Is your revenue team ready for what's next?
Today’s workforce is evolving rapidly and companies are exploring new opportunities to increase profits, improve employee satisfaction, and boost productivity. As part of these efforts, some businesses adopt Revenue Digital Assistants™ to augment their workforce. Early adopters include Sales and Marketing teams looking to capture more opportunities from their lead pool.
One such early adopter is TIBCO, a software company headquartered in Palo Alto delivering a cloud intelligence platform, which employs Conversica’s Revenue Digital Assistant for Sales and Marketing to generate more meetings and opportunities from their existing leads no matter where they are in the customer journey.
Director of Customer Experience Jonathan Gallagher discussed TIBCO’s use cases during a recent webinar co-hosted by Conversica Chief Marketing Officer Rashmi Vittal. The webinar is a wonderful discussion around marketing trends and the future of work. But for Sales and Marketing teams considering adopting a Revenue Digital Assistant (or who have recently done so), here are a few of TIBCO’s tips and tricks for getting the most out of a Revenue Digital Assistant.
Gallagher recommends using multiple Revenue Digital Assistants to handle multiple regions. TIBCO leverages three Revenue Digital Assistants to manage leads in the Americas, EMEA, and APJ.
There are a few reasons for this. First and foremost, is the Revenue Digital Assistant’s ability to address cultural differences. What might be polite and appropriate for one region might not resonate with another region.
Similarly, the names of the Assistants should match the character of the region you are targeting. And since the languages used vary region by region, it only makes sense to deploy a Revenue Digital Assistant with the language skills necessary to communicate with and interpret responses from your contacts.
Using multiple Revenue Digital Assistants also ensures that emails are sent at appropriate times based on the location of the lead.
TIBCO share their experience using Conversica to improve Sales opportunities and drive revenue. Watch the on-demand webinar for more.
When TIBCO adopted the Revenue Digital Assistant for Marketing and Sales, they decided to apply a “go slow and grow” strategy. At first, the Conversica Revenue Digital Assistant contacted Marketing Engaged Leads (MELs), which are people who have initiated an action (such as downloading a webinar) but have not yet scored highly enough to be passed over to a Business Development Rep. After this initial run, they grew the number of leads the Revenue Digital Assistant went after by tacking on Remarketed Marketing Qualified Leads (RMQLs).
This turned out to be a smart strategy because it helped the company to test how the Revenue Digital Assistant worked and discover its true value. This approach continues to serve TIBCO as they gradually increase the duties placed on their Revenue Digital Assistants. Ultimately, TIBCO is heading toward the Assistant touching all MQLs, except for those who request immediate contact with a Salesperson.
According to Gallagher’s best practices, companies employing Revenue Digital Assistants should move incrementally but recognize that more leads mean more meetings: As you ramp up, do your best to pass on as many leads to the Revenue Digital Assistant as you can. Not only does this result in more opportunities by touching every single lead, but it also saves time and effort for your team members who no longer need to manage the process. This, in turn, leads to happier employees who can focus their time on the most rewarding tasks.
Like a lot of Sales and Marketing teams, TIBCO leverages marketing automation tools and CRMs including Marketo and Salesforce. Fortunately, Conversica integrates seamlessly into these platforms.
But this leaves open an important question: Should Conversica replace or work in tandem with traditional email nurture campaigns?
Gallagher suggests that companies employing Revenue Digital Assistants should leverage “dual nurture” and “dual outreach.” This means deploying Conversica and traditional email nurture campaigns at the same time.
The calls to action (CTAs) deployed by nurture campaigns and Conversica are quite different. The former typically nudges leads to download white papers, case studies, and other marketing materials to educate the prospect into learning more about your company and offerings. Conversica, on the other hand, asks the lead “are you interested in speaking to a Salesperson?”. These are two different messages that drive towards two different goals.
In that same vein, it’s not a problem for Sales to reach out to leads at the same time Conversica does. After all, the Revenue Digital Assistant acts as an assistant for the Sales team to confirm contact information and touching base with the lead to ensure they got the information they needed from conversations with your reps. And since the Revenue Digital Assistant engages in human-like discussions rather than an automated email campaign, the messages do not seem redundant.
Since Revenue Digital Assistants and your employees are working together to achieve the same goal, it only makes sense that teams are trained to review historical conversations happening over the Conversica platform. This is helpful for understanding context, as well as keeping up to date with preferred contact information.
Conversica is also helpful for capturing leads at risk which might include leads passed to a BDR, but who didn’t have a conversation at the scheduled time. Rather than losing this lead in the mix (which happens from time to time), the Revenue Digital Assistant reaches back out to confirm that the meeting occurred. If it didn’t, then the lead is put back into the customer journey to speak with a BDR. This helps the team monitor sales reps, automated workflows, and the rest so they can fix any part of the process that may be broken.
By following the above guidelines, organizations can ensure a smooth transfer of leads between Revenue Digital Assistants and staff members.
The final piece of advice focuses on providing feedback to the AI to help it learn. The team at Conversica pays attention to this feedback so they can make adjustments, updates, and improvements as necessary.
Gallagher mentions that he and his team have been very fortunate to have a quality Customer Service Manager (CSM) who is willing and able to help them with anything they need. The Conversica team is dedicated to ensure that your AI deployment is successful, so tap them anytime you need to.
Interested in learning more about TIBCO’s experience with the Revenue Digital Assistant for Sales and Marketing from Conversica? Listen to our webinar discussing the Future of Work.
Curious to see how a Revenue Digital Assistant might benefit your business? Request a demo today!
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