AI May Be Secret Weapon to Retain Sales Talent

[Shaha Noor]

Much of the discussion around sales and artificial intelligence has been outwardly focused. It's exciting to think about using AI to examine leads, sift through data, and help deliver answers that allow salespeople to close more and bigger deals.

However, the excitement over using AI to organize customer information overshadows another use of AI that could be equally lucrative. AI also can be used to look inward and solve pressing sales issues -- for example, sales churn.

Annual sales turnover rates are 26.9 percent for inside salespeople and 25.7 percent for outside salespeople, according to DePaul University's Sales Effectiveness Survey. The average of the two -- 26 percent -- is twice as high than the average for all other professions.

Also, the cost of replacing salespeople has been increasing. The cost of replacing the average salesperson has ballooned to almost US$115,000, the same study indicated. If your sales organization has 100 salespeople, and your retention is average, you're losing 26 salespeople a year, and it costs you $2.99 million to replace them.

Now, imagine that you could halt that churn. If you could even reduce it by a third, you'd add $1 million to your bottom line without landing a single new customer (although having those sales slots filled probably would help you get signatures on a lot more deals).


Don't Punish the Overachievers
How can you attack the churn problem? First, you have to be able to spot the problem -- only then can you take steps to address it. Spotting the problem is where AI can make a big impact.

To make AI your ally in reducing churn, you need to identify the indicators of churn, the telltale signs that a salesperson is getting close to jumping ship. AI can't read salespeople's minds, but it can read the data -- if you train it properly and give it access to the right information around key indicators. What might those indicators be?

If you have an overachieving salesperson whose numbers to achieve bonuses or reach accelerators repeatedly have been adjusted upward, that salesperson is likely to look for other opportunities. Moving the goalposts on top performers is dangerous -- the first adjustments may make sense, because they correct early assumptions about the salesperson's capabilities.

If you make adjustments beyond that, however, a salesperson can become resentful. It can seem as if goals will be increased until the salesperson fails -- a perception that pits the salesperson against the company, and which can force the salesperson to seek greener pastures.

Using AI to flag such situations can enable managers to counter those perceptions and manage more effectively at the same time.