5 Reasons You Need a Virtual Personal Assistant If You’re in Sales

Connection Between People And Artificial Intelligence Technology

Tony Webster

Director – Sales | Inviga | Software Development and Implementation of AI and Integrated Business Solutions

Published: June 06, 2022

I never really connected chatbots with my line of work in sales until a recent conversation with a colleague. Now I wish we had them years ago when I was struggling to balance actual selling and meeting everyone’s demands for admin and paperwork!

What is a virtual personal assistant?

A virtual personal assistant is an AI-powered chatbot integrated directly into Microsoft Teams or another chat software of your choice. Virtual assistants can do things like schedule meetings, take notes, and even file your reports for you. They can maintain CRM and remind you when there’s something important you need to do. In short, they’re just like having a human personal assistant.

How do they work?

You interact with them just like any other colleague in your chat software – by typing or speaking commands. The AI software that powers the bot can understand what you’re asking for, and then get or do what you’ve asked them for.

Because it’s built directly into Microsoft Teams, it’s super easy to ask your virtual assistant to do something and get straight back to what you were doing. Your virtual assistant will do what you’ve asked and let you know once it’s done.

What are some of the advantages of using a virtual personal assistant in Sales?

There are many. Here are the top ways a virtual personal assistant might help you if you’re in sales:

(1) They’ll do your data entry for you

No one likes entering data in CRM, it’s slow, clunky, and frustrating. Simply tell your virtual personal assistant to ‘Update the RPA opportunity to closed’ and your personal assistant will update the opportunity in CRM for you.

(2) They can do your reports for you

Preparing sales reports can be time-consuming, but they’re made much easier if you can simply ask your virtual personal assistant to do them for you. Your personal assistant can gather data from different systems and prepare your report for you to review, or simply send it based on the available data.

(3) They can help you respond to customer requests

As salespeople we like our customers to be happy, but it can be tricky to respond to requests quickly when you’re busy or out on sales calls. Virtual personal assistants can respond to simple requests on your behalf, or help you to get the information or status updates that you need quickly so that you can respond to your customers.

(4) They can alert you to customer service issues

Sometimes things go wrong, and when they do there’s nothing worse than getting an angry call from your customers. Virtual personal assistants can keep an eye on your customers’ service cases on your behalf and let you know if any issues are brewing that you should be aware of. By finding out ahead of time you can help make sure the issue is getting the right attention, and communicate the issue to your customer proactively.

(5) They’ll chase your sales team for you (if you’re a sales manager)

Few things are more draining as a sales manager than having to constantly chase up your sales team for updates on their deals or to do their admin. Your virtual personal assistant can keep on top of your team for you, freeing up your time to do more important things like coaching and strategy.

In Conclusion

I wish I had known about virtual personal assistants sooner. If you’re in sales and struggling to keep on top of the admin, I recommend you give one a try. You might be surprised at how much they can help you!

What do you think? Are there any other advantages of using a virtual personal assistant that I’ve missed?

Click here to learn how Inviga could assist you in developing and deploying virtual personal assistants for your sales staff.

About Inviga

Inviga was founded in Brisbane, Australia in 2021 with a mission to offer leading-edge ideas and solutions to help Queensland businesses do more with less. Our team of creative IT experts are specialists in solving difficult IT challenges without the cost and frustration of working with big traditional IT vendors.

Categories:

Marketing

Products

Sales

Chatbots and Personal Assistants

Make your employees' lives easier with a virtual personal assistant that will handle admin and sales tasks on their behalf.

Automated Form Processing

Use automated form processing to improve your customer service and speed up your processes.

Smart Invoice and Receipt Processing

Smart invoice and receipt processing helps to automate the process of managing bills and receipts.

Data Insights

Gain valuable insights to make better decisions and streamline processes.

Dynamics 365 / Business Central Integration

Automate end-to-end business processes, including updating customer and sales data in both Dynamics 365 CRM and Business Central automatically.

Dynamics 365 / Legacy System Integration

Extend the life of your legacy system by connecting it with Dynamics 365 CRM to gain modern process automation features and productivity tools.

Business Central / Manufacturing System Integration

Send orders directly from the shop floor, and keep track of your inventory and production efficiently by integrating your manufacturing system with Microsoft Business Central.