AI Sales Agent Tips to Enhance CX and Convert Faster

Wondering how an AI sales agent can help boost your business? AI sales agents are more than just a trend, with more than half of businesses exploring the use of AI agents and 37% actively using them. It’s important to remember that not all AI sales agents are created equal. We’ll show you the benefits, pitfalls to avoid, how to choose the best one to meet your needs, and how to use them to increase sales and create great customer experiences.

What is an AI Sales Agent?

AI sales agents are often equated with chatbots, but they can do so much more. It’s an autonomous system that can qualify leads, schedule meetings, answer FAQs, share product information, update customer records and manage complex routing and assignment tasks. It saves hours of routine effort so human agents have time to focus on the conversations that require a human touch.

These can be stand-alone software products or built into a conversation management platform like respond.io. A conversation management platform powered by AI is the best choice for businesses that handle most of their customer conversations via instant messaging.

4 Benefits of Using an AI Sales Agent

An AI sales agent incorporated in a conversation management platform streamlines the entire sales process, enabling your business to convert leads to customers faster and provide prompt support to retain them. Here are five benefits to expect from an AI sales agent solution.

• No more missed opportunities due to slow replies- respond instantly to inquiries on any channel.

• Give human agents time to focus on quality leads - an AI agent can automate routine tasks like qualifying leads, identifying spam, routing customers to the right agent and scheduling meetings, so sales agents can focus on the ones who are ready to buy.

• Increase revenue by converting faster - with a faster sales process, you’ll close deals faster and boost your bottom line.

• Scale your business efficiently - an AI agent and automation help you scale fast without needing to hire additional team members

Now that you know the benefits, it’s important to think about the kind of experience you want customers to have. AI Agents can manage many conversations autonomously, but some situations still call for human judgment. The key is choosing a solution that balances automation with seamless handoffs to human agents when needed.

Good vs Poor AI Sales Agent Experiences

Some businesses may be reluctant to use an AI sales agent because, let’s face it, we’ve all had a bad experience with AI as a customer. You know the frustration of going through endless loops with a bot who can’t give you a straight answer, doesn’t understand your question and won’t let you chat with a human, so you wouldn’t want to put your customers through this.

For example, we tested out an experience with Wati’s AI agent, which does not provide any option to route to a human. First of all, it took us in a confusing loop asking whether we had an account. The correct answer was apparently “no,” as trial accounts don’t count. Then, it provided a list of topics that were not relevant to the query. Finally, it said it would take us to “chat support.” But this “support” was in fact, yet another AI agent, who lacked the knowledge to answer the question and concluded the conversation with no option to speak to anyone.

To be fair, we were having this conversation for experimental purposes, but a genuine potential customer facing this experience would be turned off and may not return.

On the other hand, a well-trained AI agent can actually improve the customer experience by providing faster answers to common inquiries and prioritizing access to a human agent for more urgent or high-value requests.

One of our customers uses respond.io’s AI Agent to collect information about tuition course interests. It passes on the data gathered to a human agent who can then easily match the customer with a tutor. That means a customer gets an instant response when they start a chat, expectations for speaking to a human are managed, and there’s no need for them to repeat information to the sales agent.

Here’s a recap of what a good and poor AI sales agent experience looks like.

How do you choose and implement an AI agent that’s capable of providing a good experience to leads and customers? Here’s what you need to know.

What to Look for in an AI Sales Agent Platform

If you’re considering an AI sales agent to help manage leads and customers over instant messaging, these are the most important features to think about.

Learns from Company Knowledge Sources

Remember that any AI agent needs to be trained; to be most effective, it should learn from your own company knowledge sources. An AI agent relying on general information from the internet will not give your customers accurate answers.

Some platforms, like Sleekflow, only allow businesses to upload PDF documents. While this provides basic information and may be enough for an AI agent to answer FAQ, it’s still limiting. Choose a platform that enables an AI agent to crawl your entire website and help center, ensuring it has full, up-to-date knowledge of your business.

Allows AI to Fully Handle Conversations

While some conversations still require a human touch, others can be fully handled by AI. Select an AI agent that has this capability, essentially giving you a 24/7 sales and support team. Now this doesn’t mean AI should replace your sales and support agents. Even the best trained AI occasionally falls short when it comes to complex problems.

What AI can do well is answer routine questions and follow up with unresponsive customers when humans aren’t around. It can also identify whether a lead is genuine prospect or spam. For simple purchases, AI may even be able to close a sale over chat or voice call, guiding a customer through the payment process.

Escalates to a Human Agent When Needed

For high value purchases or more complex issues, it’s important to make a human agent accessible. Select a platform that offers a seamless handover process from AI agent to human agent. For example, respond.io AI Agents do much more than chatting, allowing you to route conversations to humans. Track Record of Success

Nearly every platform claims to have some form of AI capability, but that doesn’t mean it functions properly. Choose a platform that’s mature and has proven success for businesses like yours. Respond.io has been in the business for eight years and we’re continuously improving the platform to meet the needs of our customers. Our customers have a high satisfaction rate with AI agent, with 91.5% of those who try it out continuing to use it.

How to Use an AI Sales Agent Throughout the Funnel

An AI sales agent can be used in any stage of your sales funnel, from responding to initial inquiries from leads, to qualifying them, to making a sale, to retaining customers with quick support.

Provide Instant Replies

When someone contacts your business, they expect a reply right away. If they don’t get it, they’ll likely go to a competitor. But keeping up with a large number of inquiries on multiple channels is a challenge for human sales teams. An AI agent can autonomously greet customers and manage expectations for leads.

Respond.io’s improved AI system replies faster because it avoids processing unnecessary information. It focuses only on the exact task needed, which reduces lag and makes responses more reliable even during peak hours.

“Handling high volumes of conversations can be challenging for businesses, and they don’t want to sacrifice service quality. This is where conversational AI adds value by providing prompt, high-quality responses at a much larger scale and lower cost,” said Gerardo Salandra, the co-founder and CEO of respond.io, also chairman of The Artificial Intelligence Society of Hong Kong.

Streamline Lead Qualification

Businesses who are running click to chat ads often struggle to qualify leads manually when a large number of responses are coming in. An AI agent can ask qualifying questions and then take a desired action. Qualified leads may be guided by AI to make a simple purchase or assigned to an appropriate salesperson if needed.

Here’s an example of how to qualify leads based on budget using respond.io. Respond.io provides customizable workflow templates for common goals, so it’s easy to set up.

Answer Frequently Asked Questions

Another task that takes up hours of sales agents’ time is answering FAQ. An AI agent can easily answer common questions based on its knowledge of your business. Unlike an FAQ menu, AI allows flexibility and feels more like a conversation. As long as the information is in your knowledge base, the AI agent should be able to answer.

Manage Booking and Payment Processes

For some bookings and purchases, you can automate the entire conversation all the way to a conversion. For instance, you can configure your AI Agents to send calendar or payment links. When a payment or booking is made, a human agent will then be notified.

Route to a Human Agent to Close Deals or Handle Complex Issues

However, depending on the type of business, customers may need to speak to a human before making a decision. For high-value products or more personalized services like beauty treatments or educational courses, a human salesperson will need to step in. The AI agent can seamlessly hand off the conversation to an available agent.

Respond.io’s User Takeover feature ensures a smooth handoff: the moment a human agent steps in, the AI stops responding instantly. This prevents confusion, mixed messages, or delays — something many competing platforms still struggle to handle cleanly.

That's not all. When a conversation requires more back and forth, it is common for customers to take their time, even forgetting about it. AI Agents can also be configured to follow up with stalled conversations and prevent drop-offs. If there's still a need for clarification, either agents or AI agents can jump into a call.

Examples of AI Sales Agents in Action

Now that you know how to use an AI sales agent with a conversation management platform like respond.io, let’s look at some examples of an AI sales agent in action.

Respond.io Qualifies Leads with AI Agent

We use our own AI agent for support when a human agent is unavailable. However, our support contact button is also sometimes the first point of contact for leads. When an unknown contact comes in, it can be difficult to know if it’s someone with a genuine inquiry or if it’s spam. Responding to spam inquiries wastes agents’ time, while ignoring unrecognized contacts may lead to missed opportunities.

Customer Support Lead Nabila Hishamuddin explains, “We tried using respond.io’s AI agent as the first point of contact for certain types of conversations; for example, if the person didn’t provide their email address when asked or if they were a first-time contact who didn’t make it clear what they wanted.”

As expected, the majority of conversations were indeed spam or irrelevant, but an astounding 41% of conversations that would have dropped off and gone unanswered were from real people with real questions.

The AI agent successfully handled 54% of these high-value conversations and passed 8.9% of them on to a human agent when asked. While AI isn’t perfect, it’s a valuable tool for providing fast answers while allowing salespeople time to prioritize clearly qualified leads.

GETUTOR Closes Deals Faster with an AI Sales Agent to Collect Information

One of our customers, GETUTOR, an educational consultancy in Hong Kong, needed an AI-powered solution to streamline message management over WhatsApp. First, the business subscribed to Sleekflow but was disappointed. GETUTOR CEO Jedi Hui says, “I initially had high expectations about Sleekflow’s AI features, but their performance didn’t align with our needs.” So he turned to respond.io for an AI tool that delivered as promised.

With respond.io’s Workflows automation, GETUTOR implemented an AI agent to manage initial inquiries and gather student information and preferences. Then, the AI agent compiles the information and automatically assigns the lead to an available human agent. Since implementing this method, the number of leads the business handles per day has increased by 50%.

How iMotorbike Doubled Lead Volume with AI-Powered Automation

iMotorbike, a leading online marketplace for pre-owned motorbikes in Malaysia and Vietnam, turned to respond.io’s AI Agents to overcome operational challenges caused by high message volumes and fragmented customer journeys. By customizing AI Agent templates for buyers, sellers, and service-related inquiries, the company created tailored conversational flows that defined context, assigned chats to the right teams, and tracked customer lifecycle stages automatically. Trained on iMotorbike’s own knowledge sources, the AI Agents now manage complex, multilingual interactions across WhatsApp, Messenger, TikTok, Instagram, and web chat — resolving most inquiries without human intervention.

The results were immediate and measurable. Within the first month, AI Agents handled over 70% of all conversations, allowing the team to focus only on qualified leads. Response times improved by 67%, while the company managed twice as many leads daily compared to before implementation. This combination of automation, instant replies, and precise lead routing not only improved customer satisfaction but also drove higher sales conversions, setting iMotorbike up for scalable growth across multiple markets.

Choose Respond.io's AI Sales Agent

If you’ve decided your business needs an AI sales agent, respond.io offers a proven solution to manage chats on any channel with AI. Choose respond.io so you can:

• Answer FAQs with information from all company knowledge sources

• Create a unique AI persona tailored to your brand voice and business needs

• Qualify leads by collecting lead details

• Promptly route leads and customers to the right agent

• Automate bookings and payments

And more!

If you’re ready to get started, sign up for a free trial or contact us for a consultation today.

Further Reading

If you’ve found this article helpful, check out our other content on how AI can benefit your business.

• Conversational AI for Sales: Close Deals in the AI Era

• Respond.io AI: A Gateway to Conversational Excellence

• Conversational AI Platform: Securing Success with AI Chat