How to Decide Between Human and Automated Sales Agents

Companies increasingly use automated sales agents (ASAs), such as chatbots, to complement or replace human sales agents (HSAs), however, research finds that customer responses to ASAs versus HSAs change across the sales process stages.

Initial Interest Indication Stage

A study by Adam, Roethke, and Benlian (2022) revealed that during first sales contact, customers are about 95-195% more likely to indicate interest when encountering an HSA than an ASA.

HSAs obviously display more social presence, such as warmth and empathy which reonates with potential customers. Customers want to build a relationship with the person at this early stage, so they respond better to personalised care from an HSA.

Contact Information Provision Stage

However, when customers decide whether to provide contact details to schedule an appointment in the next stage, they are about 60-80% less likely to engage with an HSA versus an ASA. Here, customers prioritise efficiency and want to minimise effort.

ASAs are perceived to offer higher performance, availability, and convenience than HSAs for administrative tasks like appointment booking.

Customers believe interacting with an ASA will require less time and hassle.

The Role of HSA-ASA Combinations

The researchers also studied combinations where an HSA handles communication and an ASA holds technical specifications (HSA-ASA). In an online experiment, customers responded significantly more favourably to HSA-ASA at both stages versus an ASA alone.

However, a field experiment found no difference, likely because real customers didn’t notice the nuanced HSA-ASA distinction during their busy workdays. Context impacts responses.

Key Recommendations

The shifting responses show companies should align the sales agent to the customer’s priorities at each stage:

• Deploy HSAs for initial outreach to encourage interest through relationships.
• Use ASAs for administrative follow-ups to maximise efficiency.
• Consider HSA-ASA combinations if customers will recognise the distinct roles.
• Test agents thoroughly before implementation to ensure suitability for each sales stage.

Carefully matching the sales agent type to the customer’s needs and priorities at each decision point will optimise conversion rates throughout the sales funnel.

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