If you’re running an indirect sales machine, odds are much of the work is done manually. It’s how it’s always been done: partners work outside of your organization, so your teams are scrambling to get a hold of them, sending emails to inform them about product releases, and gathering data about deals in progress. Which also means that your partners get less support than they need, and that your partner managers are stretched thin.
In fact, partner managers spend some 80 % of their time just keeping the lights on. Reacting, rather than acting. Doing administrative tasks and answering questions instead of building relationships, improving partnerships and growing sales. In other words, those smart people you hired to grow your partner network have become the most expensive FAQs ever.
Just think about what your partner managers actually do, every day. It’s a lot of admin, right? After all, partners need updated spec sheets, or pricing, or localized material, and just like that your partner managers’ days have become a never-ending treasure hunt through different systems and folders.
And if we think about all that time spent just looking for information, it is easy to see that the hours quickly add up – and that the manual approach to channel enablement comes at a high cost.
But what if there was a better way?
Ok. So it’s obvious that there is a problem, that manually managing a large number of partners comes at a cost – namely about 80 % of your partner managers’ time. But what, exactly, is the solution?
Well, AI certainly comes to mind. But you can’t just deploy any given AI – that would be too risky, too uncertain. After all, generic AI tools like ChatGPT or Copilot can answer questions, but won’t always answer them accurately, or use only the material you want them to use. They can’t always respect access rights and ensure that Partner A never sees material that only Partner B should see etc. And while such inaccuracy can be ok, for some, most of our customers agree: accuracy is everything, and consistency is key. If a partner gets outdated pricing, wrong specifications or non-compliant information, even once, the cost goes far beyond a bad customer experience. It can have serious consequences, especially in regulated industries.
This is, in fact, why we we built PAM – an AI designed from the ground up for partner operations. PAM doesn’t guess. She doesn’t hallucinate. She only gives answers based on your approved content, with full source citations and enforced access rights. And every answer is traceable, so you can always verify responses if needed.
With PAM by their side, your partner managers can get 80 % of their time back. Time they can spend on more value-adding activities, like building relationships. Which is where humans shine. While the administrative tasks, like finding material, or answering questions, can be entrusted to PAM.
Ready to see how PAM can give your team capacity without adding headcount?
Book a demo here below or reach out to us directly. We’re happy to talk!
This is a part our series on AI-powered partner management.
Previously: Why Partner Account Management breaks at scale → and Partner Manager everyday problems
