The Age of the AI Chatbot Salesperson Might Have an Unintended Side Effect

Training an employee to do upselling (and be good at it) is notoriously difficult. When it’s done right, it can drive significant revenue for many types of businesses though so it’s not surprising that some are experimenting with letting AI do the job. An article from WIRED this week showcases a few examples of vendors working on this sort of technology via chatbots that interact with customers as they are placing orders for something like pizza for delivery. The thing that’s even more interesting about this is the sort of dialog opportunities that this offers to go beyond just the task of upselling.

Imagine, for example, retailers accepting orders for delivery could not just take orders but also have entire conversations with customers about the products, share how they are made, answer detailed questions and even share stories that could humanize the business or increase loyalty. These are the sorts of things that are difficult to train real employees to do and nearly impossible for those employees to do given the time constraints of their job. Upselling through chatbots is interesting. Using them to deepen customer loyalty through telling stories and creating connections is potentially even bigger.