Jeannie should not immediately green light the Gen AI salesbot. Instead, Jeannie should invest a reasonable amount into a lightweight pilot, testing the new technology, how functional it is, and how customers react to it. This way, PulsePoint won’t fall behind what Jeannie correctly sees as an inevitable new technological era. PulsePoint can collect valuable data, conduct customer research, and evaluate quantitatively, while slowly onboarding customers with opt-in plans.
Considerations they should make include:
- Existing Consumer Base – How will the biggest customers feel and react to this Gen AI overhaul? Will the company be blinded by its ambitions for innovations and forgo the existing revenue streams and customers it relies on? Is there a way to accomodate old customers who don’t want to interact with a AI Salesbot?
- User Research – Do customers care if they are helped by a Gen AI Salesbot versus a human?
- Customer Trust – Trust is hardly gained but easily lost. Considerable research and quality testing should be done before the salesbot even faces its first customer, but this is difficult because learning occurs gradually as data is collected, and hallucinations and errors often only reveal themselves after a high quantity of usage. However, just one poor experience can tank customer satisfaction and company reputation in an irrecoverable way.
- Alignment with Company Mission and Strengths – Is the company known for its salespeople? Is one of its strengths the human-to-human relationships that customers have with its salespeople?
- Cost – How much would it cost to buy and train a Gen AI Salesbot?
- Potential Revenue Upside – How much money could they stand to make, in the best case scenario, with the Gen AI Salesbot deployment?
- Potential Revenue Downside – How much money could they lose if the Gen AI Salesbot fails?
- Competitors – Are competitors turning to AI Chatbots? Is there any way to tell?
