FranConnect Webinar 2021-04-28
I was really excited for Keith Gerson (FranConnect's CMO and President of Franchise Operations) to host three of our joint customers in a webinar.
I was even more enthused that nobody from our Lumin.ai team was present! Of course, we were spying on them through Zoom, but the tone is just a little different when it's customers and a longtime industry guru speaking as colleagues with a wealth of shared experience.
The choice of customers made for a really nice guest list, with significant commonality but a surprising amount of diversity in verticals, sales approaches, and pain points:
Angela Paules, CMO at Buzz Franchise Brands (three brands)
Sean Fitzgerald, President at TruBlue Total House Care (representing Strategic Franchising, where all five brands are customers)
Jennifer Folger, VP Franchise Development at Tropical Smoothie Café
This time around, the conversation seemed to revolve around the idea of choice, quality time, and the personal touch. I've always felt that AI can and ought to be used to support human choice, not supplant it; and that it should support human relationships, not interfere with them.
Choice of when to engage. Keith cited data showing that 68% of leads submit an initial inquiry off hours (at night and on weekends), and that an automated outbound campaign can't produce any further engagement on its own—engagement requires conversation. Businesses willing to converse only during the day force their leads to follow suit.
Choice of how to engage. Angela pointed out that texting is just one part of an omnichannel strategy, which also adds flexibility: the lead gets to choose how to engage. Jennifer added that our ability to understand multiple ways to opt out places yet more choice in the hands of the lead. Not everyone wants to text!
The payoff: a quality interaction. Jennifer says her sales team is loving it because the lead is actually expecting the call, and not in a carpool or at the grocery store, leading to a first call that's more productive and more pleasant. Sean tied this in with the challenge of portal leads, who are the hardest to engage because they're often in shopping mode and not ready to talk—"not all leads are equal in quality, so chasing requires patience". He called the Smart Scheduler a game changer.
Salespeople matter too. Sean raised a point about valuing the salesperson's time. During a call with a member of his sales team, she triggered our system to follow up with a lead who had stood her up for an appointment. Within two minutes, the lead had apologized and agreed to a new appointment time—while Sean and the sales director were on their call!
Human/AI collaboration. Angela's sales team affectionately call our system the "BuzzBot" and see the collaboration as mutually supportive, not competitive. Their appointment setter, far from feeling replaced, is spending more time on activities that require her talent. And their salespeople aren't working less; they just have more choice over when to work. For instance, BuzzBot occasionally pings say that a lead has asked for an odd time off hours. They can choose to reach out to the lead and make an exception—or not!
View the webinar. Click here to watch on FranConnect’s site.
