How an Alternate Health-Plan Cut Sales Cycle by 30%
A national alternate health-care plan provider needed a practical path from scattered knowledge and expert-dependent selling to a governed, Microsoft-aligned AI capability that could help sellers navigate product complexity, prepare for broker conversations, and improve continuously.
Less time spent in broker meeting and conversion
Sales cycles reduced from 10–18 months
Response time for plan design & state nuances
Enterprise governed Microsoft-first path
Problem Statement
The Challenge: Complexity Slowed Growth
Client's alternative health plans are not a simple, one-product sale. Sellers work through brokers, tailor the solution to employer needs, and coordinate across product, proposal, implementation, and subject-matter experts. The organization had invested heavily in training and Showpad content, but the knowledge experience remained fragmented and difficult to use at the moment of need.
■ Knowledge Lived with Experts
Nuanced answers often depended on a small number of long-tenured leaders and product liaisons.
■ Content Available, Not Findable
Showpad held rep-ready materials, but sellers still needed faster retrieval, clearer source-of-truth rules, and recency controls.
■ Product Confidence Shaped Selling
Uncertainty encouraged sellers to present at buyers rather than lead consultative conversations and ask sharper questions.
■ Enterprise AI Governance Required
The solution had to fit a Microsoft environment, preserve permissions, cite approved content, and avoid unsupported answers.
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Execution Framework
Our Approach: Strategy, Implementation & Scale-Up
The engagement was structured as a transformation program—not a chatbot project. Each stage combined business transformation, AI engineering, and product discipline so the capability could create value now and mature over time.
Strategy
- Transformation: Map seller, broker, enablement, marketing, and SME workflows.
- Engineering: Assess Showpad, CRM, Microsoft identity, and search constraints.
- Product: Prioritize user jobs, answer boundaries, pilot personas, and success metrics.
Implementation
- Transformation: Redesign seller workflow around prep, confidence, and next-best actions.
- Engineering: Build cited RAG foundation with approved knowledge and access controls.
- Product: Prototype with real seller queries and observe failure modes with users.
Scale-Up
- Transformation: Embed ownership, content stewardship, and training into operating model.
- Engineering: Add telemetry, automated refresh, retrieval tuning, and security reviews.
- Product: Expand by validated use case and measure business/behavioral impact.
Target Architecture
Custom Sales AI Agent Workflow
The agent connects seller queries through strict Microsoft Azure Entra ID permissions, searching across indexed Showpad documentation and internal knowledge repositories using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Every answer generated includes inline citation links directly back to approved source files to eliminate hallucinations.
Execution Roadmap
Pilot & Scale Timeline
| Timeline | Phase | Focus & Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| 0–8 weeks | Align & Design | Use-case backlog, source-of-truth rules, content readiness, architecture, evaluation set, and pilot success measures. |
| 8–16 weeks | Build & Validate | Knowledge ingestion, retrieval, citations, guardrails, seller experience, SME escalation, and controlled user testing. |
| 16–24 weeks | Pilot & Operationalize | Pilot with selected sellers, instrument usage, tune relevance, launch training, define support and content ownership. |
| Next releases | Scale by Evidence | Expand to additional roles, CRM actions, meeting intelligence, coaching, and proactive workflows only after pilot proof. |
This phased structure guarantees value realization early in 8-week increments. Full rollout occurs only after proving relevance accuracy (>95%) and securing seller adoption during the initial pilot cohorts.
“The goal is not to automate the relationship. It is to give every seller faster access to the organization’s best knowledge—so they can spend more time listening, advising, and earning broker confidence.”
Engagement Scope
Executive Summary
- •Reduced sales cycle times from 10–18 months down to 6–8 months while cutting seller time spent in broker meetings by 30%.
- •Constructed a governed, enterprise-ready RAG architecture on Microsoft Azure adhering to strict HIPAA constraints.
- •Replaced fragmented knowledge across Showpad, CRM, and experts with instant (<10s), cited answers.
- •Structured as a 3-stage transformation program (Strategy, Implementation, Scale-Up) ensuring sustained adoption.
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