# Learning When to Quit in Sales Conversations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01181 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01181/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 68 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03300/) (2024)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.08361/) (2020)
- [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023)
- [Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04356/) (2022)
- [wav2vec 2.0: A Framework for Self-Supervised Learning of Speech Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11477/) (2020)
- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.01691/) (2022)
- [Gemma 3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19786/) (2025)
- [SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15793/) (2024)
- [Decision Transformer: Reinforcement Learning via Sequence Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01345/) (2021)
- [Tulu 3: Pushing Frontiers in Open Language Model Post-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15124/) (2024)
- [Deep Reinforcement Learning that Matters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.06560/) (2017)
- [ChauffeurNet: Learning to Drive by Imitating the Best and Synthesizing the Worst](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03079/) (2018)
- [Language Models can Solve Computer Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17491/) (2023)
- [Is Behavior Cloning All You Need? Understanding Horizon in Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15007/) (2024)
- [Conversations Gone Awry: Detecting Early Signs of Conversational Failure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.05345/) (2018)
- [Smart Reply: Automated Response Suggestion for Email](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04870/) (2016)
- [Measuring and Benchmarking Large Language Models' Capabilities to Generate Persuasive Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17753/) (2024)
- [OLLIE: Imitation Learning from Offline Pretraining to Online Finetuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17477/) (2024)
- [An Empirical Risk Minimization Approach for Offline Inverse RL and Dynamic Discrete Choice Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14131/) (2025)
- [A Recursive Partitioning Approach for Dynamic Discrete Choice Modeling in High Dimensional Settings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01476/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Simulated Customers Never Walk Away: Decision Fidelity of LLM User Simulators Measured Against Real Purchase Outcomes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20708/) (2026)
- [AI Assistants Overassist](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21306/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Salespeople frequently face the dynamic screening decision of whether to persist in a conversation or abandon it to pursue the next lead. Yet, little is known about how these decisions are made, whether they are efficient, or how to improve them. We study these decisions in the context of high-volume outbound sales where leads are ample, but time is scarce and failure is common. We formalize the dynamic screening decision as an optimal stopping problem and develop a generative language model-based sequential decision agent - a stopping agent - that learns whether and when to quit conversations by imitating a retrospectively-inferred optimal stopping policy. Our approach handles high-dimensional textual states, scales to large language models, and works with both open-source and proprietary language models. When applied to calls from a large European telecommunications firm, our stopping agent reduces the time spent on failed calls by 54% while preserving nearly all sales; reallocating the time saved increases expected sales by up to 37%. Upon examining the linguistic cues that drive salespeople's quitting decisions, we find that they tend to overweight a few salient expressions of consumer disinterest and mispredict call failure risk, suggesting cognitive bounds on their ability to make real-time conversational decisions. Our findings highlight the potential of artificial intelligence algorithms to correct cognitively-bounded human decisions and improve salesforce efficiency.