The transfer of early prospecting intelligence from tip-of-the-spear sales development representatives to their account executive colleagues can be a high-wire act. One misplaced detail, one key piece of information lost in translation, and what might have been a golden opportunity can quickly evaporate.
That’s a gut-wrenching experience that Kevin Alexander, a veteran of front-line B2B sales, knows all too well. He has seen what should have been “seamless” handoffs get fumbled.
“A lot can get missed or slip through the cracks,” said Alexander, demand development manager and head of SDR Labs at Boomi. “Even when you have a recording and transcript of a discovery call, it can be difficult for an SDR and account executive to interpret the key insights. That leads to mistakes.”
That’s why Boomi created an AI agent that doesn’t miss anything and bridges knowledge gaps. The SDR-AE Handoff Agent ensures that sales development reps — the people who make the initial contact with prospects — provide the most relevant information by summarizing and highlighting discussion points to help Boomi’s account executives engage with prospects more effectively to better move deals forward.
“This agent knows exactly what signals to listen for, pulls that information from a conversation, and then creates a summary that matches the signals to our core pillars,” Alexander explained. “This enables an AE to craft a better story that stimulates curiosity with a prospect when they have their follow-up conversation.”
Effective use of AI is a Boomi-wide initiative. Boomi offers AI agents and a framework within the Boomi Enterprise Platform for designing, governing, and orchestrating agents from Boomi and beyond. But we also make a point of using agents and our own technology internally. Our AI team works with internal teams across the organization to build practical AI agents to automate processes, improve productivity, and remove friction from everyday work life.
Those AI agents include a knowledge chatbot called ChatB and another to help customer success managers understand clients better. Likewise, the SDR-AE Handoff Agent addresses a problem that’s highly relatable — in this case, to every salesperson.
Solving a Handoff Problem
Sales development representatives (SDRs), who typically are just beginning or are in the early years of their careers, are constantly searching to surface potential deals. They scour the total addressable market for businesses that could benefit from the Boomi Enterprise Platform.
Once they identify a promising prospect, determine interest, book an introductory call, and qualify the lead, they pass the information to an account executive (AE) for deeper follow-up. But passing that baton is often more complicated in practice than it sounds.
Imagine you’re one of those SDRs, constantly juggling multiple opportunities. You work hard to nurture a lead and know the organization is ready for the next step. You send the handoff notes to the AE, cross your fingers, and move on. But later, you learn that the lead went cold, leaving you with a pit in your stomach.
Alexander’s role at Boomi is to limit that kind of frustration and generate early sales cycle traction. He helps Boomi’s global team of SDRs build more high-quality pipeline and set up the AEs for greater success by optimizing processes, developing good behaviors, and removing obstacles. Internally, it’s called “The Golden Process.”
The SDR-AE Handoff Agent is a prime example of Boomi’s mission to create a more efficient, AI-driven sales development organization. Here’s how it works:
- An SDR’s initial discovery call gets logged into Gong, a sales enablement tool that records, transcribes, and analyzes customer-facing interactions.
- The SDR also creates an opportunity in the Salesforce CRM based on the criteria of the MEDDPICC sales methodology.
- The SDR-AE Handoff Agent enters the picture, completely changing the previously manual process. It’s no longer a game of chance.
“SDRs simply pop open the agent and paste in the Gong transcript and the qualification notes from Salesforce,” Alexander said. “The agent will generate a document that can provide an account executive with a better overview of the conversation. It’s really actionable in helping AEs figure out how to get started with the following conversation.”
The familiar worry of a botched handoff disappears as the agent does its work.
What the SDR-AE Handoff Agent Delivers
Within seconds, the agent comes back with a structured, detailed report that includes:
- A brief overview of the call
- Company background
- Industry trends
- Recommended Boomi platform capabilities and add-ons
- Suggested follow-up questions
- Case studies to share
- Possible objections AEs might have to address
- A pre-call email draft that the AE can edit to suit their needs
The agent presents information in a standardized format so AEs can quickly understand the potential opportunity and determine what Boomi has to offer the prospect.
Watching more opportunities grow into actionable pipeline and closed deals validates to SDRs that their efforts are valued and not merely box-checking exercises. Another added benefit is the prospect experience. The AE can make the subsequent call more productive by focusing on solutions to the prospect’s challenges instead of rehashing the same information already covered by the SDR.
“There’s so much value with the agent,” Alexander said. “It even identifies anything not covered on the call. It serves as a springboard to help accelerate that early momentum.”
The Results Speak for Themselves
Sales teams, of course, are all about the numbers. Even though the agent is relatively new, Alexander said the preliminary results have been eye-opening. One month after launch, the sales qualified opportunity to qualified opportunity conversation rate – a key marker for early pipeline momentum – jumped 5.3% from the previous month. That conversion rate also represented a nearly 14% spike, year over year. Michael Leyden, Boomi’s vice president of Inside Sales, added that the response from the sales field has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We’re wonderfully resourced at Boomi with people on the cutting edge of training and
development, and using technology to make our jobs easier,” Leyden said. “This agent is a perfect demonstration of Boomi-created technology to help our SDRs develop their personal brands while scaling the company faster.”
Leyden calls sales development “a launch pad” for achieving anything in a business career. He views the agent as another way to help them reach liftoff faster.
“The SDR role is a boot camp for future technology executives,” he said. “We can provide a PhD in getting to know a go-to-market plan, a gold star in figuring out what a buyer persona looks like, and a diploma in sometimes getting rejected. These become a crucible for understanding how a software organization in a global environment delivers value to a customer. And they can take those skills anywhere.”
Using AI As an Amplifier
The SDR-AE Handoff Agent also highlights Boomi’s perspective on AI. It’s intended to enhance human capabilities, not replace them. For instance, Alexander stressed that the agent isn’t smarter or more creative than salespeople. It’s simply a tool programmed to relentlessly extract those sometimes elusive signals that even the most attentive salespeople can overlook when they’re busy managing multiple opportunities.
“That’s the real effectiveness of the agent,” he said. “It elevates the floor for every single handoff.”
Alexander added that the AI agent continues to evolve. The goal is for the agent to be fully automated in the future, so SDRs no longer have to cut and paste information. As the business moves another step closer toward a fully agentic enterprise, the agent will do its magic in the background to help the sales team achieve more.
But the real value of the SDR-AE Handoff Agent is what it gives back to salespeople each day: Time, confidence, and the freedom to focus on what they do best – building relationships.
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