Lead follow-up is hard. In a perfect world, you would have a personal conversation with each lead, to understand where the lead stands in their buying journey, make sure that they have enough information to move down the funnel, and follow up at regular intervals until they are ready to make a purchase.

牵头跟进很难。 在理想的情况下，您需要与每位潜在客户进行私人交谈，以了解潜在客户在其购买过程中所处的位置，确保他们有足够的信息来沿渠道转移，并定期进行跟踪，直到他们准备好进行购买。

In the real world, it is a completely different story.

在现实世界中，这是一个完全不同的故事。

There are three main reasons why you might feel that your lead engagement process is broken:

您可能会觉得潜在客户参与流程中断的主要原因有三个：

许多引线掉在裂缝之间 (Many leads are falling between the cracks)

Lead engagement often begins with a cadence of automated emails, yet quickly (hopefully!) becomes a two-way, manual conversation. Leads frequently hesitate and delay in responding to qualifying questions or suggestions to schedule a call, causing sales opportunities to pile up and overwhelm the sales development rep (SDR). This kind of stop-and-start interaction explains why 71% of leads slip through the cracks.

潜在客户的参与通常以自动电子邮件的节奏开始，但很快(希望如此)变成了双向的手动对话。 潜在客户经常犹豫并延迟回答合格的问题或建议以安排呼叫，从而导致销售机会堆积而使销售发展代表(SDR)不堪重负。 这种停止和开始的相互作用解释了为什么71％的引线滑过裂缝 。

销售代表浪费时间在不合格的潜在客户上 (Sales reps are wasting time on unqualified leads)

A large percentage of early email interactions go nowhere. 75% of reps’ time is wasted chasing unqualified leads (Oracle Research), which is why lead qualification is so important. There’s a high chance that your reps are spending time on repetitive email procedures and administrative box-ticking — time that could be better used on productive sales conversations such as scheduling a phone call with a sales rep or un-ghosting a former lead whose email thread had dwindled away.

早期电子邮件交互的很大一部分无处可去。 追逐不合格的销售线索浪费了75％的销售代表时间(Oracle Research)，这就是为什么销售线索资格如此重要的原因。 您的销售代表很有可能将时间花在重复的电子邮件程序和行政打箱上，而这些时间可以更好地用于富有成效的销售对话，例如安排与销售代表的电话通话或消除对前一位潜在客户的电子邮件线索的困扰已经减少了。

没有按时回应 (Not responding on time)

Time is money, especially in the world of sales. Your leads may have an exceedingly small window of interest in your product, and if you don’t respond within hours, you can bet that your competition will, and your chances of closing drop ten-fold. In fact, if you take 10 minutes to reply to a lead, your chances of closing drop by 80%, compared with responses within 5 minutes.

时间就是金钱，尤其是在销售领域。 您的销售线索可能对您的产品感兴趣的窗口非常小，如果您在数小时内没有响应，您可以打赌您的竞争将会成功，并且您关闭的机会降低了十倍。 实际上，如果您花10分钟来回复潜在客户，则与5分钟之内的回复相比， 您关闭的机会降低了80％ 。

But with such a huge number of potential leads and so many fractured email interactions, it’s a struggle for reps to respond on time manually and consistently. Since most B2B firms are selling internationally, the likelihood of a lead responding when your SDR is out of the office is considerable and can be missed or responded to with a delay. On top of this, consider the fact that 55% of companies take more than five days, never mind five minutes, to respond to a lead’s inquiry, and 12% fail to respond at all. Prompt and relevant response is critical, but challenging to handle manually.

但是，由于潜在的潜在客户数量众多，并且电子邮件之间的互动中断很多，因此，销售代表要努力按时手动一致地进行响应是很困难的。 由于大多数B2B公司都在国际范围内销售产品，因此当您的SDR不在办公室时，潜在客户做出响应的可能性就很大，并且可能会被错过或延迟响应。 最重要的是，请考虑以下事实：55％的公司要花超过5天的时间来回答领导的询问，而不必花5分钟，而12％的公司根本没有响应。 及时和相关的响应很关键，但是手动处理具有挑战性。

人工智能和自动化技术 (AI and Automation to the rescue)

Imagine if you could hold a personal conversation with every lead, replying promptly to each inquiry and objection, and following up persistently and in a timely manner to pre-qualify each one before handing them over to sales reps?

试想一下，您是否可以与每位潜在客户进行私人交谈，对每个询问和异议Swift做出答复，并坚持不懈地及时跟进以使每个人都具有资格，然后再将其交给销售代表？

It doesn’t have to be a fantasy. You could make it a reality with an AI-Powered Intelligent Virtual Sales Development Rep (SDR) which does the grunt work of following-up, nurturing, qualifying leads, and even scheduling meetings on your reps calendar. It works alongside your sales reps, as a partner. Exceed.ai takes your sales playbook and transforms it into a two-way conversation with leads over email and chat.

不必幻想。 借助AI驱动的智能虚拟销售开发代表(SDR)，您可以将其变为现实，它可以完成跟进，培养，确认潜在客户甚至在代表日历上安排会议的艰巨工作。 它可以与您的销售代表一起合作。 Exceed.ai会带走您的销售手册，并将其转换为双向对话，并通过电子邮件和聊天进行销售线索。

Every AI-generated response is both personalized and relevant to where the lead stands in the sales cycle, so each lead feels as though they’re interacting with a human agent, and your human reps are freed up to focus on revenue-generating activities and talking to leads. You can see some examples of how this might play out below.

每个AI生成的响应都是个性化的，并且与销售周期中潜在客户的位置相关，因此每个潜在客户都感觉好像他们正在与人工代理互动，并且您的人工代表可以腾出精力专注于创收活动和与潜在客户交谈。 您可以在下面看到一些有关如何进行播放的示例。

When a lead responds to an automated email sequence, the AI SDR identifies the intent behind the question and responds accordingly, for example, if a lead asks if about pricing and case study the Automated SDR will handle the inquiry, suggest they meet with a human and go ahead and schedule a meeting directly on the reps calendar.

当销售线索响应自动电子邮件序列时，AI SDR会确定问题的意图并做出相应的响应，例如，如果销售线索询问价格和案例研究，自动SDR将处理查询，建议他们与人员会面并直接在代表日历上安排会议。

1. Lead sign up on the website. Emily the AI SDR follows up with the lead

1 。 潜在顾客在网站上注册。 艾米莉(Amily)AI SDR跟进

2. The Lead asks two questions — pricing and a case study

2 。 负责人提出两个问题-定价和案例研究

3. AI SDR address both questions and introduces a human to the conversation then proposes times to meet with the rep.

3. AI SDR解决了两个问题，并在对话中介绍了一个人，然后提出了与代表会面的时间。

Exceed.ai’s assistants carry out smart follow-up, so if one receives an automatic out-of-office response, it will try again a day or two after the lead is back in the office. If a lead replies that they’d be open to discuss your product in three months’ time, the AI SDR automatically follows up on schedule. There’s no such thing as missing a window for AI-powered SDRs.

Exceed.ai的助手会进行智能跟进，因此，如果收到自动外出响应，它将在线索返回办公室后的一两天内再次尝试。 如果潜在客户答复说他们愿意在三个月的时间内与您讨论产品，则AI SDR会自动按计划进行跟进。 不会缺少为AI驱动的SDR提供窗口的东西。

1. A Leads Asked to be contacted in the spring

1.Spring要联系一位潜在顾客

2. The AI SDR, Emily acknowledges the request

2. AI SDR，Emily确认了请求

3. When Springtime arrives, the AI SDR follows up as requested

3.当春天到来时，AI SDR根据请求进行跟进

AI-powered SDR can even carry out complex lead qualification activities. For example, you may not be willing to share a demo with everyone who asks. Your AI assistant can ask a qualifying question to leads from small companies, such as “I would love to show you a demo. Before I do so, I have a quick question: how many licenses were you thinking of purchasing?” And yes, it can also detect if the lead is from a large company where that kind of question would be irrelevant.

由AI驱动的SDR甚至可以执行复杂的潜在客户资格认证活动。 例如，您可能不愿意与所有提出要求的人共享演示。 您的AI助手可以向小公司的负责人提出一个合格的问题，例如“我想给您演示。 在此之前，我有一个简单的问题：您打算购买多少个许可证？” 是的，它还可以检测潜在客户是否来自与大问题无关的大公司。

1. AI SDR, Emily qualifies the lead by asking him a qualification question

1. AI SDR，艾米丽(Emily)通过询问资格问题来限定线索

2. The Lead responds to the qualification questions

2.负责人回答资格问题

3. The Lead does not meet qualification criteria

3.潜在客户不符合资格标准

To learn more about how AI and automation can help you grow and for more examples click here

要了解有关AI和自动化如何帮助您发展的更多信息，以及更多示例，请单击此处。

Exceed.ai可以解决您潜在的潜在客户参与过程 (Exceed.ai can fix your broken lead engagement process)

If you feel like your lead engagement is broken, Exceed.ai’s AI-powered SDR can prevent your sales reps from wasting time. Your SDRs will benefit from the opportunity to dedicate more energy to the most qualified opportunities, and you’ll see increased pipeline and revenue per rep, reduced cost per lead, and maximize marketing investment.

如果您感觉领导互动中断了，Exceed.ai的AI驱动的SDR可以防止您的销售代表浪费时间。 您的SDR将受益于将更多的精力用于最合格的机会的机会，并且您会看到管道数量和每销售代表收入增加，每潜在客户成本降低以及营销投资最大化。

Click here to see a live demo and see Exceed in Action

单击此处观看现场演示，并查看“超越实际”