4 Key AI Assistants For Business Growth

While sales is often a volume game, there are many things we can do to improve the odds in our favour.

We can improve our ads and copy, get better training on how to manage a sales call, think about our internal processes, and refine our customer avatar.

And those can all help, but there's something else that can also help us.

AI Assistants.

In this edition, I'm going to give a snapshot of how 4 different AI Assistants can help to book more appointments, generate more sales and grow your business.

But before I dive into number 1, I want to set the stage - these AI Assistants work best if you already have a steady flow of leads / customers.

If you've just started your business or are focused on organic content these AI Assistants won't give you the return you're looking for.

Now that we've cleared that up we can get started.

#1: Speed To Lead / Lead Nurturing

In the world of sales, speed pays.

Leads contacted in the first 5 minutes are 100 times more likely to convert but waiting just 30 minutes reduces the chances of qualifying a lead by 21 times compared with responding in less than 5 minutes.

The average time it takes to respond to a lead is 29 hours and 77% are never followed up with.

This means that after paying to generate leads most businesses do nothing with them, or at the very least, don't put themselves in the best position to convert those leads into sales.

And that's where a 'Speed to Lead' AI Assistant comes in.

This AI Assistant will automatically respond to an inbound lead and begin the nurturing process but unlike an automation, which tend to be pre-scripted responses, the beauty of the AI is that it has the power to have a conversation.

Whether via SMS, Email or messages on IG and FB, this AI Assistant understands the sales objective and then manages the conversation accordingly. It can also be used to book appointments in calendars or qualify leads.

#2: Database Reactivation

We've already mentioned spending money on generating leads, and that 77% of leads are never followed up with.

This means you could be sitting on a database of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of old leads.

And this is where a Database Reactivation AI Assistant can help.

Taking all those old leads and striking up a conversation while your sales team focus on having calls and closing deals.

And this isn't some automated sequence or a single blast out to the database.

It's about enabling the AI Assistant to nudge, engage in general conversation, re-qualify and complete the sales objective, which might still be booking appointments for the sales team to pick up or booking appointments for a service team to deliver on.

#3: Out of Hours Reception

This AI Assistant is great for growing your business when the people in your team have clocked off for the evening or the weekend.

It will respond to incoming enquiries after hours and help set things up for when your staff return.

That could be booked appointments, email notifications and updates to a CRM, sending payment links, or providing guidance on general support enquiries.

The Out of Hours AI Assistant can also utilise voice, so if someone calls the office then the call can be answered and the AI can respond. This is especially great if you're in an industry that relies heavily on inbound phone conversations.

#4: 1st Line Support

Finally, the 4th AI Assistant is related to support. While not directly a sales role or function Support teams play a big role in the success and growth of a business.

Having been part of several Customer Success Teams, and interacted with Support Teams, I know the value of having a good Support function. It can be the difference between a renewal and a cancellation.

And this AI Assistant can help with 1st line support, triage, and directing people to relevant resources, all while logging the interaction back into the CRM for other support and success staff to reference.

The world is moving on from structured chatbots and knowledge bases. These AI Assistants give Support teams greater flexibility and scale because an AI Assistant can handle multiple support queries at the same time meaning real staff are freed up to focus on SLAs, big corporate accounts or those who need a little extra personal touch.

Which one is right for you?

It's a great question and it really comes down to the nature of your business. You might be able to benefit from all of these AI Assistants.

I've seen AI Assistants like these used in services businesses like HVAC, Roofing and Plumbing through to beauty salons, in legal for document collections and booking consultations, software sales to qualify leads and in ecommerce to re-activate old leads.

And that's what's so powerful about them - these 4 core AI Assistants can be tailored to your industry and trained to perform the exact actions you require.

So if you want to grow your business and generate more sales and appointments, maybe your next hire should be an AI Assistant.