AI Rapid Fire — Sales Objection Drills with an AI Coach
An AI tutor that drills sales reps on customer objections, scores every answer in under a second, and ships a personalized performance report.
Project Overview
A B2B SaaS sales org that had been onboarding new reps with shadowing and a PowerPoint deck of objection scripts. The VP of Sales wanted reps to practice live objections before they ever hit the phones, without taking a senior AE off their desk for an hour a week.
The brief was a self-serve practice tool that an AE manager could ship to a 200-person sales org without onboarding overhead. It had to feel like a real prospect, score every answer against the team's rubric, and produce reports that survive a Monday morning pipeline review.
Each session opens with the AI presenting a customer scenario with a specific objection and tone. The learner responds by typing, clicking a suggested reply, or speaking out loud. The AI evaluates each answer in under a second and pushes the conversation forward. Sessions close with a personalized performance report that surfaces strengths, focus areas, and a topic-level breakdown.
Under the hood, each persona carries a backstory, an objection pattern, and three escalation paths. Evaluation runs on a structured rubric co-authored with senior AEs so the scoring matches what coaches already use in 1:1 reviews. The same engine has since been adapted for customer success and a discovery-call variant for new SDRs.
What's Inside
12 customer personas
Each with a named backstory, industry, objection pattern, and three escalation paths.
3 input modalities
Typed chat, click-a-suggested-response, or voice with streaming Whisper transcription.
Sub-1 second AI evaluation
Claude Haiku scores every answer against the rubric and routes the next AI turn before the score finishes serializing.
Performance report per session
Overall score, strengths, focus areas, and a topic breakdown across opening, objection handling, value framing, and close.
Manager dashboard
Team rollups, per-rep history, and a transcript viewer for 1:1 coaching.
Train-the-trainer kit
Rubric documentation, persona authoring guide, and an 18-minute Loom walkthrough.
What the Client Provided
- PowerPoint deck of the team's top 30 customer objections
- 14 hours of recorded customer calls with consent
- Existing scoring rubric from the sales coaching team (Google Doc)
- List of the 12 customer personas the team sells against
- Two Loom walkthroughs from senior AEs handling the hardest objections
Design and Build Process
Persona and Objection Library
Interviewed senior AEs and recorded the objections they actually hear. Translated each into a persona card with a backstory, an objection pattern, three escalation paths, and a do-not-do-this list.
AI Tutor Prompting
Designed system prompts and the scoring rubric so the AI stays in character and never breaks role to compliment the learner. Wrote a small DSL to keep persona authoring fast and consistent across the 12 cards.
Multi-Modal Input UX
Designed type, click, and voice paths into a single chat interface. Streaming Whisper transcription means evaluation starts before the learner finishes speaking, so the AI feels responsive even on slow connections.
Performance Report
Designed a one-screen report: overall score, strengths and focus areas, and a topic breakdown across opening, objection handling, value framing, and close. Coaches see the same shape across every rep.
Pilot, Iteration, Manager Rollout
Ran a 40-rep pilot, cut three personas that confused the rubric, then rolled out to the full 200-person org with a train-the-trainer session for managers.
Tools and Stack
Deliverables
- Live AI drill (web app) with team and per-rep dashboards
- 12 versioned persona cards with scoring rubric
- Manager analytics dashboard with team and per-rep views
- Train-the-trainer guide (PDF) plus an 18-minute Loom walkthrough
- Embedded directly inside the LMS, with SCORM 2004 + xAPI packages for Cornerstone, Workday Learning, and TalentLMS
- 30-day post-launch optimization sprint (rubric tuning, persona additions)
Other Relevant Work
Immersive AI Roleplay with Avatars
Live avatar roleplays with lip-sync, dynamic expressions, and AI voice evaluation on tone and pacing.
Cinematic AI Avatar Lesson Video
A polished AI avatar lesson video with two hosts, sound design, designed slides, micro-animations, and hand-crafted B-roll.
AI Canvas Practice Studio
Learners draw on an embedded canvas while an AI coach gives real-time feedback, paired with worked examples.