The 10 must-have capabilities of a sales and marketing AI chatbot
AI chatbots aren’t created equal. If you’re considering a chatbot to drive more pipeline from your website, ask yourself: does my AI chatbot check these 10 boxes?
B2B sales and marketing teams need innovative solutions to drive growth; that’s where AI chatbots come in. Running on your website, these chatbots are purpose-built to remove friction during initial stages of the buying process and automatically convert qualified buyers into pipeline. They operate just like your best sales rep, around the clock.
But it’s so much more complex than simply adding a Q&A chatbot to your website. There are specific capabilities needed to ensure these chatbots are successful at driving pipeline. Let’s break it down below.
An AI chatbot must first identify individual website visitors, understand their intent, and get intel on their account. This is done by gathering data across disparate systems—like Salesforce, 6sense, and Marketo—and forming a holistic visitor profile. If the chatbot doesn’t know this information, it won’t know what to do, rendering it ineffective for pipeline generation.
An AI chatbot must discern known website visitors and automatically organize this traffic into segments—like target accounts, open opportunities, high intent buyers, outbound click-throughs, or “tire kickers”—to separate the signal from the noise and prioritize the visitors most deserving of a conversation.
An AI chatbot must observe the visitor’s browsing behavior and see exactly how they are interacting with your website. This includes page views, clicks, and scroll depth, which helps the chatbot understand the visitor’s interests and informs how it should engage a buyer in a meaningful way.
An AI chatbot must prompt a personalized conversation with a qualified website visitor, at the right time and in the right way. This means taking different cues—like browsing behavior, buying stage, or visitor location—to craft the right message, maximizing the likelihood the visitor will engage.
An AI chatbot must be trained on your company's messaging and products to answer each visitor’s question in a way that is truly intelligent. It should be able to ingest resources—like case studies, pricing, or competitive positioning—then reference this data to deliver a relevant output. As it’s tuned and refined with feedback, the output should become increasingly smarter over time.
Training and tuning enables your AI chatbot to handle nuanced Q&A through a process commonly called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). With resources, context, a prompt, a persona, and Large Language Models (LLM), the chatbot is able to answer each question just like your best sales rep.
An AI chatbot must be designed to accomplish goals around pipeline generation and tailor its behavior accordingly. For example, it should try to book a meeting with visitors in the Target Account segment while those in an Open Opportunity segment should be routed for a live chat with their assigned sales rep.
An AI chatbot must route the visitor to the right sales rep based on unique Salesforce data and business criteria like account owner, location, language, outbound sequence, or ABM tier. Without proper routing capabilities, the chatbot cannot meet its goals. Moreover, it will cause chaos and frustration within your sales team if buyers are routed to the wrong sales reps. With incorrect routing, pipeline is left on the table.
An AI chatbot must instantly book time with the visitor’s dedicated sales rep. This requires an entire meeting scheduling platform that offers meeting types, meeting links, and meeting reminders. Plus, it needs to integrate with different calendar systems to ensure pipeline doesn't fall through the cracks.
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An AI chatbot must seamlessly transfer a visitor to their dedicated sales rep for a live conversation. This requires an entire conversation platform that offers live chat, voice, and video.
An AI chatbot must track activities—like meetings booked or missed handoffs—and log them in your CRM, like Salesforce. The chatbot should also take action—like lead creation, task assignment, or event triggers—to define next steps and keep revenue teams aligned.
Qualified Chatbots are revolutionary for sales and marketing teams and it’s because of the Qualified Platform. This is the engine that powers these chatbots and makes them so unique. The Qualified Platform integrates with your entire go-to-market tech stack — like your Salesforce CRM, marketing automation platforms, account-based marketing platforms (ABM), Salesforce, sales engagement platforms, and B2B advertising — then is supercharged by Qualified AI. With this infrastructure, Qualified Chatbots can identify, segment, route, and engage valuable visitors to deliver a personalized buying experience that drives pipeline.
If you’re a sales and marketing leader considering a chatbot for your website, ask yourself: does my AI chatbot check these boxes? Download the checklist to keep these 10 must-haves in mind as you evaluate a chatbot solution and reach out to the Qualified team to learn more.
Download the Checklist
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