--- title: "AI Prompts for Discovery Calls: Pre-Call Research, Scoring, and Recap" description: "The Claude and GPT prompts agencies actually use to prep for, score, and recap discovery calls. Drop-in templates with examples and rubrics." url: https://timkilroy.com/blog/ai-prompts-for-discovery-calls date: 2026-05-19 updated: 2026-05-11T18:38:32Z category: "Sales" author: Tim Kilroy --- # AI Prompts for Discovery Calls: Pre-Call Research, Scoring, and Recap _The Claude and GPT prompts agencies actually use to prep for, score, and recap discovery calls. Drop-in templates with examples and rubrics._ Most agency sales teams are running discovery calls with some pretty poor uses of AI tools. Many don’t use an AI pre-call prep tools or they use a generic "summarize this prospect" prompt. The agencies that use AI well in discovery calls aren't using better tools. They're using better prompts. Four specific prompts cover the four moments where AI moves the conversation: pre-call research, in-call question generation, post-call scoring, and recap email drafting. Each prompt has the same shape (role, context, structured output) and produces output the team can deploy without rewriting. ## Why Generic AI Prompts Fail at Sales Call Prep, Scoring & FollowUp Three failure patterns repeat across every agency I've seen try to add AI to their sales process: 1. **No role definition: **"Summarize this prospect for me" produces an executive summary that reads well and contains no actionable signal. Without a role, the model defaults to generalist analyst tone, which is the wrong tone for sales prep. 2. **No structured output:** Free-form prose is where models ramble and reliability dies. Without an explicit output structure, the output is hard to scan and impossible to standardize across reps. 3. **No rubric:** "Score this prospect" without scoring criteria produces a number in the 7-to-9 range with three reasons that sound smart and predict nothing. The rubric is what makes the score correlate with actual outcomes. The four prompts below fix all three. Each has an explicit role, a structured output format, and (where applicable) a rubric the model has to apply. ## Prompt 1: Pre-Call Research This AI prompt takes raw inputs (company name, person name, links to LinkedIn or articles) and produces a structured brief. The prompt takes about 90 seconds to run with Claude or GPT and produces output the rep can paste into their notes app. The 90-second runtime is the part that matters. If pre-call research takes 15 minutes per call, the agency stops doing it. At 90 seconds, the agency does it for every call. ## Prompt 2: In-Call Question Generation Use this if a discovery call drifts into territory the rep wasn't prepared for. Open the prompt in another tab during the call and feed it the pivot. This prompt runs in 10-15 seconds and gives the rep three usable questions to deploy in the next minute of the call. It's the AI version of having a senior salesperson whispering in your ear. ## Prompt 3: Post-Call Scoring Use this within 30 minutes of the call. The rep dictates or types a brief recap of what happened and the model scores it against the pitch scorecard. The output is structured enough to drop straight into the CRM. Over time, the scores accumulate and reveal patterns (the team is consistently weak on risk handling, for example) that point to systemic process fixes. ## Prompt 4: Recap Email Generation Use this within 60 minutes of the call. The model drafts the follow-up email based on the call recap and the scorecard output. The output is a draft, not a final email. The rep edits in their voice and sends. Drafting time drops from 15 minutes per recap email to 90 seconds plus a quick edit. ## How to Chain the Prompts The four prompts work better as a system than as individual prompts. The chain looks like this: **Before the call:** Run prompt 1 (pre-call research) on the prospect. The rep walks in with a working hypothesis and three signal-based questions. **During the call:** Keep prompt 2 (in-call question generation) in a browser tab. If the call pivots to unexpected territory, the rep types the pivot and gets three follow-up questions in 15 seconds. **Within 30 minutes after the call:** Run prompt 3 (post-call scoring). The rep types a 3-paragraph recap and gets a structured scorecard plus a recommended next move. **Within 60 minutes after the call:** Run prompt 4 (recap email). The output from prompt 3 feeds the input for prompt 4. The rep edits the draft and sends. The total AI runtime across the four prompts is about 5 minutes per discovery call. The total rep time saved is about 45-60 minutes per call (mostly in pre-call prep and post-call recap). The math gets dramatic across a team running 20+ discovery calls per week. ## What To Do With This If you're already using AI in your sales process, audit your current prompts against these four. Most teams have prompt 4 (recap drafting) and skip the other three. The other three produce more leverage. If you're not using AI in sales yet, start with prompt 1 (pre-call research). It produces the most immediate value with the lowest risk. Once the team trusts the output, layer in the other three. If you'd rather have this already done for you, check out, [Discovery Lab](/discovery-lab) & [Discovery Lab Pro](https://timkilroy.com/discovery-lab-pro) - two pre-discovery call AI-powered prep tools built specifically for agencies. (And you can feed your discovery call transcript right into [Call Lab](https://timkilroy.com/call-lab) or [Call Lab Pro](https://timkilroy.com/call-lab-pro) & get ai-powered sales call coaching & follow up suggestions based on the [WTF Sales Method](https://timkilroy.com/wtf-sales-method) that is at the heart of [SalesOS](https://timkilroy.com/sales-os).) --- Canonical URL: https://timkilroy.com/blog/ai-prompts-for-discovery-calls