Introduction

I'm Kawasaki from the Hokkaido Sales Division of the East Japan Sales Headquarters.
I joined Classmethod in May.

Classmethod is a group of professionals in cloud and data utilization, including AWS.
There are many members in the company who use AI tools on a daily basis. I, an AI beginner, jumped into that environment.

At my previous job, I was told to "just use AI," but honestly, I only used it to proofread email text or do a little research. Since I had been using a proprietary AI tool developed in-house, I started without ever having touched Claude.

In this article, I'll introduce the "role-play utilization method" practiced by a salesperson who has been using Claude for 1 to 2 months.
Improving business efficiency is not the only use for Claude——I hope to convey that through my experience. Zero knowledge of code required, no complicated setup needed.

Why I Decided to Have Claude Be My Role-Play Partner

After joining Classmethod, I needed to take in knowledge about new products and services.
However, simply storing knowledge in my head was not enough.
I felt it was important to sharpen "the sense of what is useful in what situations, through conversations that simulate common scenes in actual business negotiations."
That meant what I needed was role-play in realistic situations.
Asking a senior colleague was one option, but I had these thoughts.

・I wanted to practice repeatedly at my own pace
・At my current level of knowledge, there was a risk of spending a senior colleague's valuable time just on basic cloud explanations
・I wanted to receive explanations and feedback multiple times along the way, fully understand things, and then try again

It fulfilled all of these "selfish" wishes.

What I Tried First

The first thing I did was simple.
Just load the sales materials directly into Claude. That's all.
No special preparation, no difficult commands. Just copy and paste the text from a PDF or document.
I honestly conveyed my position and situation as they were.

Then, Claude even suggested customer settings, and the role-play began right away.

This time I chose B and started the role-play.
The image that "preparation seems like a lot of work" was completely a misconception.

Stopping During Role-Play to Check with Claude

While proceeding with the role-play, I thought I was asking the customer a situational question,
but was asked back "What is that?" and found myself at a loss for words.
So I typed "stop" to pause the role-play and checked with Claude.

Claude then explained it to me, and once I understood, I started the role-play again.
This time, I was able to answer the customer's question with confidence.
Not fearing failure and being able to learn at my own pace——that is what I felt was the greatest value of having Claude as a role-play partner.

Taking It to the Next Level · HubSpot and MCP Integration

While reading articles on DevelopersIO, I wondered if I could achieve higher-quality training,
and thought that Claude has a feature called MCP (Model Context Protocol) that might be useful.
In a nutshell, MCP is "a mechanism for connecting Claude to various tools and data sources."
Please refer to the following past article for setup instructions.
→【Past Article】
(https://dev.classmethod.jp/articles/claude-business-use2/)

Our company uses HubSpot as a CRM tool.
By setting up HubSpot's MCP, Claude becomes able to reference past interactions with customers within HubSpot.

What I utilized was not individual customer information, but rather understanding patterns such as "what kinds of questions tend to come up frequently."
When I asked "Please tell me the trends in frequently asked questions based on past interactions," Claude immediately summarized the trends.

Based on that, when I asked "Please do a role-play taking into account the trends in frequently asked questions," the responses were incomparably more realistic than role-play based on materials alone.

Being able to prepare based on "what actual customers are concerned about"__
By integrating with MCP, I was able to proceed while holding my own hypotheses.

Closing

What I felt after trying this out is that even people who have never touched Claude before can use it with a low barrier to entry.
Claude can be used not only for improving business efficiency, but also for improving your own skills.

You can start just by talking to Claude, and once you get used to it, you can integrate MCP to extract even more accurate information.
In addition to typing your responses to Claude, voice input is also supported, so you can practice out loud as well.

For those who feel "I still don't know what to use Claude for in the end," I'd really encourage you to give it a try.