“Doing something with AI” is too vague to start with. It becomes concrete when you look at each business process: which work keeps coming back, where the information comes from and which decision is made at the end. Below we go through five processes found in almost every small business. For each one you will see what AI can do and what your team keeps doing.
One rule of thumb applies to every process: AI may prepare, sort and suggest, but a decision that costs money, makes a promise or affects someone personally is taken by a member of staff. How tightly you draw that line differs per process.
Customer contact
For most businesses this is where the biggest flow of recurring work sits. A yoga studio gets the same questions about the timetable, a hotel about check-in times and parking, a car dealer about the status of a service.
What AI can do
- Answer questions: from your own data, such as opening hours, prices, availability and the status of an appointment.
- Record appointments: suggest a free slot and book it, via WhatsApp or the phone.
- Summarise: after a conversation, record the key points and next step for a colleague.
What your team keeps doing
Complaints, unusual requests and anything that involves a commitment. A good assistant recognises such a question and passes it on. In our software the AI assistant on WhatsApp and the AI phone assistant do this work, with a member of staff as the safety net.
Admin
Admin is about data that already exists somewhere but has to be retyped, checked or followed up. An installer with dozens of purchase invoices a month or a staffing agency with timesheets knows the feeling.
What AI can do
- Read data: pull supplier, date, amounts and VAT from an invoice or receipt and prepare them for your accounts.
- Flag anomalies: a duplicate invoice or an amount that differs sharply from earlier invoices from the same supplier.
- Draft reminders: a payment reminder in the right tone, based on the due date.
What your team keeps doing
Posting, paying and the VAT return. AI prepares, a person approves. Following up unpaid invoices often needs no language model at all: fixed rules in your software do it more reliably. See automating invoice follow-up.
Sales and follow-up
A lot of revenue is not lost through a weak offer, but because an enquiry or quote is left lying around. A painter who works on quotes in the evening or a car dealer with test drive requests coming in through three channels will recognise this.
What AI can do
- Sort enquiries: summarise an incoming enquiry, ask for missing details and pass it to the right person.
- Prepare a quote: draft one from your own price list and standard wording.
- Follow up: send a message if a quote is still open after an agreed period.
What your team keeps doing
The price, the discount and the agreement with the customer. A quote only goes out after a member of staff has approved it. How such a quoting process works in software is explained under having quoting software built.
Scheduling
Scheduling is a puzzle with many fixed rules: who is available, who is qualified for what, how long a job takes. A hair salon with changing working days or a restaurant with busy evenings deals with it every week.
What AI can do
- Make a proposal: draft a rota or day plan based on availability and expected demand.
- Process changes: turn a sick call or cancellation into an adjusted proposal and inform the people involved.
- Answer questions: let staff check when they are on the rota.
What your team keeps doing
Finalising the rota. Who works when affects people directly, and it comes with agreements and employment rules that a planner weighs better than a model. Our staff scheduling add-on works from the same diary as the rest of your software.
Marketing
Marketing is the process where AI is most visible, and where quality drops fastest when nobody reads along.
What AI can do
- Write a first draft: a newsletter, a social media post or a description of a new treatment.
- Translate: put a text into a second language, as a starting point for someone who speaks it.
- Respond to reviews: suggest a draft reply to a review.
What your team keeps doing
The tone, the facts and the choice of what to publish. A text about your own business has to be correct: prices, opening hours and what you do and do not offer. Collecting reviews itself works without AI, with a fixed request after a visit through collecting reviews.
Where do you start?
Pick the process where the most work is left lying and where the information is already well recorded. For most businesses that is customer contact. How to take the first step is set out in the step-by-step plan for your first AI automation. If you want to decide who checks what, read human oversight in AI processes. An overview of what the AI assistant in our software does is on the product page.