ChatGPT: Will Robots Take Sales Jobs Or Complement Them?

Pro: Speeds up communications

What’s astounded people most with ChatGPT is that the copy it produces is often incredibly accurate, and it reads and flows well. In fact, it’s almost indistinguishable from content written by humans. For sales, it saves so much time writing the likes of introductory and nurturing emails. But whilst this is certainly a benefit, it isn’t without its downfalls…

Con: Lacks personalisation

ChatGPT’s level of personalisation is better than expected. It uses data like prior interactions and customer information to provide more tailored responses or give salespeople insights to inform their own messages. Yet the text it produces still lacks that human touch – so it may miss the mark when emulating a business or individual’s tone of voice, or it might not mention something key from an offline interaction like an event.

Pro: Saves time

The tool’s ability to write copy isn’t the only way it saves time. It can also carry out numerous sales-related tasks. These include data entry, qualifying leads, and dealing with simple customer queries. As these are all repetitive tasks which generally don’t motivate salespeople, individuals can instead be deployed to tasks of higher value. This should improve morale as a result, especially if it leads to progression opportunities.

Con: Takes time

To get ChatGPT to automate tasks, you need to instruct it. With something like data entry, this will be very straightforward. But when it comes to things like writing emails to customers, you’ll need to program it with the right information. Collating this will take time – and in some cases it might be quicker to not use AI at all, especially if it’s a one-time job. If you then need to review ChatGPT’s output for inaccuracies, that’s additional time as well.

Pro: Analyses vast amounts of data

You can upload data sets which ChatGPT can analyse to give you incredibly valuable audience insights. This includes any trends related to your customers’ behaviour gained from things like their feedback and social media activity. You can then act on this to enhance your customer experience – boosting the chances of sales success.

Con: It’s only as good as the data you feed it

Again, you need to pull together these data sets, which places the onus on the user to ensure they’re accurate. As is often the case, data collated over a significant period of time can be very messy – often duplicated, missing entries, or attributed to incorrect labels. That’s when analysis errors occur. What’s more, by giving an AI tool like ChatGPT access to customer information, you’re exposing yourself to privacy issues. In the long run, it could trigger more problems than it solves.

Sales training with BMS Progress

It’s clear that ChatGPT won’t be replacing salespeople anytime soon. So, although AI tools certainly can complement their efforts, you’ll still need to ensure your team has the right skills and knowledge to succeed in their roles – and progress in their careers. That’s where we come in.

We have a variety of programmes available, including our Level 4 Sales Executive Apprenticeship Standard and Sales Excellence course. To discover how our training could benefit your business, speak to our team.