As artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI continue to capture public imagination, it can be easy to overlook the possibilities it creates for SMEs to unlock efficiencies and modernise operations. For those SMEs yet to embark on this journey, now is the time to experiment with this transformational technology. Businesses are looking for guidance on how to manage these emerging capabilities properly and safely.
Broad market acceptance of generative AI is here. According to a study by research firm Information Services Group (ISG), 66 per cent of Australian SMEs are already using emerging technologies including chatbots, AI and data analytics, to deliver enhanced customer experiences and to achieve business growth objectives.
But where to start? As a first step, it’s important for business leaders to identify pain points and value-additive opportunities within their business, and then work backwards. Identifying specific practical areas to apply generative AI will help realise its productivity benefits and reduce time to value.
Here are the key ways you can leverage generative AI.
Automate time-consuming tasks, and enhance productivity
SME teams can get bogged down in day-to-day tasks, which many generative AI tools are already adept at managing. These tasks include recording and summarising meetings, creating and editing content for presentations, and generating documents ranging from an executive summary to a forecasting report. Generative AI can also automate and minimise human error in repetitive tasks, like document processing. For small businesses operating in industries such as manufacturing or construction, generative AI solutions can enhance predictive maintenance functions. This takes the work out of detecting equipment or production issues, improving uptime and utilisation and reducing costly, time-consuming errors.
Boost the sales journey
New generative AI tools include native customisation capabilities, which make it easy for customer teams to tailor personalised sales collateral, such as call scripts or email responses. Retail SMEs can deliver personalised eCommerce experiences, improving conversion and retention rates and creating long-lasting customer relationships.
Generate insights and engaging content
SMEs can use generative AI to help simplify time-consuming creative tasks. For example, they can quickly create an engaging marketing email to promote a new product, and experiment with different subject line options for A/B testing and accompanying social posts. For SMEs with large amounts of data but limited time or expertise to fully exploit its value, generative AI tools can help discover key insights and takeaways by analysing trends in complex data sets, such as spikes in sales, or customer feedback patterns.
Enhance customer support
Generative AI can streamline and improve the customer support experience by transcribing and analysing hours of recorded customer service calls. It can then provide summary reports to unlock critical customer insights and provide recommendations to optimise service resolutions. For example, Generative AI tools can now understand customer intent and suggest ideal responses and actions for agents to communicate in order to resolve unique customer needs, all in real time. By empowering agents to address customer needs across a broad range of topics without assistance from supervisors, this helps retain customers and lower costs by improving time to resolution.
Leveraging some of these tips can help small businesses address long-standing pain points in productivity and customer experience. However, kickstarting the generative AI journey can be daunting.
We know SMEs face multiple challenges when moving to the cloud including outdated and complex IT infrastructures, fears about privacy and security, and inadequate skills and training. SMEs can look to overcome these difficulties with the right support by collaborating with technology solutions providers. For example, AWS partner Itoc helped Aussie finance start-up Frollo build its own machine learning algorithms quicker and more accurately, giving Frollo achieve a 95 per cent accuracy rate in categorising financial transactions, helping its banking customers speed up loan processing times.
By evaluating pressing problems and choosing the right partner to accompany them in their journey, Australian SMEs can start using generative AI to accelerate and scale their business today.
