How AI can enhance B2B sales

Deployment of AI models led to a 50% increase in lead conversion for a telecom company’s B2B segment. At EY, we are partnering with Irish business leaders to realise the power of AI as AI is accelerating. The Future Won’t Wait.

In brief

• The telecom company adopted AI to streamline customer data, improve sales targeting, and automate lead generation to boost growth.
• AI-driven upsell models analysed sales history and customer behaviour to identify upgrade opportunities, matching customers with higher-value products tailored to their needs.
• Churn prevention AI models helped put in place active retention mechanism to safeguard against revenue loss.

Opportunity

A telecom company specialising in providing mobile, broadband, internet, and voice services to large organisations was facing significant challenges in an increasingly competitive industry. The telecom company was grappling with an inconsistent sales approach, inaccurate sales leads for upsell, cross-sell and churn and an unhealthy sales pipeline, that were impacting its growth and profitability.

The four key areas that needed attention:

• Lack of a unified view of customers: The telecom company struggled with understanding their customers due to the absence of a single, integrated view of customer data. This fragmented view led to a limited ability to take evidence-based decisions for each customer, thereby contributing to the formation of an unhealthy sales pipeline as the telecom company often approached customers with irrelevant offers, leading to missed opportunities and wasted resources.
• Inefficient targeting for cross-selling and upselling and churn prevention: The vast customer base and the lack of a strategic approach to cross-selling and upselling made it difficult to reach out to customers effectively. This often led to challenges in identifying the right solution for each customer and missing opportunities to prevent churn proactively.
• Manual lead generation: Additionally, there was reliance on manual lead generation processes that were time consuming and prone to errors. The ad hoc techniques used were not repeatable and the data from various sources were not well-integrated.
• Inconsistent sales activation method: Absence of a consistent sales activation approach led to challenges in effectively communicating with potential leads. Sales content suffered from lack of clarity and was not appropriately tailored for each communication.

Solutions

The telecom company recognised the need for a more streamlined and data-driven sales activation approach underpinned by the deployment of AI models to refine their sales pipeline, bolster customer retention, and drive revenue growth.

An AI-driven solution was implemented, focusing on customer retention and optimising cross-selling and upselling strategies.

The implementation of the AI models brought automation to the lead generation process that was coupled with a more structured sales activation. This helped reduce the need for manual ad-hoc lead generation. The shift towards automated lead generation allowed the telecom company to allocate its budget more effectively and focus on high-potential customers, thereby improving the efficiency and success rate of its sales and retention efforts.

The integration of AI into their business processes marked a significant step forward in their digital transformation journey.

At EY, we are partnering with Irish business leaders to realise the power of AI and shape the future with confidence. It’s time for action as the Future Won’t Wait.

Benefit

The telecom company group embarked on a complex journey of data synthesis. With over 150 datasets and approximately 3,000 data points, intricate AI data models were meticulously crafted that helped the telecom company:

The key to the success of this project was the effective collaboration between sales, product and data teams who worked in concert to integrate diverse information streams effectively throughout the development and implementation of the AI models. Stakeholder alignment was crucial, not only in terms of data congruence but also in ensuring that the leads generated by the models will receive user adoption. The AI-generated recommendations were incorporated into a systematic sales activation approach that made the insights actionable in tandem with the use of new sales materials that was tailored for each customer. 

Additionally, the explainable nature of the models fostered higher acceptance among the teams as sales personnel could readily elucidate the insights to their colleagues, leading to proactive adoption and integration into their workflows.