CRO Series: Aligning Revenue-Generating Teams Using AI and Collaboration

Generating revenue is a big job. To help shoulder this load, a lot of organizations hire a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to oversee all revenue-generating functions across Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success. By taking a holistic approach to revenue generation, a CRO can motivate and enable each team to do their best.

This isn’t an easy task, of course. CROs and the teams they aid often struggle due to a lack of resources, time, and knowledge. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are helping to expand team capacity and drive better outcomes.

Here’s how CROs can align revenue-generating teams using AI and inter-team collaboration.

Identifying Problems and Providing Solutions

While a CRO’s job has many facets, their primary role is as the top Sales leader within an organization. This includes discovering opportunities for conversion optimization, opportunity velocity, and cohesion between teams.

For example: If the leads Marketing generates and qualifies are getting stuck before they reach Sales—or if Sales is failing to follow up with those leads in a timely and effective manner—it’s the CRO’s duty to figure out how to remedy the issues.

This is where AI can make a big difference. Sometimes what teams really need is an extra pair of hands to get the job done. AI solutions—like AI Assistants for Conversational Marketing and Sales —can automate many of the repetitive tasks that bog down team members but are still necessary to complete; such as delivering personalized messages to every inbound lead, qualifying leads through one-to-one interactions over email, or alerting team members of a change in lead status.

CROs know that it takes prompt and persistent outreach to most effectively convert leads into customers. But they also understand that employees only have so many hours in a day to chase each lead. AI Assistants, on the other hand, are easier to scale than teams of business professionals. By automating personalized interactions with leads to discover sales-ready leads, Conversational AI helps make the most of each campaign, scale teams, and accelerate opportunities for conversion. AI Assistants can even improve handoffs between teams and ensure that hot leads aren’t neglected.

As you can see, by promoting the adoption and use of AI within revenue generation, CROs can maximize team efficiency and make money doing it.

Promoting Cohesion Between Revenue-Generating Teams

While AI can dramatically improve outcomes, technology can’t solve everything. To be truly successful, CROs need to foster collaboration between teams. After all, no one can succeed if no one is talking. A CRO helps break down these silos by coordinating between teams to discover problems.

Maybe Sales is falling behind in their lead outreach or failing to use the proper messaging developed by Marketing. Maybe Marketing is generating the wrong types of leads. Maybe Sales is overpromising and Customer Success is feeling the consequences via a declining retention rate. The CRO is responsible for identifying these issues and then working with various team leaders to fix these gaps.

It’s understandable how these disconnects can occur. Team members are busy with their daily duties and it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. CROs can foster collaboration by regularly bringing team leaders together to discuss pain points and solve issues before they turn into problems.

CROs should hold regular meetings between team leaders to gather feedback on impediments to revenue generation and possible improvements. For instance, Sales could explain their experiences using messaging developed by Marketing to share what’s most impactful for prospects. This creates a positive feedback loop between teams.

Another example is Customer Success closely aligning with Marketing to promote customer advocates. Similarly, a CRO can ensure that customer feedback gathered from the Customer Success team (e.g. suggestions for new features, product fixes, streamlined operations) get back to the Product team. Otherwise, the Product team is creating what they think is best which might not match the desires voiced by the customer actually using your product regularly.

When it comes to revenue operations, everyone is pushing towards the same goal, even if they have their own duties and objectives. By taking a top-down approach, Chief Revenue Officers can build the holistic strategies necessary to break down silos, align teams, and ensure success.

By pushing organizations to adopt AI solutions, CROs can overcome many of the challenges facing revenue-generating teams including limitations on time and resources. That’s just one important step, though. Communication between teams is vital and CROs should act as leaders bringing together the best ideas.

Want to learn more about how Conversational AI drives revenue opportunities? Watch our webinar The AI Revolution Is Coming to Every Stage of Your Buyer’s Journey today.