"CenturyLink is one of the largest telecommunications providers in the United States, serving both small and large businesses nationwide. The company collects thousands of sales leads from the businesses it serves, and it wishes to interact with them in the intimate, personal manner consumers have come to expect. Pursuing those leads more effectively would accelerate the company’s growth, and converting and upselling a larger percentage of hot leads (people who have expressed interest in the company’s services by filling out a form, clicking on an ad, or emailing the company) would boost the company’s bottom line."
Following a minority investment in conversational agent company Conversica AI CenturyLink "sends about 30,000 emails a month and interprets the responses to determine who is a hot lead." The agent "sets the appointment for the appropriate salesperson and seamlessly hands off the conversation to the human. "The potential customer gets a prompt and helpful outreach from the agent, and the reps — who may each have 300 accounts — save time because the agent vets the inquiries to identify the ones with the most potential. The reps also become more efficient because the agent routes the right leads to the right reps."
In the small pilot the agent "could understand 99% of the emails" with the other 1% routed to humans. "40 reps out of 1,600 sales people are using and it is generating $20 in new contracts for every dollar spent on the system."