You’ve heard the deal – AI is going to fundamentally change business. It’s going to cause mass job loss; it’s going to skyrocket profit margins of businesses that use it; it’s going to produce magical unicorns. Okay, well, maybe you haven’t heard the latter, but that’s not far off from some of the grand, sweeping promises made by those slick commercials on TV.
In reality, AI is a tool much like many other tools. It has promises and pitfalls, and an effective human agent is needed to maximize the promises and minimize the pitfalls. Just finding a bunch of AI tools and throwing them at your business operations will result in chaos, confusion, and inefficiency.
As a business owner, you know that time is your most vital resource. Any new tool you use in your business must ultimately free up your time from those small, repetitive tasks that you spend much of your time doing.
To sift through the potential of AI for your business, keep two things in mind: first, workers are more productive when they can focus on ONE activity for extended periods of time (instead of trying to handle multiple small, unrelated tasks at the same time), and second, most workers agree that automating many basic tasks would free up their time.
So, here are three simple ways an SMB owner might use AI tools in order to save time:
Marketing and Customer Service
Plenty of marketing and customer service activities can be supplemented with AI tools. For example, chatbots can be installed on your website to help customers navigate basic questions about your product or their order. Of course, the chatbot cannot and should not replace the human agent who may need to step in and help the customer. However, the chatbot can “filter” out basic questions and tasks that are easily addressed.
As mentioned above, some of these questions may take a human user a small amount of time to answer. However, the cumulative time over the week consumed by these small tasks can be significant. In addition, the mere act of distracting a human user for just a few moments several times during a project can also lead to poorer, less efficient outcomes.
Other AI-related tools can help you in, say, running a marketing campaign or creating targeted offers for potential clients. An effective CRM software can show you which of your sales and marketing materials are working, when they are working, and with which customers they are working. Based on this, your CRM might help you develop a specific offer to a target audience at a particular time of year or month, thus increasing your chances of making the sale.
Data Entry and Analysis
AI is best suited for tasks in which there are clear rules and which require little intuitive “feel.” So, for tasks like data entry and data analysis, AI tools can be excellent resources. A myriad of tools exist for businesses to streamline their data processes in ways that improve efficiency and reduce human error. For example, various AI tools might process data from scanned documents, digital documents, emails, attachments, or web forms, and then send that data to, say, your CRM software or other databases for use in creating invoices, marketing and sales materials, or agreements. What this looks like in your particular business may be unique, but it’s worthwhile to brainstorm some scenarios like this that would fit your business.
Ummm….Those Other Things?
Yeah, I’m using Other as a category. But here’s why: whatever “other” routine activities you are spending your time on MIGHT be addressed with an AI tool. Do you spend, say, 12 total minutes per day arranging meetings (“when are you available? Does Tuesday work for you? How about Thursday? Zoom or Teams?”)? That’s an hour per week which might be spent elsewhere if you are using an AI calendar tool that arranges meetings and tracks your time. Again, think of the WHOLE process of that simple task – typing the email or making the phone call, the potential of multiple replies, and then the actual setting up of the meeting. This is a seemingly effortless task, but if you do it 6 times per day at 2 minutes per clip, that, again, is an hour per week that could be spent somewhere else. You know that business owners must be ruthless with their time, so find ways of freeing yourself up.
The same principle applies to whatever “other” repetitive tasks that are consuming your time. Do you bang your head on the computer screen generating sales copy? Do you regularly create images or visuals that end up eating your time? Do you need clearer and more effective performance metrics? AI tools exist for all kinds of activities like these.
What AI tools will be useful to you depend significantly on your industry and your specific goals. Your best bet to get started is fairly simple: consider those repetitive tasks you do every day or every week, and then go do your research on what tools are out there that might help you steal back your time.