The Cost of Sales Leader AI FOMO

Across organisations, leaders are being bombarded from all directions of the importance to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This has the potential for leaders to experience symptoms of the Fear of Missing Out.

These symptoms include feelings of:

  • reduced self-confidence (from not being on top of AI),
  • decreased productivity (from being distracted by AI),
  • anxiety,
  • depression or other mental disorders that can reduce performance 1.

Current Reality

Both outbound and inbound on-line sales and service continues to increase alongside the more traditional face-to-face buying experiences.

The possible opportunities from investing in AI to achieve increases in sales is appealing.

However, if you’re an organisational or sales leader and you’re asking the question “How do we increase sales through AI strategies?” – you are asking the wrong question and chasing the wrong strategy by what might be your AI FOMO.

The better question is this:

“How do we deliver sales and service experiences that go beyond customer satisfaction and achieve customer delight?

Research shows that customer satisfaction as a measure of potential success in sales and service is not as important a measure as customer delight. 2

The Solution

Organisational and sales leaders are advised to remember that as humans, our instinctive drive to connect and belong, to be listened to and understood, are still central to our buying decisions and sense of satisfaction as customers and clients.

This means alongside learning about and embracing the potential of AI, ensure your genuine intention and strategies are toward creating a better world for your customers – don’t just satisfy them, delight them.

How?

Ensure each and every sales and service person have a clear and positive intention of what they want FOR their customers to experience, and to have policies, practices and reward systems in place that allow them to deliver on those intentions.

  1. Fitria, N., Hadromi, F. A., & Ekmarinda, E.Y. (2024). FOMO and Its Effect on Gen Z Performance, in Proceedings of the Conference on SDGs Transformation through the Creative Economy: Encouraging Innovation and Sustainability (TCEEIS 2023). Atlantis Press.
  2. Ahrholdt, D.C., Gudergan, S.P., & Ringle, C.M. (2019). Enhancing loyalty: When improving consumer satisfaction and delight matters. Journal of Business Research Volume 94, January 2019, Pages 18-27
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