AI is changing the game in sales and marketing, but its real power lies in closing deals. By instantly analyzing lead quality, intent, and best next actions, agencies can help clients focus on high-value prospects, instead of wasting time on unqualified leads. With AI-driven insights, clients can automate lead qualification, optimize follow-ups, and convert more conversations into customers, boosting both efficiency and ROI.
But how can agencies help clients put AI to work in their sales process? That’s exactly what industry experts explored in a recent webinar moderated by Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal. CallRail’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, Zac Elbel, and Stephanie Olive, Senior Director of Customer Experience at SMB Team, shared actionable strategies for how agencies can empower clients to use AI-powered call insights to identify high-value leads, streamline follow-ups, and optimize conversions throughout the entire sales process. SMB Team, which helps law firms grow 16 times faster than average, provided a compelling case study for how AI can deliver measurable success.
Overcoming common lead management problems
As agencies work to drive leads, clients who lack the tools to close them experience chaos, frustration, wasted ad spend, and missed revenue. The biggest challenges agencies face in helping their clients include:
- Missed and unreturned calls: Agencies need to ensure that their clients capture every opportunity, and that means answering every call. According to Zac Elbel, 85% of calls that go unanswered do not call back a second time. That’s a massive loss for businesses relying on inbound leads.
- Slow response times: Speed matters. Research shows that if you wait longer than 5 to 10 minutes to follow up with an inbound lead, your chance of progressing them drops by 80%. Agencies must work with clients to implement processes that ensure rapid responses.
- Disorganized lead tracking: Without clear visibility into where leads are coming from or how they’re converting, both you and your clients will struggle to optimize marketing strategies and end up spending money on channels that aren’t driving results while ignoring the ones that do.
These are three ways AI-assisted solutions can eliminate these bottlenecks.
1. Streamline lead management
You can track and analyze online and offline leads for clients with the help of AI-driven tools. By automatically scoring and qualifying leads, your clients won’t waste time trying to identify hot leads. Automated call tracking and sentiment analysis help boost lead conversion because it looks at all the calls for you. You don’t have to listen to calls and read transcripts to learn where callers came from and how they feel about a client’s business.
Your clients can easily follow up with leads using relevant messages and effective next steps for lead conversion provided by AI-powered tools. They won’t need to write each message from scratch or track down caller details. And, since superior customer service begins even before a lead becomes a customer, the right messages can convert and also start the working relationship off on the right foot.
2. Increase revenue with better follow-up and intake processes
First impressions are critical with potential customers, so your clients’ follow-up should go beyond just calling back. Your clients can increase consultation booking rates by being more attentive to leads, including making themselves available for a meeting immediately or pre-framing – warming prospects up for a meeting.
For example, clients can see from a call summary or form submission what a prospect is looking for. Then, with AI-generated follow-up, they can provide relevant content or social proof to demonstrate knowledge and also that they value a prospect’s business.
Delayed responses and meetings can harm lead conversion and, ultimately, revenue. By helping them be more proactive with meetings, intake, and follow-ups, SMB Team helped a legal customer improve their process after losing out on business. In just one instance, the client missed out on tens of thousands of dollars in revenue by not following up with a lead for a couple of days. By the time they did, the lead had hired a competitor — something that may have been prevented by an automated follow-up message.
3. Enhance customer engagement
Similar to follow-ups, automated messages before a meeting can decrease your no-show rates. These messages can include testimonials or video messages to make prospects feel confident about meeting.
“It makes them feel like this is a good choice, and it makes you stand out from your competitors,” said Stephanie Olive.
At a higher-level view, AI-driven customer insights can show you which content and campaigns are triggering sales, confusion, interest, delight, and more. This information can help you also refine your content strategy and communication for better customer engagement. For example, you can examine conversation data to see if customers respond more to loss aversion than benefits or vice versa.
The right tools to help your clients convert more leads
To stop clients from losing leads, agencies need to empower them with the right technology to efficiently capture, track, and convert inbound interest. CallRail’s AI-powered tools enable agencies to help clients automate follow-ups, improve response times, and ensure no lead slips through the cracks.
- Call Tracking assigns unique tracking numbers to each marketing source, revealing which campaigns drive calls and conversions.
- Call insights automatically transcribes, summarizes, analyzes, and scores calls, helping agencies prioritize high-intent leads and refine messaging.
- Automated follow-ups ensure fast responses by triggering next-step actions like personalized text messages.
- Call routing instantly directs leads to the right person or team, reducing wait times and increasing conversion rates.
- Performance insights use aggregated call data to identify successful campaign patterns, optimize messaging, and improve conversion strategies.
With call tracking, automation, and AI-powered insights, agencies can help clients convert more leads and improve marketing ROI.
Help your clients convert more leads — before they go elsewhere
Your clients risk losing business to competitors who deliver faster, more effective results. When businesses miss high-intent leads due to slow response times or poor follow-up strategies, they don’t just lose revenue, they start questioning whether their agency is delivering real value.
To retain and grow your client relationships, you need smarter, data-driven solutions that help clients capture, qualify, and convert leads more effectively without extra work on your end.
The right tools improve your agency’s efficiency and prove your value to clients by boosting their lead conversion rates. With CallRail, you can help clients track, analyze, and follow up with leads automatically, ensuring your clients never miss an opportunity.
Try CallRail’s AI-driven lead conversion tools with a free 14-day trial.
&_biz_n=0&rnd=230915&cdn_o=a&_biz_z=1742325239729)
&rnd=852160&cdn_o=a&_biz_z=1742325239731)