Check out our guide to the best AI tools for sales in 2023 to refine your sales strategy and boost your total revenue.
Why Use AI Tools for Sales?
As the business world becomes increasingly competitive, an effective sales strategy can become the driving force behind a company raking in increased revenues and enjoying a high profit margin.
Managing a sales team and ensuring sales processes run smoothly can be daunting. Sales reps have to focus on identifying qualified leads, engaging in meaningful customer interactions, and closing more deals.
This is where AI sales tools enter the picture.
With AI sales software, companies can automate time-consuming components of their sales pipeline, prioritize sales leads, and rely on valuable analytical insights to develop a successful sales strategy that yields consistently high results.
In this article, we will walk you through the benefits of using sales software and the best AI sales tools of 2023.
What are the Benefits of Using AI Sales Tools?
AI sales tools are pivotal in streamlining your sales processes and maximizing sales productivity. Here are some benefits of using AI sales tools to make your sales and marketing campaigns successful.
Increased Efficiency Through Automation
With AI sales tools, you can curate and send personalized emails and messages to clients, create conversations, and generate quality leads, all with the click of a few buttons. This helps sales reps work faster and makes for a more efficient sales workflow overall.
Increased Revenue
The best AI sales tools help you develop an effective sales strategy that considers current market trends and customer preferences, all to boost your sales. An increase in successful sales leads to increased revenue, wider profit margins, and a boom in your business.
Enhanced Customer Engagement
AI sales tools aim to help companies build strong customer relationships by ensuring customer engagement through automated communication channels. These include sending clients personalized emails and messages based on their preferences.
Faster Workflow
With AI sales assistant tools, you can automate routine tasks and use valuable insights from analytical reports to fine-tune your sales strategy. This helps sales reps work faster and more efficiently as they do not have to waste time on mundane tasks or worry about shortcomings in the sales cycle.
What Should You Look for in an AI Sales Assistant Tool?
Automation and AI Features
Tools that help automate routine parts of the sales process make your sales workflows more efficient and productive. They also ensure that sales representatives have an easier time managing all the components of your sales funnel.
Analytics
AI sales tools should have an analytical dashboard that uses information like market trends, pricing, and past sales history to generate comprehensive reports. The insights drawn from these reports can be invaluable in helping sales reps make data-driven decisions.
Lead Generation
The best AI sales software in the market can quickly and efficiently identify potential leads, qualify them, and track their progress. Effective lead generation is vital to boosting sales productivity, making it an essential feature in a sales AI tool.
Pricing
The cost of an AI sales tool is essential when considering the many options available. Quite a few AI sales tools offer a free plan or a trial period, so it is a good idea to take advantage of this and test the software before purchasing it.
The Top 8 AI Sales Tools of 2023
Apollo
As a sales intelligence and engagement platform, Apollo is one of the best AI sales tools of 2023.
Apollo features a vast B2B database of over 260 million contacts and an AI toolset to help sales teams manage their sales pipeline and automate workflows.
With Apollo, sales reps can identify their target audience and focus their marketing efforts on potential customers. As an all-in-one platform, Apollo uses artificial intelligence to help sales teams sort through its extensive database to find new leads, emails, or contacts.
Apollo also includes a detailed analytics dashboard that gives sales reps valuable insights about their sales processes and provides them with the information they need to make successful, data-driven decisions.
Additionally, Apollo provides companies personalized sales coaching to help them close more deals faster. Sales teams can also rely on Apollo’s ‘Engagement Suite’ to streamline outbound sales activities more efficiently.
Key Features:
- Provides sales teams access to one of the most up-to-date B2B databases for lead generation and sales growth
- AI-powered tools, companies can scale sequences and outbound activities more effectively
- Provides users with LinkedIn automation and personalized emails to simplify sales operations and make them more efficient
- Analyze customer data and past sales performance to provide sales teams with valuable insights that can be used to optimize their sales strategy
Pros:
- Offers multiple filters and integration with third-party platforms like LinkedIn, which is great for cross-referencing contacts
- Allows you to insert customized fields on emails
- Search function generates accurate results as you can insert different criteria mid-search
- Efficiently discovers and validates leads’ email addresses
- Features an easy-to-navigate user interface
Cons:
- Does not offer a Zapier integration
- Mobile version does not work as efficiently as the desktop version
Pricing:
Apollo offers a free plan with unlimited email credits and the following three paid plans:
- ‘Basic’ plan at 39 USD per user per month, billed annually
- ‘Professional’ plan at 79 USD per user per month, billed annually
- ‘Organization’ plan at 79 USD per user per month, billed annually. This plan is for a minimum of five users
Gong
Gong is a sales intelligence platform that uses customer interactions to draw valuable insights into revenue growth.
Using artificial intelligence, Gong monitors each customer interaction and generates extensive and up-to-date information regarding customers, including their emails, calls, and documents. These recommendations are reliable and accurate insights that help sales reps make crucial revenue decisions.
With Gong, sales teams can divide work and collaborate more effectively so that each sales rep is assigned distinct tasks with fixed steps. Sales representatives also have access to past sales performances and can review this data to develop more effective future strategies.
Gong’s AI sales tool can also analyze customer data and market trends to provide sales development representatives with the information they need to optimize their sales process and increase conversions.
Gong is especially suited for enterprise sales teams that rely on a crucial understanding of customer relationships to make critical decisions regarding their revenue intelligence policies.
Key Features:
- Provides sales teams with comprehensive customer interaction data and market trends to optimize their sales flows
- Offers over 100 integrations with CRM and other third-party tools
- Provides sales teams with personalized coaching to help them optimize their sales strategy
Pros:
- Features an easy-to-use interface
- Provides transcripts for calls, which helps retain information
- Helps simplify and shorten the sales cycle
- Offers an analytics dashboard that provides sales reps with valuable insights required to refine their sales operations
- Allows users to go back and make review calls
Cons:
- Users may find the search function complicated as it needs precise details to track down a call
- The software may glitch at times
Pricing:
Gong does not have fixed pricing plans. Instead, it offers customizable pricing based on the scale of your operations.
Motion
Motion uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to automate routine processes, organize schedules, plan meetings, and assign tasks to sectors like the sales team.
With Motion, companies can distribute tasks among different teams more effectively, ensuring a smooth, cohesive, collaborative workflow.
Motion helps sales development representatives establish initial contact with potential customers, account executives streamline opportunities, and customer success managers care for new customers. With Motion’s efficient division of labor and task force management, companies can handle large projects and boost their sales.
As a productivity tool, Motion focuses on the big picture, not just sales. This means organizing your business operations, including sales processes, to ensure you meet your deadlines, cutoffs, and revenue goals.
Motion’s holistic approach helps sales reps develop a well-rounded sales strategy that succeeds in closing deals and benefits the entire sales process.
Key Features:
- Features an automatic ‘Task Manager’ that creates task lists for teams throughout the company, ensuring that you stay on top of your deadlines
- Automated ‘Project Manager’ lets you handle complex tasks and provides effective communication and collaboration between teams
- Book pages and schedule meetings with qualified leads.
- Syncs your calendar so that you can streamline your daily tasks and end up with an organized schedule
Pros:
- Aids in time management and task prioritization
- Automates routine tasks so that sales managers can spend more time developing an effective sales strategy
- Automatically rescheduled incomplete tasks
- Features an intuitive user interface
- Offers a seamless integration with Google Calendar
Cons:
- The mobile app is not as efficient as the desktop version
- The app may glitch at times
Pricing:
Motion offers a 7-day free trial for the following two pricing plans:
- An ‘Individual’ plan at 19 USD per month, billed annually
- A ‘Team’ plan at 12 USD per month, billed annually
Drift
Drift is one of the best AI sales tools of 2023 and is especially popular for its chat platform, which has developed into a conversational sales tool.
Drift uses artificial intelligence to automate sales conversations, find qualified leads, and assist sales reps in increasing productivity and closing more deals.
Drift’s ‘Conversation Inbox’ provides companies with an overview of site traffic and allows sales teams to schedule meetings, set commands, export files, and insert tags. Drift’s chatbot also lets sales representatives connect with potential customers through a live chat option.
As an AI sales tool, Drift helps its sales and marketing professionals adopt a customer-centric approach, helping them initiate conversational sales and develop a powerful sales pipeline through valuable insights from real-time sales analysis.
Drift’s sales assistant software is a perfect fit for SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses) and enterprises that want to automate lead generation and sales process adoption without expanding their labor force.
Key Features:
- Sales AI enables effective communication by incorporating customized videos and GIFs in emails, chats, or LinkedIn messages
- Features a ‘Drag-and-Drop Bot Builder’ that allows companies to set up a chatbot
- AI-powered chatbots function in over 30 languages and can build pipelines, qualify leads, and provide live customer support
- Provides users with real-time updates and alerts regarding potential customers engaging through a chat or a video
- Drift gives sales reps an ‘Engagement Score’ that helps them determine brand interactions and email and video content that inspire the most customer engagement.
Pros:
- Allows you to connect with customers in real time with its live chat
- Offers integrations with Google, Outlook, Mailchimp, and Salesforce
- Features a ‘Drift Fastlane’ that connects quality leads to the appropriate sales representative
- Includes an ABM (account-based marketing) feature that targets customers with personalized sales and marketing campaigns
- Offers a mobile version
Cons:
- The AI sales software may glitch at times
- Offers a wide range of features, so it may take some time to learn how to navigate Drift effectively
Pricing:
- ‘Premium’ pricing plan for small businesses, billed annually, starting at 2,500 USD per month
- ‘Advanced’ and an ‘Enterprise’ plan with customizable pricing depending on your desired features
6sense
As an email-centered lead nurturing sales assistant, 6sense uses artificial intelligence to automate routine tasks and decrease manual work, leaving sales reps with more time to invest in developing an effective sales strategy.
6sense’s Saleswhale utilizes machine learning to analyze customer responses and engage in personalized conversations. This helps sales reps generate quality leads and close more deals, boosting the productivity of a sales team.
The ‘Lead Conversion Assistant’ can automate the crafting and scheduling customized email responses that encourage customer engagement and help companies develop a loyal customer base.
With 6sense, sales reps can develop unique sales and marketing campaigns and identify the best Playbooks to boost their sales team’s efficiency.
Key Features:
- Automates the process of creating and sending personalized follow-up emails
- Quickly identify an irrelevant lead and refer it to the right person
- AI sales assistant tool automatically updates your CRM
- Offers integrations to third-party tools like Salesforce, Zapier, Marketo, and HubSpot
- Detect notifications and automatically set reminders to help you stay on top of deadlines
Pros:
- Features an easy-to-use interface
- Lets you create personalized segments for customers
- Offers excellent, around-the-clock customer support
- Provides sales reps with valuable insights regarding their sales processes
- Analyzes customer data to make accurate predictions regarding account buying intent
Cons:
- The software may lag at times
- Account matching to Salesforce may be a complicated process for some users
Pricing:
6sense does not offer any fixed pricing plans. You can contact their sales team for more details since pricing is customizable and based on the scale of your operations.
SetSail
SetSail is an AI sales software that helps companies track their sales pipeline and gain a comprehensive overview of their sales team’s progress at a glance.
With SetSail, companies control their data entirely and can store information in their CRM, file folders, or SetSail’s dashboards.
It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify buying signals, current market trends, and customer behavior. It can analyze a company’s past sales performance and single out factors that lead to successful campaigns so that sales reps can develop new sales strategies accordingly.
With SetSail, companies can easily navigate their sales funnel and keep track of their sales and marketing departments to ensure that they work efficiently and productively.
SetSail also provides sales reps with key metrics that can be used to track the effectiveness of a company’s sales campaign and provide valuable insights used to put together performance-driven sales teams.
Key Features:
- Completes your customer database by providing missing contact details
- Provides integrations with CRMs and other AI sales tools
- Helps sales reps gauge the success of their sales strategy by providing them with performance metrics
- AI sales assistant automates manual tasks and identifies the current market trends to help companies refine their sales workflow and make it more efficient
Pros:
- Provides you with KPIs to monitor your sales performance
- Allows companies to see their colleagues’ sales progress
- Increases sales engagement
- Recognizes buying signals
- Increases qualified lead generation
- Has an easy-to-install system
Cons:
- Logging into a Chrome extension may take time
- May miss reporting sales activities at times
Pricing:
SetSail does not offer any fixed pricing plans. Pricing is customizable and depends on your requirements. Customers can contact SetSail’s sales team to understand their costs.
Clari
Clari is one of the best AI-powered sales enablement tools for modern sales teams.It prioritizes helping sales reps close more deals by providing them with organized sales data, automation tools, and valuable insights.
As an AI-powered sales tool, Clari is known for its sales forecasting ability and automation features that provide companies with an overview of sales reps, channels, products, segments, and regions.
The up-to-date sales pipeline notifications help sales reps identify potential risks and avoid losing revenue. In addition to this, Clari is great at navigating a company’s sales management by keeping track of inventory, transactions, and closed deals.
Clari acts as an all-in-one sales platform where users can create solid sales pipelines, keep track of their progress, generate qualified leads, and close more deals.
Key Features:
- Provides companies with complete visibility across their entire sales funnel so they have all the information they need to make data-driven decisions
- Has one of the best sales forecasting tools in the market and can generate forecasts for specific regions, segments, channels, and reps
- Makes accurate predictions regarding a company’s sales progress every quarter of a year
- Provides revenue teams with regular revenue health and change indicators
- Offers integrations with CRMs
Pros:
- Features an easy-to-use interface
- Provides one of the best sales forecasting tools in the market
- Integrates with Salesforce CRM
- Lets you search each team member’s forecasts
- Offers a mobile version
Cons:
- Does not automatically update when a deal is closed
- Reporting structures may glitch at times
Pricing:
Clari does not provide pricing details on its website. Users can contact Clari’s sales details for a customizable price based on their requirements.
HubSpot Sales Hub
HubSpot Sales Hub is an AI sales tool with an all-in-one CRM platform focused on increasing sales teams’ efficiency and helping sales representatives develop strong customer relationships.
It offers tools that help companies manage their contacts, capture and track leads, curate catchy marketing emails, and generate comprehensive sales reports.
Sales Hub integrates with other HubSpot platforms, like Service Hub and Marketing Hub, making it a convenient AI sales tool that can be used for any business.
HubSpot’s Sales Hub provides companies with lead scoring so that they can keep track of the progress of their sales cycle. Additionally, Sales Hub offers AI-powered tools that automate routine processes and help optimize sales workflows.
Key Features:
- Has curated a library of sales information that lets you share documents directly from Gmail and Outlook
- Offers personalized sales coaching to help you identify weak links in your sales process and refine your sales strategy
- Make and record calls directly in your CRM with Sales Hub
- Features an easy-to-use chatbot creator
- As an all-in-one marketing and sales platform
Pros:
- Helps keep track of sales opportunities, leads, and customers
- Features a user-friendly and intuitive interface
- Offers integrations with Gmail and Outlook
- Helps boost your inbound marketing strategy
- Automates your sales workflows
Cons:
- You have to manually inform Sales Hub not to enter a personal email in the CRM
- May make errors in importing leads from tools like Zoom
Pricing:
HubSpot Sales Hub offers a free version and the following three paid plans:
- A ‘Starter’ plan that begins at 45 USD per month
- A ‘Professional’ plan that starts at 450 USD per month
- An ‘Enterprise’ plan that starts at 1,200 USD per month
Conclusion
With the rapid advancements in technology, incorporating artificial intelligence has become the norm in most business operations, and the sales industry is no exception. This is why choosing AI sales software that helps boost your sales productivity and falls within your price bracket is essential.
With the wide range of options available, choosing an AI sales assistant can seem challenging, but don’t worry. You can click here to get a downloadable list of great AI tools recommended by Online Success Genie.