Sales

CallRail Expands AI To Supercharge CRM Lead Intelligence Integration

artificial intelligence in crm systems

A new CRM tool enhances lead management and accelerates response times to increase conversion rates.

CallRail released its latest expansion of AI-powered features to its lead intelligence platform on July 17. The new products combine generative and conversational AI for lead conversion solutions for SMBs.

Developed by CallRail Labs, Convert Assist integrates three successful features — action plans, call coaching, and smart follow-up — into one comprehensive solution.

The marketing tool helps business owners improve lead-to-sale conversion, a critical factor in closing sales. It is a primary pain point for businesses to stay on top of their lead pipeline.

All leads have value, and this marketing tool helps companies quickly provide a personalized response to each one, according to Laura Beussman, senior vice president of marketing at CallRail.

“Most customers expect a response from a business within hours and are most likely to go with whoever responds first,” she told CRM Buyer.

Convert Assist is essential for the industry and will help SMBs capture more leads and turn them into paying customers, she asserted.

AI-Driven Enhancements

Convert Assist is the latest addition to CallRail’s suite of AI solutions, which includes Conversation Intelligence and Premium Conversation Intelligence. CallRail partners with AssemblyAI to power AI solutions with accurate speech-to-text AI trained on more than 12 million hours of conversational data.

Founded in 2011, CallRail has grown from G2’s top-rated inbound call tracking software to include form tracking, AI-driven conversation intelligence, and business communications products.

Its AI-powered lead intelligence platform integrates with existing workflows and leading marketing and sales software, including HubSpot, Facebook, Salesforce, and Google Ads and Analytics.

CallRail solutions serve over 200,000 companies worldwide, helping businesses in various ways:

  • Lead Tracking and Attribution: Track and attribute each lead to its marketing journey.
  • Communication Management: Capture and manage every call, text, chat, and form.
  • AI-Surfaced Insights: Use AI-generated insights to optimize marketing efforts.
  • Service Expansion: Simplify service expansion to attract customers with higher lifetime value.
  • Revenue Sharing: Facilitate revenue sharing from referral sales.

“With the launch of Convert Assist, CallRail brings the power of both generative and conversational AI to unlock new ways for our customers to turn more leads into better customers,” Ryan Johnson, chief product officer at CallRail, told CRM Buyer.

Core Features and Benefits

Three features provide the marketing help most effective for SMBs:

  • Action plans bring auto-generated personalized next steps to convert conversational data from previous interactions into actionable steps for each lead. This feature ensures timely follow-ups are tailored to individual needs, enhancing the likelihood of lead conversion.
  • Automated content drafting for re-engagement creates ready-to-send email messages or call-back content. This capability allows quick and personalized re-engagement with leads, helping maintain momentum in the sales process to keep leads warm.
  • Real-time call coaching provides feedback and guidance to front-line agents during calls. This approach improves the quality of conversations and overall customer experience. It starts with positive reinforcement of good service and ends with actionable areas for improvement.

“As a small business, working smarter, not harder, is a necessity,” said Tracey Fraizer, office manager at Remedy Plumbing. Leads are expensive, and Convert Assist is key to maximizing conversations with all our leads without letting any fall through the cracks. And if we book just one more job, the solution pays for itself.”

The AI components are purpose-built based on the specific feature. For example, conversational AI transcribes the call recording (Automatic Speech Recognition, or “ASR”), while generative AI produces action plans, call coaching, and smart follow-ups, explained Johnson.

Growing Popularity of AI Among Workers and Customers

Johnson said the company sees increased customer demand for AI-powered features and products. When CallRail Labs launched almost a year ago, the driving force was to get these AI features into the hands of its customers for early feedback.

“This has helped CallRail understand what is valuable to our customers and how we can improve before a new feature or product is launched,” he offered. Some industries, such as health care, are a little more cautious when it comes to AI.”

However, Johnson is not surprised by some of the hesitancy in that industry. CallRail is working closely with its partners to ensure that AI features comply with current guidance and regulations, such as HIPAA.

“This is just the beginning of AI in CRMs and other platforms like CallRail. I believe the next phase of AI technology will be about super-human analysis versus the focus of time savings, which is important today,” Johnson predicted.

Johnson added that CallRail plans to add more functionality to Convert Assist, such as auto-generating and sending SMS follow-ups via CallRail. In addition, integrating email systems like Mailchimp, Gmail, and Outlook will make it even easier to send smart follow-up emails.

AI-powered features are making a real impact for CallRail customers, he shared. These advantages include 60% less time spent qualifying leads, 50% less time spent reviewing and analyzing calls, and a 20% reduction in the cost per lead.

Future AI Enhancements and Needs

Johnson believes more AI functionality is still needed to help solve integration issues into CRM platforms. For example, each CRM platform must be able to accept CallRail AI outputs such as Smart Follow-up.

“Right now, each CRM only supports certain data or fields that we can send over,” he said.

Another critical need is for AI agents to communicate bidirectionally with each other to get the correct information between platforms. A third necessity is complementary AI features that allow customers to choose based on their use cases.

Jack M. Germain

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open-source technologies. He is an esteemed reviewer of Linux distros and other open-source software. In addition, Jack extensively covers business technology and privacy issues, as well as developments in e-commerce and consumer electronics. Email Jack.

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