Generative AI in marketing and sales
Streamlining the lead-to-quote process
The shift to everything-as-a-service (XaaS) models has helped tech companies boost their revenue, customer retention, and margins. But work still needs to be done to streamline the lead-to-quote process associated with XaaS. By leveraging GenAI, tech companies can simplify the sales process, empower both consumers and sellers, and create more personalized offerings.
Simplifying sales for increasingly complex offerings
One of the most profound disruptions in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) industry in the recent past has been the shift toward everything-as-a-service (XaaS) models, where customers pay for offers and services based on usage. This shift provides the opportunity for organizations to realize substantial benefits including predictable recurring revenue streams, higher customer retention, and improved margins.
While companies have perfected the selling journey associated with more traditional products, work still needs to be done to streamline the lead-to-quote process associated with XaaS. For example, CPQ (configure, price, and quote) processes provide the capabilities to support a more diverse set of products with complex pricing structures. With expanding customer channels and partners, and the increasing complexity of product structures and pricing strategies in consumption-based models, CPQ needs to be transformed for more efficient sales operations. And that’s where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in.
Deploying Generative AI (GenAI) across the lead-to-quote process can improve personalization, accelerate lead conversion, reduce sales cycle time, improve sales/channel productivity, and provide revenue growth opportunities. Creating these more automated and streamlined lead-to-quote capabilities won’t be easy, but they’re important for technology companies to successfully scale consumption-based models.
Use cases across the lead-to-quote process
Outlined below are four key use cases highlighting how GenAI can help enhance the marketing and sales process. Learn how your organization can create more personalized marketing campaigns, tailor price plans to meet customers’ needs, enhance product discovery, and provide real-time suggestions for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.
Improving sales and marketing with Generative AI
By leveraging Generative AI across the lead-to-quote process, tech companies can streamline the sales process, empower both consumers and sellers, and create more personalized offerings.
To enhance their marketing and lead generation capabilities, companies should start by developing a GenAI strategy that integrates with their organization’s existing AI strategy—and implementing the right use cases to meet their needs. Tech companies can not only realize operational efficiencies through reduced sales and marketing cycle times but can also experience revenue growth through increased customer conversion. Deploying GenAI can also help ensure a seamless customer experience by tailoring marketing campaigns to their needs and providing quicker access to the product and solution information.
As customers move through the sales cycle, GenAI can help empower sellers with insight-driven, intelligent systems and provide better self-serve capabilities to the customers—creating a more frictionless buying experience and accelerating deal conversion. Ultimately, Generative AI can provide revenue growth opportunities through increased customer conversion and improved cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.
