AI Sales Assistant in the detail view

1. General

1.1. What the AI Sales Assistant does

The SELLSATION AI Sales Assistant analyses your sales opportunities automatically and actively proposes concrete measures (Next Best Actions) that can be carried out immediately with a single click in order to close the deal. It works from the complete opportunity history held in SELLSATION – activities, offers, appointments, e-mails, notes and the people involved. In that history it recognises the patterns that separate successful deals from those at risk, and condenses them into a well-founded assessment. Three questions are at the centre of this:

• Deal Summary – How does this opportunity stand? A condensed assessment: estimated close probability, deal score and the facts and risks both rest on. Instead of a long list of activities you get a picture you can take in within seconds.
• Next Best Actions – Which actions bring the deal closer? Prioritised recommendations, each with a traceable justification and an estimate of its effect on close probability and deal score.
• Buying Center – Who decides on the customer's side? Everyone involved, scored by relevance and buying interest and ranked accordingly – so that you invest your time where it carries the deal.

The assistant replaces no entry and takes no decision off your hands. It evaluates what has been recorded anyway, makes connections visible that are lost in the individual view, and derives proposals from them. What you take up is entirely your choice: nothing is sent and nothing is created without your click.

1.2. Opening the AI Sales Assistant

Open a sales opportunity in the detail view. The marked „AI Sales Assistant“ button opens the assistant. It appears to the right of the detail view.

Picture 1 – The „AI Sales Assistant“ button in the detail view

The button only appears when three things are true:

• The AI Sales Assistant is enabled for your tenant.
• You are in a sales opportunity, not with a customer without an opportunity.
• You are not in edit mode. If you are, save or cancel first.

The × in the top right closes the assistant again.

Every time it opens, the assistant recalculates. That can take a few seconds, because the entire history is evaluated. As long as you stay in the same opportunity the result is kept; switch opportunity and it is calculated afresh.

1.3. The three tabs

The assistant opens to the right of the detail view – picture 2 shows this. Pictures 3 to 9 are enlarged sections of that right-hand area, so that the labels stay readable.

The assistant has three tabs:

• Deal Summary – the overview of the opportunity
• Next Best Actions – recommended next steps; the number beside it shows how many proposals there are
• Buying Center – the decision-makers at the customer; the number beside it shows how many people were scored

Picture 2 – The assistant beside the detail view, with its three tabs

2. Deal Summary

2.1. The cards at a glance

Picture 3 – Deal Summary, upper part

1. Summary – Where the opportunity stands, in a few sentences.
2. Key facts – The most important milestones with their date.
3. Estimated close probability – The calculated likelihood as a percentage.
4. Deal score – the priority of the opportunity: how important it is right now.

Picture 4 – Deal Summary, lower part

5. Open points / risks – What stands in the way of the deal.
6. Action history – Who did what, and when.

2.2. Summary

Two to four sentences on where the opportunity stands: which phase it is in, what has already been sent or carried out, who was involved and what comes next.

For a closed opportunity this becomes a look back instead: how the deal came about.

2.3. Key facts

The milestones that were recognised, each with the date of its evidence. These can be, for example:

Which milestones can be recognised at all depends on the factors configured for the AI Sales Assistant in the administration. Create your own factor there and it appears here as a further key fact.

Four entries are visible at first. Show more reveals the full list, Show less collapses it again.

Every line can be clicked. A click jumps into the opportunity's activity list, straight to the entry the fact comes from. That way you can verify every statement.

If nothing can be derived, the card reads: „No key facts can be derived from the history.“

2.4. Estimated close probability

The card shows three things:

• the percentage in large type in the middle,
• the confidence level at the top right – Low (below 30 %), Medium (below 60 %), High (below 85 %), Very high (above that),
• below it the line „Based on x positive and y negative factors from the activity history.“

For a closed opportunity the card is called Final close probability. Instead of the confidence level it then shows the phase name, the value is 100 % or 0 %, and a won opportunity gets a trophy.

Below the card sits the switch Apply the AI-calculated close probability to the opportunity. Turn it on and the opportunity's „Probability“ field takes over the calculated value – and keeps doing so: every time the assistant is opened the value is updated, as long as the assessment changes. This affects everything that works with the probability, such as forecasts and reports.

Turn it off again and the last value that was applied remains and can be changed by hand as usual. The switch applies per opportunity and only appears for open opportunities – for a closed one the phase determines the value anyway.

Picture 5 – The „Apply the AI-calculated close probability to the opportunity“ switch

2.5. The factors behind it

The Show factors link opens a breakdown of how the percentage comes about. It contains:

• Positive factors and Negative factors, each with its contribution in percentage points („+6“, „−10“), a sentence of justification and the source – the piece of evidence in the history the factor comes from.
• The base value: the „Probability“ field kept on the opportunity. If nothing is stored there, the calculation starts at 50 %. How that value comes about is set in the administration under the probability calculation: free entry on the opportunity, a fixed percentage per phase of the sales process, or a questionnaire in which topics, questions and answers carry their own weights. The percentages per phase are maintained in the sales process, likewise in the administration.
• The result.

The table below is an example list. Which factors exist and how much they count is configurable in the administration – so your system may show different factors and different values:

Which factors exist, how much they count and whether they are applied at all is set in the administration under the AI Sales Assistant. That is also where you create your own factors – with their own name, a description and keywords the assistant searches the history for.

Two particularities are deliberate:

• Positive factors count only half, negative ones in full. An offer that has been sent therefore brings +6 points, a competing offer costs −12. The estimate is deliberately cautious.
• 85 % is the ceiling. 100 % only occurs once the opportunity has actually been won.

The halving only applies as long as nobody has stored weights of their own. As soon as your own values are entered in the administration, the entered value counts unchanged – it is not halved a second time. Enter „6“ there and you get 6 points.

2.6. Deal score

Below the close probability sits the deal score: a level and a number of points, for example „High“ and 72. The two values answer different questions. The close probability says how likely the deal is. The deal score says what priority this opportunity has – how important it is right now – and with that it determines the order of the cards in the Next Best Actions tab.

Below it you can read what the value rests on: „Based on x positive and y negative factors from your deal score configuration.“ Show factors reveals the individual factors with their contribution, exactly as for the close probability.

The value starts from the opportunity's close probability, or at 50 for opportunities without one. These factors go into it, for example:

For the positive factors the halving is already contained in the points above; negative factors count in full. Two factors of the close probability deliberately do not appear in the deal score: frequent communication and decision postponed repeatedly.

Which factors go into the deal score and how much they count is set in the administration.

2.7. Open points and risks

The same presentation as the key facts, only with a warning symbol: four entries visible, Show more for the rest, every line leads to its evidence. Possible entries are, for example, „Competing offer open“, „Long inactivity“, „No decision-maker recognised“, „Decision postponed repeatedly“, „Overdue tasks open“ and „Decision appointment missing“.

This list, too, comes from the factors in the administration – there you switch individual risks off or add your own.

If there is nothing to flag, the card reads „No open risks recognised.“

For a closed opportunity the card is called Analysis and additionally carries, as its first entry, the phase the opportunity was moved into – with a trophy instead of a warning symbol when it was won.

2.8. Learnings

You only see this card for won or lost opportunities – it does not exist in a running one. It contains up to three insights, for example „The personal meeting strengthened the customer's trust; plan one in again next time.“ If there is nothing useful, the card is omitted.

Picture 6 – Learnings, here for a won opportunity

2.9. Action history

The last five milestones with date and user – offers sent, presentations, personal meetings, references, budget mentioned.

The Show all activities button switches to the opportunity's full activity list. You will find the same card at the bottom of the Next Best Actions tab as well.

3. Next Best Actions

In the Next Best Actions tab the assistant proposes the next steps. It works from comparable successful opportunities and the current state of this one.

Three proposals are visible at first. Show more actions reveals the rest – how many there are in total depends on how many proposals apply to the opportunity.

3.1. Anatomy of an action card

Picture 7 – Anatomy of an action card, here with „Why this action?“ expanded

1. Estimated time – roughly how long the step takes, for example „10 minutes“.
2. Priority – Critical, High, Medium or Low.
3. Impact – two values: Probability says by how many percentage points the close probability rises; Deal Score says by how many points the deal score rises. The deal score determines where the card sits in the list.
4. Participants (for e-mails: Recipients) – the proposed people, with Select other contacts to change them.
5. Why this action? – expands the justification: what triggered the proposal, which facts apply, how many points that gives, where the rule comes from, plus advice written out under Suggested actions.
6. Actions – the buttons you carry the step out with. Above them sit Done, Remind me later and Delete.

3.2. Which proposals there are

The table below is an example list of the proposals SELLSATION ships with. Which proposals you have is configurable in the administration; existing ones can be switched off and your own can be created:

Every proposal brings its own justification, for example „No offer“, „Inactive“, „Last contact: 138 days“, „Competing offer“ or „Decision still open“.

Which proposals exist is up to you in the administration under the Next Best Actions configuration: you can switch individual ones off, change their score and create your own proposals – with their own title, their own description and the condition under which they should appear.

3.3. Recipients and participants

For e-mail, appointment and call proposals a field with the proposed people sits below the justification – for e-mails it is called Recipients, otherwise Participants.

Pre-selected are all people with a meaningful role in the opportunity, plus the two leaders for relevance and buying interest. Those two carry a small symbol.

Select other contacts expands the full list. There you can:

• tick individual people on and off,
• sort the list by Relevance or Buying interest,
• use Show factors to check why a person is scored the way they are.

If nobody is selected, the card reads „No recipients selected.“

3.4. What happens when you click

The assistant creates nothing by itself. It opens the matching dialog you already know – pre-filled. The assistant window stays open while you do. The only exception is a missing field: you fill that in directly on the card.

The topmost button is highlighted – it is the step actually being proposed. Below it sit the general routes that every proposal offers. In detail:

• Create e-mail – opens the e-mail dialog with the recipients filled in; the text is drafted automatically by the AI.
• Send appointment suggestions – sends an e-mail with concrete free slots from your calendar, see the next section.
• Request an appointment suggestion – opens the appointment dialog with an automatically generated agenda, an invitation to the participants and an online meeting link.
• Create call task – creates a task of type Call, with subject and comment pre-filled.
• Create activity – opens the activity dialog.
• Assign roles and create contacts – opens the buying center, where you assign roles and create people who are missing.
• Fill in a field – there is no button here: the missing field sits as an input box directly on the card and is saved there.
• Phase change – opens the same window as the pipeline, to move the opportunity into another phase.
• Create task and Create note – available with every proposal; both take over the proposal's title and text.

Whatever you carry out then appears in the action history. Which templates you are offered in the dialogs for note, appointment, call and activity is set in the administration under the activity templates.

3.5. Sending appointment suggestions

This button sends an e-mail with concrete appointment suggestions. To find them the assistant searches your calendar:

• the next 21 days,
• working days only,
• only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.,
• in one-hour blocks,
• at most three suggestions.

Counted as busy are the appointments recorded in SELLSATION. For Outlook appointments to count as well, calendar synchronisation has to be set up – you do that in the administration under Microsoft 365 or Synchronisation.

The slots that were found are already in the e-mail draft. If nothing is free within the 21 days, a general appointment request is drafted instead.

3.6. Where priority and impact come from

The priority follows from a proposal's score. Every proposal starts with a base score that can rise per opportunity – for a large volume, a high contribution margin, a long time sitting in the phase, an approaching due date, a longer silence or a missing decision-maker. Base score, the increments together with their thresholds, and the priority levels with name, colour and point boundary are changed in the administration – the proposals themselves under the Next Best Actions configuration, the remaining values under the AI Sales Assistant. That is also where you decide whether „large volume“ is measured against the whole tenant or only against your own open opportunities.

The impact depends on what the step clears away. If it removes a risk, the impact equals that risk's full weight. If it is meant to bring about a positive signal, it counts only half – the same cautious arithmetic as for the close probability.

The cards are ranked by impact, not by priority. A proposal with priority „Medium“ and +12 % therefore sits above one with „High“ and +3 %.

3.7. Hiding a proposal

The arrow beside a button gives you Not relevant and Hide. Both remove the card from the list.

Hiding only applies for the moment: as soon as you switch tabs or reload the page, the proposal is back.

4. Buying Center

The Buying Center tab shows everyone at the customer who is involved in the decision, with two scores: Relevance (weight in the decision) and Buying interest (how active the person is). Both values run from 0 to 100.

4.1. How the list is built

Picture 8 – Buying Center

1. Sort by – which criterion the list is ranked on.
2. Most important decision-maker – the person with the highest relevance.
3. Roles – coloured labels with the role in the buying process.
4. Show factors – shows how this person's score comes about.
5. Edit – change roles, edit the contact, adopt the position as an organisation role.
6. Highest buying interest – the person with the strongest interest. They are not necessarily at the top, because the list is ranked by relevance. Interest and decision weight are two different things, and this marker is exactly what makes that visible.

If a person has no role stored, the list reads „No role“. The roles shown are project roles and organisation roles together, project roles first.

4.2. Sorting

Three options: Name, Relevance and Buying interest. With the two scores the rank number and the value per person appear as well, and beside the selection a Show factors link that shows the scores of all people for that one dimension side by side.

4.3. How relevance comes about

Relevance is made up of three parts. First the role or position – the highest match counts:

How much a role counts depends on its name – recognition looks for keywords such as „decision-maker“, „budget“ or „management“. The roles themselves are created in the administration, under organisation roles and project roles. Call a role „Decision-maker“ and it gets the full weight; a role called „Contact person“ counts as „everything else“.

On top of that come the activities: 6 points per assigned activity, at most 30. Assigned means the person is the main contact or a participant.

And recency: a last contact no more than 14 days ago gives +15, no more than 30 days +8, between 31 and 60 days nothing, more than 60 days −5.

4.4. How buying interest comes about

For example like this:

Counted as buying signals are the words offer, interest, budget, appointment, commitment, buy, order, demo, presentation – searched for in subject, comment, location, participants and e-mail content.

4.5. Looking at a person's factors

The Show factors link on a person opens both scores side by side. Each shows its total and, below it, the individual components with their contribution, for example „Role: Head of Sales +15“, „12 assigned activities +30“, „Last contact 9 days ago +20“ or „Longer inactivity −10“.

For every component that comes from activities you can use Show activities to expand the individual entries with date, title and the points awarded for them. That way every score can be traced back to the individual activity.

4.6. Changing roles

If a person has no role yet, the button is called Select role, otherwise Change roles. In the dialog you assign organisation roles (valid at the customer in general) and project roles (valid only in this opportunity). Both are multiple selections. Your change takes effect immediately and flows into the next evaluation – the role is the strongest single factor of relevance. Which organisation and project roles exist at all is managed in the administration – that is also where you decide whether only one role or several at once may be assigned from a role group.

The Edit contact button switches to the Contacts tab and opens the familiar dialog there.

The Adopt position as organisation role button only appears when a position is stored on the person for which no role of the same name exists yet. If the role already exists it is simply assigned to the person; otherwise the dialog for creating it opens, with the name already filled in.

4.7. Assigning roles to several people at once

Below the list sits Assign roles to existing contacts. The dialog lists all of the customer's contacts – including those that have not been scored at all – each with name, position and the two role selections. Existing roles are pre-filled, and only the people where you actually changed something are saved.

This is the quickest way to build a buying center from scratch.

4.8. New roles and new contacts

In both role dialogs you will find + Add new organisation role and + Add new project role. There you give a name and a colour; the role is then available to everyone.

The Create new contact and assign roles button below the list leads into the Contacts tab and creates a new person there.

5. Adjusting the display

The gear in the top right lets you set how the assistant appears.

Picture 9 – The assistant's display settings

1. Show beside the detail view – The assistant no longer lies over the detail view but pushes it aside. Both are then fully visible. Recommended on large screens.
2. Show automatically when opening – The assistant opens by itself for every sales opportunity.

Both settings apply only to you and are remembered.

6. Requirements and notes

• Enablement. The AI Sales Assistant has to be enabled for your tenant. Enablement happens when your tenant is set up, not through the administration. If the button is missing in the detail view, contact your administrator.
• Sales opportunities only. With a customer without an opportunity the assistant does not appear.
• Every opening recalculates. That is why it takes a few seconds. There is no recalculate button – closing and opening again is enough.
• Language. Labels and generated texts appear in your login language. German, English, Polish and Czech are available.
• If the AI service is temporarily unreachable, all three tabs show the note „The AI Sales Assistant is currently unavailable. Please try again shortly.“ together with a retry button. Your data is not affected.
• Very long histories are only partly evaluated. The assistant reads the most recent activities up to a fixed amount of text. For opportunities with many hundreds of entries the evaluation therefore rests on what is current.
• The better maintained, the more useful. Roles, positions, participants in appointments and meaningful subject lines improve the result immediately – they are exactly what the assistant draws its conclusions from.
• Proposals remain proposals. Nothing is sent or created without your click, and every generated text can be changed before sending.