

The bot independently selects customers, contacts them through text message or email, uses natural-language processing to understand the context of their response, and answers accordingly to drive conversion. Chatbots enable companies to re-engage prospective customers who are stuck in the purchasing funnel, thus creating new opportunities without any extra human effort. This makes sales one of the most promising functions in terms of automation potential. 1 A directional figure based on a top-down assessment and interviews the exact figure will depend on a company’s starting point and specific sales dynamic. Cross-functional research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) indicates that approximately a third of sales and sales operations tasks can be easily automated with today’s technology (Exhibit 1). Companies may adopt these technologies for reasons other than labor cost savings, such as improved quality, efficiency, or scale.”Īutomation of standard tasks is one of the megatrends that shapes the global economy. 2 Based on the comprehensive MGI definition of automation in “A future that works: Automation, employment, and productivity,” January 2017, McKinsey Global Institute: “Our definition of automation includes robotics (machines that perform physical activities) and artificial intelligence (software algorithms that perform calculations and cognitive activities). Currently, machine learning and robotic process automation are the most popular technologies in sales, with adoption rates of 70 and 55 percent, respectively, among sales automation pioneers.


1 Federico Berruti, Graeme Nixon, Giambattista Taglioni, and Rob Whiteman, “ Intelligent Process Automation,” March 2017,. While multiple technologies are available, we see five technologies as core to sales automation efforts: machine learning (ML), robotic process automation (RPA), natural-language processing/generation (NLP), smart workflows, and virtual agents.
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We define sales automation as any technology that is able to replicate human cognitive capability, such as logical reasoning, pattern recognition, and so on, thus reducing manual labor in a given sales process.
