Have you taken full advantage of AI yet? Don’t worry, nobody has! Its seemingly infinite potential puts a lot of pressure on small businesses to adapt or get left behind. And while it’s true that AI may elevate your organisation, you don’t necessarily need to think about reinventing the wheel and incorporating it at every touchpoint. Instead, consider some of the key areas intrinsic to your profitability and growth, and start there.
Here, we cover a handful of practical and actionable ways you can boost everyday processes with AI and automation tools, giving you more time to drive your business forward.
Automate tasks
The automation of manual, routine tasks is a common jumping-off point for small businesses. You know those time-consuming jobs that you wish you could hire some admin support for, but don’t have the cash to do so? We’re talking about scheduling appointments, organising workflows, managing emails, handling basic customer enquiries, and so on. Automating these will improve efficiency and reduce operational costs.
Tool tip: Clockwise is an AI-powered calendar management tool designed to optimise schedules and reduce meeting overload. It intelligently blocks time for deep work, reschedules meetings based on team priorities, and creates more focused time for important tasks.
Enhance customer experience
A surefire way to build trust and loyalty is by responding quickly and supportively to customers. But it’s easier said than done with limited resources. Enter AI, which can equip you with intelligent chatbots and customer service tools that personalise responses and solutions based on preferences and behaviour. This can really help with customer retention and make a big difference to your bottom line – without the need to hire an extra head.
Tool tip: Claude is a next-generation AI assistant, developed by Anthropic, that’s designed to be helpful, honest and harmless. It’s capable of various tasks like answering questions, summarizing text, generating code and engaging in conversations.
Improve marketing
Data analysis is crucial for your marketing strategy, but it’s also hugely time-consuming. AI tools can fast-track that process, pulling out key insights to identify trends, predict customer behaviour, and determine the effectiveness of different marketing channels. Use these to your advantage to attract and promote to the right customers with the right message, optimising your marketing spend and boosting your ROI.
Tool tip: Brandwatch uses over 15 years of data to determine what consumers say about your brand, competitor, or topic relevant to your business. You’re also able to segment data and draw quick insights, making in-depth market research and audience analysis easy.
Optimise inventory management
Do you handle physical stock? Poor inventory management can either tie up your cash flow or prevent you from capitalising on sales opportunities. AI tools can help you strike just the right balance by predicting demand, optimising stock levels, and automating ordering processes. This will help you make more efficient use of your capital.
Tool tip: Zoho Inventory offers order tracking, vendor management, and batch tracking to enhance inventory visibility, simplify order processing, and automate stock level adjustments.
Streamline financial management
AI and automation tools can simplify otherwise tedious and complex financial tasks, such as cash flow management, expense tracking and financial forecasting. This can help you make quicker and more informed decisions, and give you the headspace to plan strategically for the future.
Tool tip: Nabarro Poole has been offering cloud accounting software KashFlow to our clients for many years, giving you everything from invoicing support to cash flow management. However, if you’re already using a different software or AI tool for this purpose, our experts can meet you where you are and integrate with your preferred way of working.
Combine AI with advice and strategy
From everyday accounting tasks to strategic financial planning, our experts will partner with you as an extension of your team. We’ll tailor our support to help you navigate the most efficient routes to growth and profitability, while advising on savvy tech investments that actually benefit your business. Don’t hesitate to contact us for a friendly chat about your needs.
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