A Very Particular Set of Skills: Best Practices for Sales Conversations

Just like people, each Conversica Revenue Digital Assistant™ has their own unique set of skills.

When you add an RDA to your team, you start with identifying the business area—Marketing, Sales or Customer Success (along with other industry-specific areas like Automotive Service or Higher Education Admissions)—then decide what use cases you’d like the RDA to cover to help choose the skills your assistant should be equipped with.

These skills power the revenue-influencing conversations your RDA executes on your team’s behalf and are broken down by:

• Type of interaction leads/contacts have had with your company
• Time elapsed since last contact or prompt for outreach
• Goal of the exchange

In this post, we’ll look at our list of Sales skills, along with best practices gleaned from top performers in each one.

Engage (Demand)

This skill helps maximize the way you engage with your customers that have immediate demand. Engage conversations will be the first point of contact to engage prospects that recently requested information online through a demo request or contact form, as well as leads who have recently become MQLs.

Common Uses:

• Conversationally qualify prospects with questions to confirm fit and then route appropriately.
• Collect and confirm the correct information from leads for follow-up.

Top Performers:

• Leverage lead scoring practices to separate leads between the Engage and Activate skills.
• Add leads to Conversica as soon as the lead indicates their interest in communicating with you.
• Coach Sales to wait to make outreach until your AI-powered assistant has identified a Conversation Qualified Lead or a Lead to Review.

Activate (Unresponsive Demand)

The Activate skill revives the conversation with prospects who have gone unresponsive. Activate conversations will be the second point of contact after a human Sales rep has attempted to connect with prospects who raised their hand through online interaction.

Common Uses:

• Programmatically engage any MQL or inbound lead that has gone silent after initial Sales outreach
• Follow up with leads that have been transferred to a partner to ensure progression

Top Performers:

• Leverage lead scoring practices to separate leads between the Engage and Activate skills
• Add leads to Conversica a couple of days after the Sales team attempts to make contact
• Practice good data hygiene so they are able to only make contact with leads that were not reachable

Convert (Trials)

This skill provides trial users with a personal concierge to answer questions and drive conversion. Convert conversations offer best practices, answer questions and promote the value of the product to entice conversion.

Common Uses:

• Start an open dialog offering relevant resources and always be listening to address questions quickly.
• Offer personalized incentives and set up a time with Sales to explore options.

Top Performers:

• Connect with new users early in their trial to ensure the best experience and open the opportunity for conversion right away.
• Push leads to the end-of-trial conversation as soon as the trial period is over.

Winback (Former Customers)

The Winback skill restarts the conversation with past users, keeping the dialog open to expose new value and gauge interest in returning. Winback conversations proactively reach out to customers that left >90 days ago.

Common Uses:

• Personalize outreach using the reason a customer left to directly address concerns with recent successes and new features.
• Target accounts with personalized offers and promotions to incentivize customer return.

Top Performers:

• Identify the optimal amount of time to reach out to former customers to try to reengage. Often, this is no less than 90 days after discontinued services but may vary depending on your product/service.
• Leverage key improvement milestones to engage with customers. Send much older former customers outreach after they have received a marketing communication regarding a specific major improvement made to your products or services.
• Only include former customers who are not currently in a conversation with someone at your organization or do not have an open opportunity.

Accelerate (Open Opportunities)

This skill helps your team overcome late-stage stalls, shortening the sales cycle. Accelerate conversations are for open opportunities after the lead has met with a representative to close the loop and provide any necessary information or resources to progress through the late stages of the deal.

Common Uses:

• Manage the transfer and confirmation of critical Sales documents.
• Tailor incentives to promote quick closure with end-of-quarter pipeline push.

Top Performers:

• Add leads who are not in an active conversation with the Sales Representative.
• Have a well-trained Sales Team who can leverage Reply As Assistant properly and as needed.