Conversation Intelligence: 7 Ways Top Performers Use AI to Close More Deals

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been making significant strides in various industries, and sales is no exception. Introducing AI into the sales process has revolutionized the way businesses approach and manage their sales activities. By automating repetitive tasks, providing personalized recommendations, optimizing lead generation and more, AI is transforming the sales landscape in numerous ways. One of the most influential areas of AI in sales is conversation intelligence.

By automatically transcribing, analyzing and deriving insights from sales calls, meetings and other customer interactions, conversation intelligence offers a comprehensive understanding of buyer needs. Moreover, conversation intelligence enables sales managers to identify best practices and successful strategies used by top-performing reps, fostering knowledge sharing and enhancing the team’s overall performance. As a result, sales teams armed with conversation intelligence can optimize their approach, improve customer engagement and ultimately boost their chances of closing deals.

What is Conversation Intelligence?

Conversation intelligence is a powerful technology that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to transform the way sales teams engage with customers and prospects. By capturing, transcribing and analyzing every interaction throughout the sales process, conversation intelligence provides actionable insights and data-driven recommendations to help sales reps close deals more effectively.

At the heart of conversation intelligence is the ability to automatically transcribe AI sales calls and meetings, turning spoken conversations into searchable and organized text. The advanced AI algorithms then analyze these transcriptions, identifying keywords, phrases and patterns that reveal valuable information about the customer’s needs, pain points and preferences.

Beyond transcription and analysis, conversation intelligence delivers real-time coaching and guidance to sales reps during their interactions with prospects. By offering in-the-moment suggestions on what to say, when to listen and how to address objections, conversation intelligence empowers sellers to adapt their approach and make more informed decisions during the sales process.

Another key aspect of conversation intelligence is the ability to track and measure various sales metrics. By identifying trends and benchmarking performance, managers can easily spot areas for improvement, share best practices from top-performing reps and ensure that their team is continually learning and evolving.

Furthermore, conversation intelligence integrates seamlessly with CRM systems and other sales tools, creating a unified data source for all customer interactions. This allows sales teams to maintain up-to-date records, streamline their workflows and ultimately improve overall efficiency.

7 Ways Top Performers Use Conversation Intelligence to Close More Deals

Conversation intelligence, as exemplified by Revenue.io, is revolutionizing the sales landscape by providing unparalleled insights and support throughout the sales process. By enabling sales reps to better understand their customers, receive real-time coaching and continually refine their skills, conversation intelligence is helping sales teams to drive more successful outcomes and boost their revenue potential.

Here are 7 specific ways your team can use conversation intelligence to close more deals.

1. Leverage AI-Curated Conversations to Deliver Value Insights

Prior to a discovery meeting, chances are someone else at your company has already spoken with the buyer over the phone or by video. Understanding problems that were surfaced along with potential solutions that were raised or agreed to in the prior meeting will greatly increase your chances of winning.

Don’t have time to listen to the entire conversation? You don’t have to. Conversation intelligence makes it easy to:

• Quickly review only what the buyer(s) or seller said at any point in the conversation
• Scan the entire transcript for key learnings, challenges and opportunities
• Leverage keywords to see the most important topics discussed
• Note “sentiment” scores across meeting attendees to help gauge buyer mood
• Easily jump into any critical area of the conversation

2. Quote the Buyer(s) Directly

We all want to be heard. There’s no easier way to connect emotionally with buyers – and to signal that they’ve been heard and understood – than to quote them directly.

Here’s how:

• Using the conversation intelligence transcript, locate a high-impact quote about a problem they need to solve or something else that’s important to them
• Create a slide that reads, “What I Heard”
• Slip their quote or quotes into the beginning of your conversation
• Confirm whether these statements still ring true

There are lots of ways to prepare for a meeting, but one of the most powerful is to listen to what the buyer has already shared with your team in their own voice. That way, you don’t have to be concerned about relying on inaccurate or incomplete information in your CRM.

This is a surefire way to make your buyer continue to want to spend time with you. After all, it’s much more enjoyable to interact with someone who shows they care and understand.

3. Craft a High-Impact Follow-Up Email

Developing and sending timely meeting recaps is critical to building trust and moving the deal forward. But how can you ensure you’re providing value with your recap emails, instead of sending a generic “thanks for meeting with me” message?

Use conversation intelligence to:

• Surface and highlight significant quotes from the conversation, using them strategically in your email follow-up
• Attribute statements to the right speaker without having to rewatch or re-listen
• Send a case study or ROI analysis that references a problem they mentioned

4. Collaborate with Your Team Using Conversation Intelligence

Landing huge deals often takes a village. But scheduling multiple team meetings to get your team’s help is the least efficient way to work.

Instead of holding multiple internal meetings to explain what your teammates need to know in order to move the deal forward, you can use conversation intelligence to quickly get everyone on the same page.

Here’s how:

• Open a conversation transcript
• Highlight key moments within the conversation to easily inform other members of your team what to focus on
• Share the call with your internal collaborators

Your teammates will naturally gravitate towards your commentary to gain quick insights.

5. Curate Best Practice Libraries

Organize every conversation into searchable best practice libraries that enable more reps to perform like your A-players. Reps can review calls to see how their peers handle common conversation scenarios. They can also search through best practice libraries to help with unfamiliar industries, roles or use cases.

With conversation intelligence able to easily transcribe every conversation and organize conversations by keywords, it couldn’t be easier to curate these best practice libraries. They have a lasting impact on the effectiveness of your team.

6. Improve Conversation Habits

The best conversation intelligence platform allows reps to easily track various conversation etiquette metrics. Reps can see how they compare to peers when it comes to monologues, talk ratio, interruptions, and more.

It’s vital for reps to improve their conversation habits so buyers enjoy speaking with them more. With conversation intelligence, they can continually review their scores for talk percentage, talk ratio and other criteria across multiple conversations.

7. Flag Calls for Coaching with Conversation Intelligence

Receiving coaching from your manager is still the best way to improve, but you don’t have to settle for old-school coaching that usually ends up being a waste of your time (and your manager’s). With conversation intelligence, you can flag a call for your manager to review with a single click.

Rather than coaching based on perceived areas that need improvement, managers can quickly listen to the most important parts of the conversation and offer targeted coaching based on that. Plus, real-time guidance reinforces that coaching during live conversations so reps know exactly what to say and do when speaking with buyers.

Ready to see how the Revenue.io conversation intelligence platform can help your team close more deals? Schedule a consultation with one of our specialists here.