Appendix State of Sales 45 Sales Becomes More Connected and Proactive Top performers are 9.2x more likely than underperformers to rate interactive voice assistants as a very important communication channel. Here we see how sales professionals rate the importance of each communication channel. Percentage of Sales Professionals Rating Each Communication Channel as Absolutely Critical or Very Important High Moderate Underperformers for Connecting with Customers Performers Performers In person 87% 91% 86% 87% Phone 83% 89% 81% 83% Email 78% 85% 76% 73% Knowledge bases 54% 75% 51% 39% Online forms 45% 68% 40% 27% Social media 44% 67% 40% 27% Online communities 43% 69% 37% 25% Mobile app, including the ability to contact sales, service, support, etc. 42% 67% 36% 32% Online chat/live support 38% 64% 33% 18% Text/SMS 36% 55% 31% 26% Customer-facing messenger apps 33% 60% 28% 17% Internal-facing messenger apps 30% 55% 25% 15% Interactive voice assistants 22% 49% 16% 5% Salesforce Research