Aviso introduces version 2.0 of AI-guided sales platform

Aviso announced version 2.0 of its artificial intelligence guided sales platform last week. The new version is aimed at lowering costs and reducing the time that sales reps spend working on CRM databases by providing them with AI tools that predict deal close probabilities and guide next best actions.

Algorithmic-guided selling using AI technology and existing sales data to guide sellers through deals is a new but increasingly popular technology. Nearly 51% of sales organizations have already deployed or plan to deploy algorithmic-guided selling in the next five years, according to a 2019 Gartner survey.

Aviso's 2.0 sales platform uses AI tools to prioritize sales opportunities and analyze data from sources including CRM systems, emails, user calendars, chat transcripts and support and success tools to deliver real-time insights and suggest next best action for sales teams. The support and success tools are external offerings that Aviso's platform can connect with, including customer support tools like Zendesk or Salesforce Service Cloud, and customer success tools like Gainsight or Totango, according to Amit Pande, vice president of marketing at Aviso.

The forecasting and sales guidance vendor claims the new version will help sales teams close 20% more deals and reduce spending on non-core CRM licenses by 30% compared with conventional CRM systems. The cost reduction calculation is based on "the number of non-core licenses that can be eliminated, as well as additional costs such as storage and add-ons that can be eliminated when underutilized or unused licenses are eliminated," Pande said.

According to Aviso, new AI-based features in version 2.0 of its sales platform include:

• Deal Execution Tools, a trio of tools meant to assist in finalizing deals. Bookings Timeline uses machine learning to calculate when deals will close based on an organization's unique history. Each booking timeline also includes the top factors that influence the prediction. Opportunity Acceleration helps sales teams determine which opportunities carry the highest probability of closing early if they are pulled into the current quarter. Informed Editing is intended to limit typos and unsaved changes during entry of data. The tool gives users contextual help before they commit to edits, telling them what quarter or whose forecast they are updating. Changes and edits are automatically saved by the software.
• Deal and Forecast Rooms enable users to do what-if analysis, use scenario modeling and automatically summarize forecast calls and deal review transcripts.
• Coaching Rooms help sales managers improve sales rep performance with data from past and current deals and from team activity in Deal and Forecast Rooms. 
• Nudges provide reminders for sales reps through an app on mobile devices. Nudges also offer recommendation for course corrections, and potential next steps based on insights from the specific deal.

Aviso's 2.0 sales platform is currently in beta with select customers.

Cybersecurity company FireEye has been using the Aviso platform for several years and is among the selected customers. Andy Pan, director of Americas and public sector sales operations at FireEye, said the Aviso platform has helped FireEye operate in a more predictive measure through some of its new AI-driven features. "The predictive features helps us review both the macro business as a whole, and the deal-specific features provides guided pathways towards the inspection of deals."

Other sales forecasting tools vendors in the market include Salesforce and Clari. Sales forecasting feature from Salesforce enables organizations to make forecasts specific to their needs and let managers track their team's performance. Clari's product includes features such as predictive forecasting, which uses AI-based projection to see the team's achievement at the end of the quarter, and history tracking to see who last made changes to the forecast.