Running a small business is sure to keep you busy. Chances are you are constantly on the go and moving from one thing to the next, all in an effort to keep your business running smoothly. Considering the amount of work one has to do outside of core activity, it’s impressive that small business owners still find the time to come up with innovative ideas among other things that help their business evolve.
Luckily, in this day and age, no one has to (or rather should) be leaving the success of their business in human hands alone. No, my friend, this is why we have artificial intelligence.
AI technology is the answer to streamlining workflow and growing your business. Sure, you won’t have androids or cyborgs who can replace your most persuasive salesman; neither will AI be coming up with revolutionary concepts to break new ground in whatever industry you operate in – but that’s beside the point.
What you need is something to handle menial tasks, while you tackle the strategic bits, and come up with new and fresh ideas that consumers will appreciate – thus adding value to their lives and ultimately your business.
But how exactly does AI come into the picture? Let’s break down ways in which you can leverage AI to grow your business.
PUT SOME OOMPH INTO YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE
By now we are all familiar with chatbots that pop and prompt you to let them help solve your problems the second you land on any given website. But how do chatbots put the mojo into your customer service? Consider that if you have a small army of well-programmed chatbots to address customer queries and such, wait times are going all the way down. These programs will not only answer customer queries, but they can also provide 24/7 service. After all, it’s not like chatbots are in need of some shut-eye.
Boost Conversion Rates
Nowadays, there are countless ways in which a potential client can get in touch with your business: from emails, phone calls, social media – you name it. And while that’s all great in theory, to say you will have a human sifting through so much data is a bit on the overbearing side.
AI has the ability and actually specializes in making this headache less of a headache and more of an asset to your business. Mind you, AI specializes in sifting through large amounts of data at speeds human beings can only dream of keeping up with. By scraping and coalescing data from multiple sources, AI is able to determine trends within your niche and make accurate recommendations. In other words, artificial intelligence and customer relationship management is a heck of a combination. And good business is all about maintaining strong customer relationships.
The rest can be handled by your very talented sales team. Remember, just because a person is great at sales, this doesn’t mean they would be excited (much less efficient) about sifting through mountains of data to determine what trends are in or that a particular group of clients are into cardigans at whichever time of the year.
AI Can Help You Hire Better Staff
This may sound like a huge gamble. But consider that the same qualities that make AI ideal for customer relationship management are the same qualities that shine here. Letting an algorithm handle the bulk of this work sounds risky. But in reality, saves you time and makes your hiring decisions more precise, and less time-consuming.
By sifting through tons of CVS and online job profiles, AI can help to reduce recruiting timelines by huge margins.
Again, AI can sift through multiple data sources such as online job records and social media profiles, to build up a candidate profile relevant to the position you need filled.
Accounting, Minus the Hassle
As you may or may not know, one field in which AI makes a huge difference is accounting. Just think back to paper-based times. Managing small business accounts was so time-consuming and intricate, it was likely to give the most patient of minds an aneurysm.
Allow me to drive the point home for you. Any given day could involve business owners and/or staff spending hours on manual data entry trying to get things done in time for tax season; accountants chasing clients to get their hands on one supporting document without which they can’t get the job done. Did I also mention that staff would be stuffing their wallets with wads of receipts while tackling their daily list of accounting struggles?
It goes without saying AI makes a lot of this stuff easier. Accountants can now be more accurate than ever with little effort on the staff’s part.
There is no initial investment, less room for human error, not to mention 24/7 access to data which amounts to huge savings in costs.