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From content management systems to content generation and beyond, artificial intelligence has drastically changed what’s possible in the world of sales enablement. Sales training and coaching are no exception.
AI-driven sales training and coaching software provide tools to foster a culture of continuous learning and advancement, with insights based on personal performance and feedback that help a salesperson forge their own path and reach their goals.
B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information they learn within just one week after sales training, but these AI sales training and coaching tools ensure that they are constantly learning and growing through hands-on training and personalized feedback.
In this article, we’ll talk about how AI has changed sales training and coaching and the best AI-driven sales training and coaching software on the market.
AI sales training software vs AI sales coaching software
Sales training and sales coaching can go hand-in-hand to improve the performance of a sales representative, but they aren’t synonymous. Sales training is the process of educating salespeople on the platform, methodologies, and skills that sellers need at a particular company. In many cases, sales training is very product-guided and company-guided.
What a seller learns during sales training is typically uniform with what other people in their role or similar roles need to learn. Sales training is vital during the onboarding process, but sales training should also be ongoing to ensure that sellers are up-to-date on new products and company information.
AI sales training software might include role-playing exercises developed around a sales methodology, AI-suggested workshops in a learning management system (LMS), and interactive quizzes using AI-generated questions.
In contrast, sales coaching is more individualized and focuses on improving the performance of a particular salesperson. During sales coaching sessions, a sales leader may work one-on-one with a salesperson to develop a plan to improve their performance as a seller and employee. These plans are tailored to the unique strengths, weaknesses, and goals of an individual seller.
Some sales enablement platforms offer an AI sales coach, which collects data on a sales rep’s performance, provides analysis on specific sales enablement metrics, and develops personalized learning and growth plans. In some cases, a sales enablement platform might offer both AI-driven sales training, as well as AI sales coaching.
How does AI sales training work?
AI sales training can come in various forms. Some examples include:
AI roleplay
Utilizing artificial intelligence, some sales enablement training platforms allow salespeople to practice conversations with customers in AI-generated simulations. Rather than using set scripts and having sales reps practice with other sales reps or managers, these AI sales tools analyze a sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as customer profile information, to create a simulation of a sales call.
They often use natural language processing and natural language generation to form a conversation that sounds like one that would really happen with a human customer. After the roleplay, sales reps are typically ranked on a scorecard to track their performance and provide a sales manager with insight into how a salesperson is improving.
AI training recommendations
According to Deloitte, companies that offer continuous learning to their employees are 92% more likely to innovate and 37% more productive. AI-driven training recommendations can help foster a continuous learning environment. In some sales enablement platforms, artificial intelligence is used to determine what type of training a sales professional needs.
Instead of doing a lot of training during onboarding and little training later, these recommendations allow them to continuously train on topics that are relevant to their role and suggested to them based on their past performance.
With AI training recommendations, salespeople can focus their sales training on where they need the most assistance. This process prevents salespeople from spending time on learning resources that they are already well practiced in and instead concentrate on improving upon their weaknesses.
Conversational AI tools
Conversational AI uses natural language understanding, intent recognition, and machine learning to play many roles in sales training. A sales enablement tool might offer a conversational AI tool that analyzes an interaction with a current customer or prospect to determine what the best way is for a sales rep to engage with them.
This process can help a sales professional develop skills in objection handling, relationship management, content utilization, and more.
Conversational AI may also read previous interactions with prospects to identify ways to move forward with their relationship and close a deal, such as by suggesting a piece of content that can help the sales rep close a deal.
Best AI sales training and coaching software
With 47% of account executives saying that they’ve left a job due to poor training, these AI sales training and coaching tools can help you provide a faster onboarding process and create a better overall training experience.
Here’s a look at some of the best AI sales training and coaching software:
1. Spekit
Spekit is a sales training tool that focuses on learning in the flow of work. Rather than having salespeople searching for answers, training, and content that they need, all those resources are delivered right to them—right on the platforms and tools they use every day.
Spekit’s just-in-time learning features let sales reps take their training into their own hands—which is just what they want, as 75% of them say that learning by doing is the best way to learn. Spekit AI surfaces the most relevant content in Gong, Chorus, Salesloft, Gmail, and more based on the context of sales interactions.
When you use other sales coaching platforms, Spekit integrates with them to ensure that your reps are seeing the resources they need to succeed. Whatever they need assistance with the most, Spekit will recommend the content they should learn, ensuring a more individualized training and coaching experience.
Features:
- Just-in-Time Learning: Instead of keeping your content and training separate, Spekit utilizes Speks to give your sales team bite-sized bits of learning embedded right into the tools that they already use every day.
- AI Content Recommendation: Spekit AI analyzes the context of meeting transcripts, emails, and more to automatically surface relevant content recommendations based on who reps are prospecting to and what they want to see most.
- AI Content Generation: Use Spekit AI to automatically generate content, from sales scripts to emails to playbooks.
- AI Content Summarization: Make your content more accessible to sales reps and their prospects by having Spekit AI summarize long, complicated texts.
- Knowledge Checks: Keep your team at the top of their game with in-app quizzes, allowing you to track their progress and target areas for improvement.
- Knowledge Base: Keep your company’s knowledge in one accessible place.
- Content Analytics: Track in-depth analytics across your users, team, and content to see how your prospects are connecting with your sales reps and how your salespeople are improving.
Pricing: Spekit provides a configurable pricing plan that’s based on the number of teams you want to utilize the platform, the functionalities they need, and their use cases.
Best for: Just-in-time training enablement
2. Gong
Gong is a revenue intelligence platform that offers sales training and sales coaching. Using AI, Gong tracks conversations your sales team are having to allow you tSo see how your best performers are working, identify areas for improvement for each sales rep, and track their progress in real time.
Gong also integrates with Spekit, delivering content and learning recommendations based on Gong Call Summaries right in the Gong platform.
Features:
- Call Summaries: Gong can record sales reps' calls to allow other sales professionals to learn from the recordings.
- Real-Time Analytics: Track salespeople’s soft skills and deal execution skills to find areas for improvement.
- Personalized Training Recommendations: Gong delivers customized training recommendations based on a sales rep’s performance.
- Spekit Integration: Get learning and content suggestions right on Gong through Spekit’s just-in-time learning and AI-driven content recommendations.
Pricing: Gong has personalized pricing plans based on the number of users and what features you need.
Best for: Sales training effectiveness tracking
3. Einstein Conversation Insights by Salesforce
Einstein Conversation Insights is Salesforce’s conversation intelligence tool. This platform records your sales team’s calls and offers AI-generated insights into areas of improvement, conversation trends, and coachable moments.
Since Salesforce integrates with Spekit, you get the best of both worlds with Einstein Conversations Insights’ call recording and AI insights, as well as Spekit’s just-in-time learning and content recommendations.
Features:
- Call Insights: Einstein records calls and offers AI-driven insights into moments you want to monitor like customer objections and competitor product mentions.
- Best Practice Calls: Create playlists of successful calls for reps to learn from.
- Coaching Comments: Sales coaches can share feedback directly on transcribed conversations.
- Spekit Integration: Get learning and content suggestions through Spekit’s just-in-time learning and AI-driven content recommendations right on Salesforce's CRM.
Pricing: Einstein starts at $50 per user per month.
Best for: Coaching insights
4. Chorus AI by ZoomInfo
Chorus AI is ZoomInfo’s conversation intelligence tool, and it uses machine learning to capture and analyze customer calls, meetings, and emails. Based on this analysis, salespeople can find areas of improvement and optimize their sales forecasting for upcoming quarters.
ZoomInfo and Chorus AI integrate with Spekit, which can use recorded calls to offer even more learning opportunities for sales teams.
Features:
- Call Analysis: Chorus AI analyzes calls, meetings, and more to deliver real-time data-driven insights into areas for improvement.
- Coaching Opportunities: Chorus AI can track call performance and offer sales coaches insights into available coaching opportunities.
- Deal and Market Intelligence: Get insights into the momentum of a deal and what’s happening in a market overall.
- Spekit Integration: Get learning and content suggestions right through Spekit’s just-in-time learning and AI-driven content recommendations while working on ZoomInfo.
Pricing: Pricing is based on use cases and which ZoomInfo features you need.
Best for: Call tracking and insights
5. Salesloft
Salesloft is an AI-driven sales engagement platform that offers tools to identify opportunities to improve seller performance, learn from top performers, and track the momentum of ongoing deals. Identify coachable moments and tie coaching to revenue goals.
Features:
- Seller Analytics: Track seller productivity and performance to identify coachable moments.
- Call Recordings: Record calls and have salespeople listen to the successful calls of top performers.
- Call Transcriptions and Trends: Transcribe calls and track trends across conversations.
- Action Insights: Salesloft offers insights into how sellers should progress with buyers.
Pricing: Pricing is based on use cases and determined after meeting with the sales team.
Best for: Seller performance tracking
6. Dialpad
Dialpad is a customer intelligence platform that uses AI-powered tools to offer insights into sales training and sales performance. Dialpad’s AI Coaching Hub allows sales coaches to oversee training metrics and identify coaching opportunities.
Features:
- AI Coaching Hubs: Track salespeople’s performance in real time to identify coaching opportunities.
- AI Playbooks: Turn sales scripts from top sellers into AI Playbooks.
- Scorecards: Dialpad’s AI can grade calls on specific criteria.
- Assist Cards: Offer sales reps Assist Cards to handle frequent topics, like objection handling.
Pricing: Dialpad’s pricing depends on the use case, what features you intend to use, and the number of users.
Best for: Coaching insights
7. Second Nature
Second Nature uses artificial intelligence to create sales simulations. This sales training tool lets you customize roleplay for your salespeople based on different sales methodologies and gamifies sales training.
Features:
- Roleplay Simulations: Generate AI roleplay simulations that deliver real-time feedback.
- Built-in LMS and Integrations: Assign courses and tasks through Second Nature’s built-in LMS or integrate with your own LMS.
- Reports and Analytics: Track hard and soft skills on an analytics dashboard.
- Gamification Training Exercises: Track user progress on a leaderboard.
Pricing: Second Nature does not publicly display pricing.
Best for: Roleplay exercises
8. Wonderway
Wonderway is an AI sales coach that uses artificial intelligence to automate sales coaching. This AI coach delivers automatic scoring and feedback on every salesperson’s call based on specified playbooks and other criteria. Wonderway also offers an LMS for further training and performance assessment.
Features:
- Scorecards Templates: Score your sales reps based on templates built from different sales methodologies.
- Auto-Scoring: Score every sales call with scorecards and automatic feedback.
- Improvement Suggestions: See seller performance and get personalized coaching suggestions.
- Built-In LMS: Assign and track more than 40 training programs.
Pricing: Wonderway does not publicly display pricing.
Best for: AI-driven sales coaching
How to improve your sales training and coaching
When building your sales training and coaching programs, here are a few ideas to consider:
Create effective training content
Your training content can mark the difference between a poor and a top performer. While only 10% of top performers say that they don’t have a formal training program, 30% of poor performers say that their company lacks one.
With Spekit AI, you can generate training content with the click of a button. Simply input a prompt, like “Write a MEDDIC sales playbook,” and Spekit AI will unpack your internal information and information about the MEDDIC methodology to write a playbook that your sellers can use during their training.
Include learning in the flow of work
Only 31% of sales reps prefer to learn with an LMS, while 75% of salespeople prefer learning while doing. Learning in the flow of work means that sales training doesn’t have to be separate from the actual selling a sales professional does. Sales training becomes hands-on, just what sales reps want out of their training.
Spekit offers just-in-time learning which utilizes microlearning to enable sales professionals to learn in the flow of work. Your salespeople get bite-sized bits of knowledge and content delivered right where they already are.
Rather than having them try to absorb tons of information during onboarding, disconnected from their duties, just-in-time learning fosters an environment of continuous learning, which is easier for your sales reps to digest and immediately put into practice.
Add personalization
When you personalize your salespeople’s sales training and coaching, your sales professionals spend less time on topics they’re already well-versed in and more time honing the skills they really need to improve.
Everyone learns differently, and your sales reps all have different backgrounds. Personalizing their learning path ensures that they’re always advancing their skills and developing a growth plan that’s best for them and their goals.
Provide helpful feedback and recognition
When asked what the key factor is in their ability to reach quota attainment, 65% of sales reps say that support from sales leadership was critical. Sales leadership should ensure that they’re paying attention to sales training exercises and offering paths toward growth built around individual performances.
Consider implementing one-on-one meetings with sales reps to offer them a platform to talk about what they want out of their sales training and where they feel they need to improve. It’s also essential to remember that the best sales leaders help their teams grow, but they also celebrate the accomplishments they reach on their way to hitting their targets.
Measure training effectiveness
Almost 20% of companies say that they have no insight into a sales rep’s training engagement. That lack of insight could be hurting your team’s performance and your retention rate. Sales leaders with high retention rates were nearly 30% more likely to retain new reps for more than one year when they had deep insights into their reps’ sales training than those with low retention rates.
Collecting data on your sales training can ensure you’re setting your team up for success. When you know what’s working and what isn’t, you can better optimize your sales training.
Power up your sales training with AI
AI has revolutionized what’s possible with sales training and coaching. With artificial intelligence, your salespeople can get training that’s personalized to what they need to learn the most. They can get real-time insights and even track trends to prepare for future calls. Some sales enablement and training tools automate sales coaching through the use of AI roleplay simulations and AI sales coaches that offer feedback immediately following a call.
Spekit integrates with numerous sales training and coaching platforms, allowing you to reap the rewards of Spekit’s just-in-time learning and content recommendations—on whatever platform your salespeople use.
No more jumping between apps, no more endless hunting. Just the right content, at the right time.
