Speed wins deals. The person who sends a good, well-founded reply first has the best chance of winning the work. Every sales team knows this. Yet an enquiry often sits for hours or even days, because the preparation takes so much time.
With AI, you can automate most of that preparation. In effect, you build your own assistant that picks up every enquiry and gets everything ready. Your team only has to check the result and send it. In this article you will read what such an assistant can do, what you continue to do yourself and how to get started.
Why the preparation takes so much time
An enquiry arrives through your form, by email or by phone. Then the research begins. Who is this company? What exactly is the customer asking for? What price fits the request? What have we done before for similar customers?
These are all small tasks. Together they quickly add up to half an hour or more per enquiry. On busy days, the work slips. The customer waits, and a faster competitor is already at the door.
The good news is that this work consists mostly of repetition. Repetitive work is exactly what AI is good at taking over.
What your AI assistant can do
An AI assistant is a smart workflow. That is a fixed series of steps that starts automatically as soon as an enquiry arrives. Within those steps, the assistant uses a language model, an AI that can read and write text. Such an assistant can, for example, do the following:
- Summarise the enquiry: in a few sentences, it sets out what the customer wants, when they need it and which questions are still open.
- Look up information about the company: think of the sector, size and what is on its website. This way you know who you are dealing with.
- Calculate an initial price indication: based on your own price list and calculation rules, not on guesswork.
- Prepare a draft email: in your tone of voice, with the summary, the indication and a proposal for the next step.
- Flag missing information: if an enquiry is too vague, the assistant suggests the right follow-up questions.
The result is not a ready-made decision. It is a well-prepared file that your team can review in a few minutes.
What you and your team continue to do
The assistant does the preparation. People do the work that matters. Your team checks the summary, adjusts the price indication where necessary and proofreads the draft email. Then someone on your team sends the quote or the reply.
So the decision stays with you. The relationship with the customer also stays with you. In the end, a customer wants to talk to someone who thinks along with them, not to a system.
This approach is also safe. AI can make mistakes. It may misread a detail or make an assumption that is wrong. If a person always carries out the final check, you catch that before the customer sees it.
Connect the assistant to your CRM
A CRM is the system in which you keep track of customer contact and sales opportunities. If you connect the assistant to it, the administrative work also happens automatically. The assistant creates the enquiry record, adds the summary and the price indication, and saves the draft email.
The assistant then creates a task for the right person, for example the account manager for that region or the specialist for that product. That way nothing gets left behind and everyone knows whose turn it is.
An additional benefit is that you can look back at what happened with each enquiry. When did it arrive? When was it answered? How long did that take? With that data, you can keep improving your process.
A common scenario: an installation company receives an enquiry for maintenance at several locations at a quarter to five on a Friday afternoon. Normally it would sit until Monday. Now the assistant starts straight away. It summarises the request, sees in the data that three branches are involved and calculates an initial indication using the company’s own rates. It then prepares a draft email and creates a task for the responsible adviser. That adviser looks at the draft shortly after the weekend or even that same Friday evening, changes one line and sends it. Within a few hours, the customer has a clear answer.
How to start in five steps
You do not need to automate everything at once. Start small and build up. A route that works well:
- Document your current process. Write down what happens from the moment an enquiry arrives until the quote goes out.
- Choose one type of enquiry. Start with the enquiry that occurs most often and is the most similar from case to case.
- Make your pricing logic clear. Put your rates, packages and calculation rules on paper. The assistant can only calculate well if the rules are clear.
- Build and test with real examples. Let the assistant process old enquiries and compare the outcome with what your team did at the time.
- Go live with checks in place. Have an employee review every output first. Only then do you extend it to other enquiries.
Keep two things in mind along the way. First, data: do not send sensitive customer information to tools if you do not know how they handle it. Always check the privacy terms. Second, tone: read a few draft emails critically. Does the style suit your brand? If not, adjust the instructions you give the assistant.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to build such an assistant?
That depends on your process and your systems. A simple first version for one type of enquiry can often be built and tested within a few weeks. The clearer your price list and way of working, the faster it goes.
Is AI reliable enough for pricing?
For an initial indication, yes, provided the assistant calculates using your fixed rules and an employee checks the result. Never let AI send a price to a customer on its own. Use it as a calculation aid, not as a decision maker.
Do I need a specific CRM?
No. Most common CRM systems have an integration or an open connection that lets you pass data on automatically. If you do not have a CRM yet, the assistant can also work with a simple spreadsheet overview. In the longer term, though, a CRM is useful for keeping everything in one place.
Book a free 30-minute introductory call
Curious how an AI assistant fits into your sales process? Book a free 30-minute introductory call with Adventio Marketing in Amersfoort. Together we will look at how enquiries currently reach you, where most time is lost and which step you can automate first. You will get honest advice, even if it turns out that a small adjustment is enough.
