AI or artificial intelligence – what are the benefits for your business?
I’m not a technology expert so what are some of the benefits of AI for my business?
So artificial intelligence is in the news a lot these days, you’ve probably seen it, Amazon using robots in their factories, all sorts of things. And as a business owner you’re probably wondering how is it actually of interest to you? And I would argue that there are some new things coming out these days that you should take a look at. But always make it relatable to your business. So don’t worry about AI coming in and taking over the world just yet, it shouldn’t impact your business certainly this year but it’s definitely something that you need to look at because, again, if you’re competition’s using it then it’s something that you need to also take a look at. Take a look at the number of things that are out there, chat bots is one way that you could integrate certain things to your business today. We’ll talk about that a little bit more, I think we’ve got some more questions coming up about that.
How can I start integrating AI into my business?
That’s a great question. So one of the areas that I’ve seen it deployed quite well at the moment is if you’re a website and you’ve got a chat screen that pops up and you’ve got some basic questions then often some large companies have started to deploy what’s called a chatbot. Which is really a computer or artificial intelligence as we wanna call it, and it has pre-programmed a number of simple questions or commonly asked questions so that you can get your answer real quick. And that’s a really effective way that you could even as a small business owner looks into integrating a lower level of AI just to help basically answer some simple questions. A number of features available through Facebook, WhatsApp, and a lot of the chat software like chat.com, I’ve seen a number of them, where you can really easily set up frequently answered questions that are essentially artificial intelligence that’s gonna be deployed for your business. Have a look, could be a way to increase customer service on your website, help you handle phone calls, or at least take care of those commonly answered questions online.
What are other strategies for using AI in my company?
So I think another way you could look at using it is really the customer journey. So when you’re bringing on a customer how can AI help you in that process? And it can be looking at the customer journey, really looking at those bottlenecks that maybe you have in your organization and seeing whether certain tools are available, whether it’s through a CRM system or anything else that’ll help automate that process, reduce the workload on your people, and deploy systems in a way that are really helping not only your business be more efficient but also improve that experience for your customer. So again, have a look around, a number of the basic tools that are around that you may even be using today well have elements of AI. Don’t get wrapped up in the jargon, AI being a scary thing, just break it down to really, what is it? Is it automation, is it a workflow? Something that you can break down into useful improvement in your process and the customer journey that you have. It can only help your business, and again, technology is there nowadays that can be deployed readily and easily and usually fairly inexpensively. Either as a bolt on to something that you’re using right now whether it’s your CRM system like I said or something new like a chat system like we talked about. So a number of different ways, definitely have a look, relate it back to your business, don’t waste money on something you don’t need, relate it back to something that can improve your customer journey, your customer experience, and retain that customer for longer. All right, well that’s all we have time for today, thank you very much for sending in your questions. Do keep them coming, find us online, #TheMoneyFactor, and we’ll see you next time on the Money Factor.