Technology evolves at a breakneck pace, and the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken over many business functions across numerous industries.
The prominent role played by AI adaptations in business processes has revolutionised the functional aspects enormously during the past ten years. The sales process is one of the sectors that experienced significant transformation due to the introduction of Artificial Intelligence.
Many in the sales profession are questioning whether AI can eventually completely replace personal selling. Traditional sales experts, including this writer, think that personal selling can never be replaced because buying decisions are always made through a conscious human mind, no matter how strong the AI influence is.
Imagine a scenario where a customer walks into a retail outlet and is greeted by a robot and information given through a computer throughout the experience. Some experts say that it may be a novel experience initially, but the customers will eventually grow tired of constant computer gibberish.
However, such is the evolving reality of the sales landscape as AI intervenes in some of the roles of the traditional human salesperson. Whether the customers prefer it or not, from brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms, integration of AI and human skills is imperative in the future.
Personal touch
Numerous studies state that a vast majority of sales interactions will use digital technology to increase productivity and enhance customer experience. While AI tools will be used predominantly in marketing-related functions, the role of human selling skills will remain critical in most businesses. Excellence in selling skills will provide a meaningful personal touch to build trust between companies and consumers.
A lasting relationship is one of the most critical aspects of the success of any business entity, while the human touch has the best potential for relationship building. Although AI can be used to manage automated sales-related functions more effectively, it does not have the depth of meaningful interaction when a customer needs information.
AI cannot offer a firm handshake and convey sincerity. This means, in essence, while technology can boost the sales process, the element of human interaction remains unchanged.
The human component offers a level of emotional interaction that cannot be duplicated or replaced by technology. The empathy transmitted through a simple face-to-face greeting with a smile perhaps can be the most crucial part in a successful sales transaction.
However, the emerging natural language processing can detect human feelings through facial expressions that can make an impact in a sales situation. Nevertheless, it is not a replacement or substitution for human connection.
The personal selling process has unique qualities that have been practiced for a very long time. Most of them remain unchanged even in this digital era. These human characteristics are distinctively complex emotions and are much more than simply presenting a product or service to a prospective customer. The process needs inborn human qualities such as empathy, intelligence, loyalty, trust, and skill, qualities that cannot be replicated by AI.
The ability to make emotional connections is one of the many exclusive qualities’ humans possess that AI cannot control. Maintaining a strong emotional engagement with a customer is one of the fundamental principles in personal selling.
Body language
Professional salesmen often use their selling skills to analyse body language, tone of voice, and other related clues to read customers mental states in a transaction. This level of intimacy cannot be achieved through artificial intelligence.
Businesses need continuous engagement with customers to sustain revenue flows. Hence, long-term relationships with their clients are imperative. These relationships are invariably built on rapport, mutual understanding, and trust.
Humans, as salesmen, have the ability to develop long-term relationships over time, adapting to genuine customer needs. Although AI can provide recommendations, customers may see its engagement as mechanical. AI lacks the ability to cultivate deep emotional bonds as humans do.
Even with the highest level of applications, AI might find it difficult to solve a problem arising at a selling situation as a human can do, as humans can think independently and respond thoughtfully. Salesmen have the ability to offer instant solutions to specific problems and navigate through a complicated situation. Most often, in such a situation, AI can only provide programmed solutions.
Customers are human beings, and they always expect ethical responses for any situation they encounter. Therefore, selling involves ethical considerations where the salesperson requires proper moral judgements. Humans can weigh moral factors and make decisions based on ethical principles that align with both customer needs and organisation’s policies. On the contrary, AI operates on algorithms that may not support customers’s moral principles.
Adaptability and flexibility offered to a customer by a salesman are important elements in personal selling. Constantly changing customer behaviour and market conditions in the contemporary business realm need adjustments in sales transactions. Human salespersons who can adapt to these changes by instantly adjusting their approach can bring in sales successfully. In this context, AI may find it difficult to adjust to the fluidity in a complex sales scenario.
Despite all the above facts, the future trajectory of artificial intelligence in sales is clear. Although AI will not fully replace personal selling in the near future, the other functions of the process will continue to grow. AI will play a crucial role as a powerful tool in the overall sales effort of any organisation.
Therefore, closer cooperation between AI and human salespersons is not a requirement any longer, but it is an absolute necessity. While AI could manage routine functions such as prospecting, lead generation, and historical and current data analysis, humans can be engaged in building and sustaining relationships and solving complex and subjective problems of customers.
This partnership may lead to a more efficient sales function where both human and AI strengths are combined to provide better results.
Emotional intelligence
There is no argument that human salespeople can offer a far better level of emotional intelligence with a passionate outlook that cannot be duplicated. The salient fact is that human salesmen are more effective in building relationships.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that AI is rapidly advancing and currently looking at detecting human feelings through voice and facial expressions. Even with such advancements, experts opine that replacing human involvement will not be possible.
Today, most large and medium-scale companies with progressive approaches find ways to integrate AI and human involvement successfully. However, specialists believe that in businesses with high-value transactions and long-term commitments, human touch can be more effective than AI. However, the key factor is to find the right balance between automation and the human touch.
Although AI has a high potential to develop sales processes, it is unlikely that the human aspect will be replaced completely because of the unique qualities that directly impact customers’ emotions. Therefore, in the future, organisations will deploy a combination of AI and human engagement for their sales efforts.
