If you have seen the action around AI SDRs in the last few weeks, you will know this is true.
In the age of digital transformation, we've been sold a seductive idea: automation is the ultimate solution to every business challenge.
Chatbots, AI agents, and automation are supposed to be the silver bullet for customer engagement.
But here's a truth that's quietly sabotaging conversion rates across industries: 65% of buyers have one-off questions that can’t be answered by automation or FAQs.
We found this out after running a sales services company for years before Lift AI and capturing over 14M live sales conversations during that time.
Also, sometimes buyers on the cusp of conversion don’t even have a one-off question, but need the human empathy and reassurance to get them over the line.
Let’s unpack why—and how you can solve this problem with the human touch without ruining your efficiency.
The Automation Trap: When It Fails the Big Moment
80% of B2B buyers now expect a seamless, B2C-like experience, according to Salesforce’s 2024 State of Sales Report.
Automation can deliver that at scale—but it has limits.
Need to answer “How do I reset my password?” at 3 a.m? A bot will have you covered, no human required. Seamless.
In fact, automated support can outshine humans here—zero wait time, 24/7 availability. It’s a win and it should definitely be used.
But selling is a different beast. There’s the old saying “telling ain’t selling”, and it remains true today.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that buyers aren’t just data points in your analytics.
They’re people. And people, especially in B2B, want to feel understood and valued before they hand over their credit card (or PO number).
Additionally, a lot of purchases aren’t impulse buys. They’re complex, high-stakes decisions.
The more considered the purchase, the more the buyer is likely to need help.
So when 65% of buyers hit their one-off question wall, your chatbot’s copy and paste style answer doesn’t inspire confidence.
Instead, it comes across like “We’re too busy to care.”
Even the smartest AI can’t crack this yet. Why? One-off questions are unpredictable by nature—edge cases that don’t fit neatly into training data.
“Does your product integrate with my obscure CRM from 2012?” and “What’s your uptime SLA for a client in rural Mongolia?” Good luck scripting that.
And even if AI could guess, it lacks something buyers need in these moments: empathy, reassurance, and validation. The human ability to say, “I hear you, let’s figure this out together.”
The Speed Problem: High-Intent Buyers Don’t Wait
Here’s where it gets brutal: high-intent buyers move fast.
- More than 50% of deals go to the first company in the deal (and recently, 6sense reports that number is 78.5%)
- Engaging a lead within 5 minutes makes you 8x more likely to convert. (InsideSales)
- Wait just 5 minutes longer, and your odds drop by 400%. (HBR)
So what’s the problem? Automation is known for its immediacy and speed—or lack thereof. A chatbot might escalate to a human… after 20 minutes. An email might get a reply… tomorrow.
And that one-off question or need for reassurance might be their last hurdle. If you fumble it because you’re too slow, they’re gone.
So what do you need?
You need smarter routing.
The goal isn’t to replace humans. The goal is to get the right human in front of the right visitor at the right time.
Enter Lift AI: The Best Human-Automation Hybrid
So, automation’s great for support but not great for sales.
Humans shine in one-off moments but can’t scale like bots.
What’s the fix? A hybrid that plays to both strengths—and that’s where Lift AI comes in.
Lift AI is a real-time intent-detection engine that spots high-intent visitors on your site and routes them instantly to your sales team.
It analyzes behavioural signals and patterns against a massive pre-trained AI model to score intent with incredible accuracy—all in real-time.
It doesn’t just look at page views or time on site like other website buyer intent tools (which is important when 88% of buyers don’t go to the pricing page that most tools believe is high intent).
Even better, because Lift AI focuses on the behavior of each visitor, it works on completely anonymous visitors (without the need for any form of deanonymization). That said, it can integrate with your ABM and known account intelligence as well.
Once Lift AI has scored the intent of each visitor, it can route them to your sales team through your existing tools—chat, pop-ups, ABM, CRM, and more for immediate conversion.
The Results
- Truckstop: $286k in new ARR for a 27x ROI by month five
- Boomi: Doubled BDR conversions and pipeline booked
- Loopio: 733% increase in meetings booked
- Chronus: 11.6x sales efficiency
- Payscale: 54% of pipeline came from anonymous visitors Lift AI uncovered, and delivered 12x the pipeline with 4x the efficiency vs contractual agreement
These are real deals that were being missed until buyer intent was revealed in real-time and routed to sales.
The Bottom Line: Humans + Smart Tech = Gold
Automation’s not the enemy—it’s just not the whole answer.
Those 65% of buyers with one-off questions (or need for reassurance) are your untapped goldmine.
AI can’t fake the human element they need to close sales effectively, but it can spot them in the crowd.
Lift AI does exactly that, turning your website into a conversion machine that blends the best of both worlds.
Want to see for yourself? Request your 30 day free Proof of Concept here (for qualified accounts only)
