Academic and business consultant Julian Hall cuts through the frenzy and the hype around AI to show how it’s advent can be an opportunity for a small-business service to flourish
How many times have you heard that question amid the frenzy and hype the major IT corporations are screaming from the rooftops via their social media platforms, so that their share prices continue to soar to unprecedented and unsustainable heights?
You have probably said to yourself “no!” and “I don’t know what to do”. You may even be losing sleep thinking/worrying about it. Stop!
I would like to take the counter position of your answer of “no!” as being a positive.
I think that Artificial Intelligence – AI – in our short attention-span world, is going to be a boon for small businesses who are focused on personalised customer service.
I believe AI will never have human common sense nor emotional logic that I align with equalling all of the five human senses – sight, touch, smell, hear and taste.
To be ‘ready’ for this and put into place this principle, there is one thing though that you need to get right. You need to get both your customer facing and internal administrative and sales processes reviewed and simplified. Dumb them down, make them very human.
The rise of Amazon, Temu etc have had an impact upon small business, but have you noticed how increasingly complicated/annoying/time bait wasting and impersonal the whole ‘buy on line’ process has become?
You need to review and simplify all your business processes as if AI could perform these functions for you, but don’t switch the AI on.
Focus on what steps in each process appeal to all the human senses of a customer.
Where is the ‘look’ that attracts them? At what step do they ‘see’ or ‘get’ your product/service?
What is the ‘sound’ that keeps them interested? Ambience is such a powerful sales tool.
What can they ‘touch’ to attract their ownership of your product or service in?
Is there a ‘taste’, either tangible or intangible that can engage your customer?
Finally, is there a ‘smell’ point in your customer service process that you can take advantage of that a computer screen or automated voice can’t?
So, may I suggest, it might be time to step back from your business and carefully map out each and every key process and re-think how you can be different to AI via the five common human senses with both an emotional and logical hat upon your head.
In the same way that the threat of computers/IBM etc. were forever going to lead to the loss of the administrative workforce and processes when I was young, the advent of AI is an opportunity for a small-business service to flourish as the overzealous investment, hype and hysteria will eventually burst AI’s financial bubble because common sense, the human touch and logic will win the day.
