In today’s tumultuous market with inflation headwinds and recession fears mounting, leading B2B organizations are pivoting from sales growth at all costs to sales efficiency. A key part in efficiency is making the most of what resources you currently have. This includes your salespeople and your sales tools.
Friction still abounds between buyers and salespeople. B2B sellers say “we are putting you first” — and only 23% of buyers believe it. 71% of B2B buyers said they value client value stories, yet 78% said the salespeople they have encountered do not come with these prepared. 70% of leaders see salespeople straying off-message during buyer conversations, and they lack answers to four out of every 10 buyer questions. It is no wonder 77% of B2B buyers rated their latest purchase as very complex or difficult.
Measuring how well your salespeople are performing can be tricky. While role-play exercises serve their function in the sales enablement mix, they do not always equate to actual on-the-call performance. Sales numbers alone miss the massive amount of time and effort salespeople put in before and after an actual deal lands. It is in these moments where areas for improvements in process and skills can make or break your sales efficiency and effectiveness. But to identify these, your leadership almost needs an all-seeing tool that captures buyer emails, video calls, phone meetings and content shares.
Luckily, this tool exists: conversation intelligence (CI) software. In fact, CI has become part of many sales platforms. Whether your organization has already adopted CI into its sales operations or not, let us look deeper at what this tool can do to help boost your salespeople’s skills — and your organization’s overall revenue performance. Keep reading for a peek at the CI interface of leading revenue enablement provider Mediafly.
WHAT THE EYES AND EARS OF CONVERSATION INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE CAN REVEAL
Conversation intelligence is a simple tool to grasp. With artificial intelligence (AI) technology (like from Mediafly, Gong.io and Chorus.ai), the software records and pulls key insights from buyer calls, video meetings and emails. Both qualitative insights — like recorded calls, meetings and emails to study — and quantitative data — like those displayed in dashboards surfacing analytics, trends and insights — give your leadership eyes and ears into actual buyer engagements.
Heads of sales can apply this tool in a number of ways to boost techniques and behaviors:
- Score your salespeople based on CI insights from buyer meetings.
- Showcase competencies (or deficiencies) in key skills, messaging and behaviors of successful sales reps during sales meetings.
- Identify members of your team who need more coaching and reinforcement.
- Expose gaps in sales assets.
- Pinpoint misalignment in messages and across sales teams and geographies — and work to bridge the gaps.
What do these insights really look like, though? We got a behind-the-software look from our friends at Mediafly.
TAKE A PEEK AT LEADING CONVERSATION INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE
There are a number of different views within a conversation intelligence solution. Individual call cards, like the visual above, provide details into a single conversation. They show keywords, talk time by participant, transcriptions, etc.
As conversations are ingested, the platform continuously learns and updates models based on your organization’s unique language. Mediafly is distinctive in that it focuses on coaching and provides a Scorecard at the bottom of every card encouraging both managers and reps to score the call, shining a spotlight on strengths and opportunities for improvement.
The data can rolls up to a Performance Dashboard, which looks holistically at a sales professional’s pipeline to track trends and coaching in a single view — as well as leaderboards and other reports that inform account engagement, forecast predictability and pipeline risk.
BUT! THE ‘BRAINS’ BEHIND CONVERSATION INTELLIGENCE REMAIN IN THE HEADS OF LEADERS
Your conversation intelligence (CI) insights can help your sales leadership uncover a number of common issues: incorrect or undetailed buyer profiles, unqualified buyers, unaddressed status quos, me-too messaging, a weak value proposition and more. They can help companies assess product market fit and understand why one seller is excelling against a specific competitor but others are struggling. But having the data and insights is step one. Sales leaders still have to leverage those findings and drive meaningful change through adjustments in processes, training, accountability and more. The key is to not just listen or look at the dashboard but to pivot the go-to-market strategy and tactics accordingly.
As your CI insights roll-in, turn to Derailing the Deal, a Mereo guide to solving the five most common issues sending your salespeople off-track from landing the deal.