This has become a popular topic of conversation amongst our team because we’ve noticed a pattern. The teams that use AI to score leads in their CRMs seem to be closing more deals than the teams that score leads manually or score based on a basic points system.

The main difference here is that AI scores leads based on data, while manual lead scoring is done using a more static scoring method.

An example of a static method is that one might score specific job titles (like VPs) by adding 10 points and email opens by adding 5 points. This, paired with human intuition, forms the basis of manual scoring.

When it comes to predictive lead scoring using AI, it scores hundreds of thousands of deals and leads and compares the winning deals and engagement with the losing deals and related engagement.

So, the main difference is that AI lead scoring requires a larger dataset of previously scored leads and closed deals to be effective. While manual lead scoring requires little to no data and is typically based on a guess of the points that scoring leads will provide.

If a company is new to scoring leads and has plenty of closing/closed deals for the AI to parse, it can learn to score and predict winning deals. If the company has fewer than 20 closed deals, the AI will struggle to score leads. As a result, you’ll end up with deals that either don’t have any score or have an inaccurate score assigned.

This is what we know about making it work:

• AI uses clean historical data: The “garbage in, garbage out” applies here.
• AI picks up your patterns, not industry benchmarks.
• AI improves as you close more deals.
• AI lacks context, and human judgment covers that.

AI scoring can establish and back biases in your data. If your sales team dismisses leads from a particular source, the AI will learn to view them as low priority. This is true even if they are high-value leads.

AI lead scoring should be used to prioritize leads, but reps should still justify the decision and be able to prioritize based on that.
What has been your lead scoring experience? Are you doing it manually, or is your lead scoring process AI-powered?