Putting an AI in Team: Collaboration and Client Management with Alvaro Tejido

We’ve all heard about the benefits of leveraging AI for operational streamlining and productivity, but what about using AI as a tool to measure real-time data across departments and provide actionable insights for multiple teams? 

What about AI as a teammate dedicated to helping the entire company improve? Currently, we’re just scraping the surface of AI's potential.

Alvaro Tejido, Sales Manager Southern Europe & UKI at Pleo, is on the frontlines of understanding that potential and applying it to company processes and procedures, not only for the benefit of his team, but also for the benefit of clients.

In his conversation with Rachel Ann Kreis, VP of Marketing at Landbot, and Jiaqi Pan, CEO & Co-Founder at Landbot, Alvaro shares his view on how to incorporate AI cross-departmentally as well as within the client experience.  

The Power of Cross-Departmental AI Integration

It isn’t enough for a leader to implement a change — in this case, AI — it must be a wide-reaching adoption to receive the full impact. If one corner is enthusiastically adopting an AI solution, and the other is either apprehensive or unaware of the progress, misalignment can grow.

If we look at a company structure as a whole, there are clear instances of possible AI support that may be overlooked.

One of the most critical aspects of company health — and one that affects everyone — is the quality of new hires. And to get quality new hires, you need consistent interview tactics. To achieve consistent interview tactics and get good results, you need a way to measure interview quality. 

Enter: AI that sits in on every interview and measures information such as: 

• Ratio of speaking between interviewer vs interviewee;
• Which questions are consistently asked;
• Where possible areas of improvement are.

“There are so many areas where you can implement and use AI to become much more effective, and to make sure that you are improving not just you as a leader, but the whole organization,” Alvaro says. 

The proper implementation of AI tools shouldn’t be confined to time savers and productivity hacks — there is more to leverage if you dig a little deeper. It can even serve as a chief proprietor of company culture if given the right environment.

Segment-Focused Sales Optimization Strategy & AI

Different client types require different approaches (in other news, the sun rises once a day, right?)

As much as consistency is crucial for internal operations and hiring processes, the same isn’t necessarily true regarding onboarding clients and sales. Depending on how many markets you’re aiming at, the strategy for each segment may differ enough that each one needs a separate workflow.

AI can be the answer to that segregation without making SDRs and other representatives' heads spin with all the different timelines.

For Pleo, that means creating an almost entirely AI-based onboarding pipeline for SMBs — their main client type — to the point of almost being a self-service process.

Although a work in progress, Alvaro hopes this approach will help increase adoption and streamline growth.

“We also have specialized SDRs focusing only on the enterprise segment. We have a very defined path for each new sales rep joining the company — starting from unit SDR and focusing on commercial, then going up to a senior SDR and focusing on enterprise,” Alvaro says.

With this type of specific tailoring and segmentation, each client is more likely to receive the care and attention they require to make a decision and see the value of the presented solution. 

“In the end,” Alvaro says, “what we are looking for with this structure is to have the right resources and the right people focusing on the right segment.”

What AI-Powered Sales Training and Coaching Can Look Like

How does AI support an effective sales training model? It starts with building a proper model to begin with. 

“We also have an enablement team that is constantly delivering new training on different topics — how to create urgency, how to be successful when prospecting, how to incentivize clients to make a decision, how to do a successful follow-up, and so on,” Alvaro says.

When you have a solid plan for coaching and guiding sales reps, you can enhance that process with AI summarization.

The right AI tool can help summarize: 

• Feedback on recorded sales demos;
• Notes on general performance + actionable insights.

“I also try to do my one-to-one so we have between 10 and 15 minutes every week with each rep to challenge them and to understand how they are dealing with a specific situation,” Alvaro says. “I go through the pipeline, understand the deals they are forecasting for this month and the deals that they are committing to, and I try to challenge them.”

With team collaboration and A+ coaching combined, AI can be the cherry on top to deliver an all-around smooth and effective experience for employees and clients.

Interested in learning more? Listen to our full conversation with Alvaro on the latest episode of Ungated Conversations, where we unpack what it looks like to leverage AI cross-departmentally, across client management, the importance of consistency and coaching, and more.

‍Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.