Let’s address a quiet dysfunction

Your salespeople are being forced to do a job
they were never trained for:

User research.

Not discovery.
Not qualification.
Not problem framing.

Actual user research:

  • identifying root problems
  • capturing workflows
  • differentiating user types
  • mapping personas
  • clarifying motivations
  • extracting job-to-be-done language
  • comparing across segments
  • validating patterns
  • separating noise from signal

Reps are not user researchers.
They never have been.
And the expectation that they should be
is silently eroding your pipeline.

Let’s break down why.

Why this problem exists

Because Product needs:

  • structure
  • clarity
  • validated patterns
  • contextual insight

But Sales produces:

  • fragments
  • anecdotes
  • snippets
  • partial notes
  • emotional summaries
  • surface-level requests

It’s not the rep’s fault.
It’s their job.

Sales is optimized for speed, persuasion, and momentum.
User research is optimized for depth, precision, and patience.

These are opposite skillsets.

The cost of forcing reps to do user research

1. You get bad data

Not because reps are bad.
Because they capture what matters for closing,
not what matters for product discovery.

2. You get inconsistent data

Every rep documents differently.
Meaning the patterns never reveal themselves.

3. Product loses trust

When input is inconsistent or unclear, PMs tune it out.

4. Reps lose time

They spend more hours documenting than selling.

5. Deals lose momentum

Because reps don’t know what info matters, so they over-gather or under-gather.

The worst part?
Everyone thinks the problem is reps.
It’s the system.

What reps are actually great at

Sales is phenomenal at:

  • hearing purchase blockers
  • uncovering friction
  • identifying risk
  • translating emotion
  • spotting themes
  • understanding stakeholders
  • detecting deal-breaking gaps
  • reading buyer psychology

This is invaluable.
But it’s raw material —
not finished insight.

You don’t want reps doing user research.
You want reps doing signal capture.

Product needs someone (or something)
to turn that signal into structured insight.

Enter AI.

AI does the user research work your reps shouldn’t

AI can:

  • analyze every sales call
  • extract user frustrations
  • map workflows
  • identify buyer personas
  • cluster user problems
  • detect repeated themes
  • differentiate between SMB, mid-market, enterprise
  • tag segments
  • extract job-to-be-done language
  • generate problem statements
  • produce product-ready summaries

All from your existing calls.

Reps don’t have to change anything.

AI converts raw signal → structured insight.

Why this is liberating for CROs

When reps no longer have to:

  • document every feature request
  • summarize feedback
  • write problem statements
  • organize customer quotes
  • capture workflow nuance
  • produce PM-friendly updates
  • translate buyer language
  • generate competitor comparisons

They can focus on:

  • selling
  • coaching
  • building momentum
  • closing deals
  • nurturing champions
  • creating expansion paths

And your product team actually gets
the depth they’ve always wanted.

The CRO takeaway

Your reps aren’t user researchers.
Stop forcing them into a job they can’t—and shouldn’t—do.

Let them sell.
Let AI listen.
Let Product interpret.

That’s how modern organizations scale truth across teams.