Martech Interview with CEO, Chorus.ai – Jim Benton

Jim Benton from Chorus.ai deep-dives into Conversational Intelligence and how it helps by analyzing the highly valuable insights you get from customer-facing conversations to impact overall sales pipeline

“Successful sales teams are not built overnight, and in the same way, the positive impact of a conversation intelligence platform will not be felt overnight”

1. With enterprises transforming digitally, how crucial is it for sales reps and marketers to use technologies like Conversation Intelligence?

Conversation intelligence technologies are crucial for enterprises looking to better understand the components of a successful sales call or sales rep.

Conversation Intelligence helps by analyzing the highly valuable insights you get from customer-facing conversations to impact overall sales performance, pipeline and the quality of sales rep coaching.

Practically speaking: personalization is a necessity in the sales process. But reps and managers struggle to do this at scale. Conversation Intelligence provides businesses access to the data that helps them better understand the “voice of the consumer” and ensure they are addressing their pain points.

2. What do you see as the single biggest challenge that the sales industry is facing in adoption of conversation intelligence?
We are living in tumultuous times. Investing in technology is always a process that requires multiple people and discussions, but the impact of COVID-19 on businesses nationwide has been far-reaching. As such, priorities and budgets are shifting, but the category is gaining traction as leading brands like Zoom, MongoDB and Adobe have found success.

Successful sales teams are not built overnight, and in the same way, the positive impact of a conversation intelligence platform will not be felt overnight. It will take time and continuous coaching from reps to better improve, but technology can automate this process and also learns from aggregated call data.

Specifically, in our research we’ve recently found:
● 50% more sales executives and 74% more sales directors are joining calls,
● and 60% more buying-side executives and directors are joining calls

Which means that leadership from both parties are more heavily involved in today’s sales cycle. This requires more diligence, personalization and attention to detail from reps to get deals to the finish line.

3. In the case of startups with limited marketing funds, do you feel that the investment made for conversation intelligence provides credible RoI?
Yes, because ultimately, better conversations lead to increased ROI. Sales teams are a key component of the success of a company and a leading indicator of a company’s overall health. If a sales team is struggling, so will their pipeline, and the company as a whole will reflect that. Conversation intelligence can lead to better conversations which means more meetings, more pipeline and ultimately more deals closing.

I encourage business leaders to shift their perspective. This isn’t an investment in technology, but instead an opportunity to equip Revenue teams with the most successful talk-tracks, objection handling strategies and use-cases. Not only will it help them win more business, it will also give leaders access to unbiased market intelligence collected directly from the voice-of-the-customer. This will help drive better strategic decisions for the company by better understanding changing market and competitive dynamics.

4. Which industry, according to you, can benefit the most by adopting your Conversation Intelligence solution?
Nationwide, we’ve all seen businesses shift to remote work. Industries or brands once hesitant or outright against conducting business remotely quickly found themselves in a new reality which demanded a different approach. Conversation intelligence is truly agnostic, as the spectrum of industries all requires some type of sales initiative.

Any company deploying a sales team will need a tool that understands their customer’s voice and how their reps are responding.

5. How do you foresee the sales and marketing communication industry in the next five years?
Over next five years I see sales becoming even more specialized and relationships becoming more fragmented. Our ability to bring the conversation to everywhere you work and to bring all the touches into a single stream to create stronger and smarter relationships will be a major area of focus.