What Is a Sales Agent? Types, Responsibilities & More

Every good business starts with an idea. Usually it’s an idea that helps people enough to make them want to spend money. But products and services don’t always sell themselves – that’s what salespeople are for. Some are part of an internal team, while others might work as contractors or for a partner agency. And they’re not just human anymore — we’re seeing AI agents increasingly become part of sales teams, addressing the need to scale operations without adding headcount.

This guide will cover the role of different types of sales agents, as well as the way AI and autonomous agents are augmenting modern sales teams for the better.

• What is a sales agent?
• What does a sales agent do?
• Types of sales agents
• Benefits of having multiple types of sales agents
• Sales agent roles your organization should hire for
• Best practices for measuring sales agent performance
• How sales Al & automation are impacting the role of sales agents

Sales agents typically refer to sales representatives, but can be anyone within a sales organization that represents the business’s product or services to customers. Sometimes, the term “agent” is used to describe independent contractors or reps from partner agencies.

More recently, sales agents have taken on new meaning in the technology space. AI-powered, autonomous sales agents — or applications — are now being used to perform sales support tasks like lead nurturing and sales coaching.

Both terms are used interchangeably to describe the same roles, with most people generally preferring to use the more common term “sales rep.” However, a sales agent is sometimes used to refer to independent sales contractors or employees from partner agencies. Increasingly, the term “sales agents” refers to the AI applications that work autonomously to augment sales teams.

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A sales agent takes on any of the responsibilities commonly handled by sales reps, sales development representatives, or business development representatives — like interfacing with leads and customers, inputting data into a CRM or other sales tools, and working to close deals so they can hit quota.

An AI sales agent is slightly different, serving to augment the roles noted above. They function largely autonomously to nurture leads, roleplay sales conversations, and handle other critical sales process and revenue lifecycle tasks (like quoting and billing) that would otherwise be done manually.

AI sales agents are relatively sophisticated compared to other AI apps or bots; instead of depending on regular human intervention or pre-determined scripts, they use a collection of parameters, customer and deal information, natural language processing, and self-learning to complete tasks without requiring human intervention. The big benefit: They allow reps to focus on relationship-building and other strategic work best handled by human sales teams.

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Between human reps and autonomous AI applications, there are numerous different kinds of sales agents:

1. Sales representatives (sales reps)

Sales representatives’ primary job is to sell products and services to customers. They leverage their company, technical, and market expertise to engage with leads, moving them down the sales funnel until they are converted to paying customers. Usually, sales reps are compensated with a fixed salary and variable commission based on closed deals.

2. Sales contractors or partner agency hires

Not every business has an internal sales team. Some work with external partners, sometimes with a particular focus or niche. While an external sales agent might not start with the highly specialized expertise of an internal sales rep, their industry expertise and knowledge of common customer pain points makes them a valuable asset. By outsourcing salespeople to agencies, businesses let their internal teams focus on high priority work while ensuring no sales opportunities are lost.

3. Sales consultants and coaches

A company may have an amazing product and value prop, but lack the sales or market knowledge needed to successfully hit sales targets. That’s where an external sales consultant comes in — they leverage their education and expertise to train companies to improve their sales. Sales coaches perform a similar function, but are often internal to the company. Many sales managers take on coaching responsibilities, working with individual reps to improve their pitches, negotiations tactics, and objection-handling skills.

4. AI-powered sales agents

More frequently, businesses are turning to AI sales agents to offset manual tasks and increase sales efficiency. These agents function autonomously, handling critical sales tasks across the sales process. For example, AI sales agents by Agentforce can handle outreach to leads, freeing up reps’ time to focus on relationship-building with high-value prospects.

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While have traditional sales representatives is critical to a team’s sales efforts, there are benefits to having several of the agents mentioned above:

• Scalability and reach: Sales teams might find themselves bogged down with repetitive, low-touch – but necessary – tasks, like perusing a wealth of inbound marketing leads. An AI sales agent would enable them to nurture those leads and let their reps focus on more strategic work.
• Cost savings: As far back as 1991, sales experts were weighing the cost of hiring internally or externally, with some conceding that external sales agents who earn a higher commission would help offset the costs of a full-time employee salary and benefits. While that’s still a viable debate today, sales teams are seeing enormous cost savings through the implementation of AI agents. Deploying AI agents helps businesses do more with the staff they already have without requiring new headcount.
• Tailored sales approach: Everyone knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a totally random cold call or an impersonal email that looks like it was generated by a bot. Sales agents help companies nail personalization. With artificial intelligence, sales agents can conduct personalized outreach at scale that feels natural, relying on CRM data and clear parameters to ensure conversations are productive. The same CRM data can also be used to help build agents for coaching and training, so reps can roleplay with specific buyer personas to learn how to handle objections.

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Whether you’re looking to hire your own sales team or contract it out, there are numerous roles and functions to consider:

• Business development representatives (BDRs): A BDR focuses on generating leads via cold outreach, then qualifying those leads. They’re also responsible for passing them along to sales reps so they can close deals. Generally, they focus on cold calling and emailing, and scheduling meetings.
• Sales development representatives (SDRs): Sales development representatives are responsible for top-of-funnel activities, like gathering prospect data, fielding questions and objections, and booking meetings. They support BDRs and sales reps prepare leads for sales calls.
• Sales operations professionals: Sales operations roles typically analyze data to improve processes, implement new tools, and engage in process improvement. They are often the folks who manage the sales CRM and other components of sales force automation software.
• Account executives (sales reps): Account executives play an important role in the sales cycle – they are largely responsible for developing customer relationships, presenting solutions, negotiating contracts, and closing deals.
• Sales managers: Sales managers are responsible for guiding and managing sales teams, overseeing operations, setting quotas, and making sure their teams hit their targets. A good sales manager also engages in coaching and enablement sessions, helping their team hit quota.
• Sales consultants: According to the State of Sales report, 67% of sales reps don't expect to meet their quota this year, and 84% missed it last year. Feeling the pressure, some businesses might hire consultants to improve their teams. These external experts offer strategic advice to businesses on how to fine-tune sales tactics and processes to improve win rates and sales volume.

The best AI sales agents — while not hireable — can be an enormous help to sales teams, augmenting the roles above. As autonomous applications, they can quickly perform a number of manual tasks, provided they are fueled by accurate data. Out-of-the-box AI sales agents from Agentforce are good examples. They handle lead nurturing so no lead falls through the cracks, and roleplay sales calls and review pitches, providing feedback to improve engagement with prospects and customers.

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Usually, sales agents’ performance is based on sales-specific metrics like leads in pipe, win rate, and sales velocity. Primarily, however, managers use a quota (number of closed deals or total sales amount in a set period) to gauge overall performance. This informs agents’ pay: Most are compensated with a mix of base pay and variable compensation tied to quota attainment. AI metrics are less about speed and volume (which agents are designed to achieve) and more about accuracy and quality of work.

Here are some measurement best practices to consider:

1. Define clear metrics: Align KPIs with the agent's role, such as quota attainment. Benchmark against industry standards, and consider the impacts of the broader market and economy. Also, consider metrics that help you see how reps are handling their deals: sales velocity (how fast reps are moving through a deal cycle), deal size (where reps are focusing their energy), and customer retention rates​ (how much effort reps put into generating satisfaction and loyalty).
2. Use real-time analytics: Use a CRM with real-time performance dashboards so you can make adjustments on the fly. Consider having sales reps track their own progress, but make sure managers have visibility.
3. Offer regular feedback and training: Coaching is often a missed opportunity for improvement in sales teams. Structured coaching helps address gaps in effectiveness, and can be supplemented by AI agents.

1. Focus on correlation between agent use and sales: Measure the direct impact of agents on sales wins. For example, evaluate whether coaching provided by an agent leads to improved sales outcomes over time. Seller progress, like increased quota attainment and fewer errors, is a positive sign.
2. Track quality of communication: Customer-facing agents should deliver correct, data-backed responses in order to be effective. Keep an eye on feedback from your own sales agents and from prospects/customers to determine if your AI sales agents are making mistakes or disrupting instead of progressing sales motions.
3. Examine action accuracy: Since AI agents act as autonomous team members, actions like scheduling meetings and updating deal records should be reviewed periodically to ensure they are correct.

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No day in sales is ever the same. It’s all about helping people solve their problems, and it’s vital for companies to invest in the right talent if they want to be successful. Sales agents – whether in-house, external, or AI – are a huge part of driving that success by taking on critical top-of-funnel work that brings new customers into the business.

What roles AI play? AI sales agents allow sales organizations to scale their operations without the need for a large human sales team. The BDRs, SDRs, and sales reps you already trust can be augmented with AI sales agents that handle time-consuming, manual tasks — including personalized engagement — so the highly critical, strategic, relationship-oriented work of sales is managed by humans.

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Sales agents have long been the cornerstone of sales organizations — they’re the primary contact for prospects and customers, and they represent the best of your company to the world. But human agents are no longer the end-all-be-all of selling. As AI expands, human sales agents will be able to collaborate more closely with AI agents (like those offered by Agentforce) to manage even more complex workflows and on more channels in a totally seamless way. The result? Stronger relationships, more engaged selling, better retention, and higher sales volume.

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