence: Determines how often an agent follows the company playbook.
Lagging Indicators
Lagging indicators use previous history to confirm long-term success. Here are a few lagging indicators you can use:
- Win Rate: Measures how often an agent closes and converts into a sale.
- Cycle Length: The time it takes for a call to convert into a sale.
- Quota Attainment: Determines if a sales agent can reach the quotas set by your company.
What to Look Out For in AI Sales Coaching
Of course, using an AI sales coach won't automatically increase your sales potential if you don't manage it properly. A common misconception is that you can expect the AI to accomplish sales coaching by itself. However, you should have a human manager who can offer their nuanced opinion on the metrics the AI evaluates.
Transcription accuracy, especially during multilingual calls, and AI suggestions require further evaluation and vetting by a manager before they're passed to a sales representative.
Evaluating an AI Sales Coach
Before you get an AI sales coach, evaluate the program to see if it will satisfy your business needs. There are a few things you should consider when looking up various AI sales coaches:
Questions to Ask on a Demo
Once you've found an AI sales coach you're interested in, book a demo with the company and begin compiling your questions. This is your chance to determine how you are going to use the sales coach and find the metrics you want to focus on. We always suggest you search for a program specific to your industry, so you know that it can provide accurate suggestions.
Integrating Your AI Sales Coach With Your Toolkit
You should also seek an AI sales coach that integrates with your current tools, such as your CRM and dialer. An AI sales coach should seamlessly slot into your current workflow, not disrupt your call reps. We highly recommend investing in a sales coach that grabs call transcripts from your toolkit to provide proper context as the basis of its coaching.
Another alternative is to use a service with a native AI sales coach in its CRM or dialer. This eliminates the need to search for API keys, and you'll know that the system was built with your needs in mind.
How Hooked Works as Your AI Sales Coach
Hooked is the perfect solution for your AI sales coaching needs. We've fully integrated our AI virtual assistant with our dialer and CRM to give your sales team the most actionable advice. Our AI evaluates every conversation with confidence, so you get a comprehensive diagnosis centered on concrete evidence.
If you're interested in upgrading your sales team, book a demo with us today, and one of our qualified representatives will walk you through your process and show you how Hooked fits your workflow today.
