If you want your small business to grow in today’s digital and competitive landscape, you have to be willing to embrace the plethora of artificial intelligence (AI) tools available.
Like other emerging technologies, AI tools enhance how small businesses operate. Here are some of the advantages of incorporating AI tools into your small business operations:
- Improved employee productivity. AI can improve employee productivity by reducing time spent on mundane tasks such as invoice processing or data entry.
- Enhanced customer service. AI chatbots can answer straightforward queries, allowing your customer service team to focus on complex interactions.
- Cuts staffing costs. As mentioned above, AI tools can take over mundane tasks and enable you to extend the hours your small business offers customer service without hiring more support.
- Increased sales and revenue. Many AI tools use machine learning algorithms to better understand customer behaviour and adapt the customer experience (CX), leading to increased sales and revenue growth.
- Better decision-making. AI can analyse data to decide better what marketing strategies are working best, who your target audience is, and more.
83% of small business owners plan to invest in AI in the coming year. So, let’s explore six ways AI can help your small business grow in 2024 and beyond so you know where to invest:
Recruitment
The recruitment process can be time-consuming, but several AI tools can help you find the best person for the job while saving you time and money, especially when receiving many CVs and applications simultaneously.
AI tools can help you scan CVs, search for critical skills and qualifications among candidates, write job descriptions, and schedule interviews.
Skillate is an AI recruitment platform that can help with every aspect of the recruitment process and enhance the candidate experience. It enables you to hide personal information about candidates—such as name, gender, religion, age, and ethnicity—and rank them only on their skills, education, and experience to ensure no biased hiring.
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(Image Source: Skillate)
Unbiased hiring is a priority in 2024, with 56% of US workers saying that increasing diversity, equity and inclusion at work is a good thing.
Laura Wronski, research science manager at SurveyMonkey, said: “Workers who are satisfied with their company’s efforts on [DEI] issues are actually happier with their jobs. They are more likely than others to say that they have good opportunities to advance their careers, and they are more likely to feel like they are paid well for the work they do.”
Content Creation
Small businesses can use AI tools to generate engaging website or marketing content such as product descriptions, social media captions, blog posts, images, and videos. However, you should still check the content to ensure it is correct and in alignment with your brand.
Copy.ai has a plethora of free AI-powered writing generators for product descriptions, call-to-actions (CTAs), blog posts, slogans, Instagram captions and hashtags, and emails. While AI tools like Pictory can help you create videos without technical skills.
Hannah Dawson, designer and founder of independent jewellery brand Clover & Swift, uses ChatGPT—one of the most popular generative AI tools—to write product descriptions and post on social media. She said: “I input a quick description and make any alterations, and it saves me so much time.”
In addition to creating content, AI tools can analyse data about which content types perform best with your target audience and use it to suggest topics and headlines for future content.
Customer Service
AI tools with natural language processing (NLP) capabilities can help small businesses offer an advanced level of customer service previously only provided by large corporations.
Chatbots, also known as virtual assistants, are programmed to recognise certain phrases and respond to them. They are a popular tool for answering routine queries or directing customers to website resources.
With chatbots, small businesses can reduce customer wait times and extend customer service opening hours without hiring more employees. Chatbots can also improve customer satisfaction and customer experience overtime as they continuously improve their accuracy by learning from customer interactions, which
One of the most popular chatbots is ChatBot, a standalone AI tool that scans your website, help centre, or other resources to provide quick, accurate, and human-like answers to customer questions and guide them through the buying journey.
(Image Source: ChatBot)
However, AI tools for customer service aren’t limited to chatbots. Some tools enable you to automate routine customer service tasks such as sending order confirmations, while others can integrate with applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) software.
AI tools create a more efficient and satisfying customer service experience, which improves customer loyalty. Loyal customers are more likely to recommend your small business, which helps you gain new customers and grow your brand.
Marketing
Small businesses can use AI to enhance their marketing strategies and connect with their customers more personally, giving them a competitive advantage in their industry.
Here are some AI tools that can help with marketing:
- Copy.ai can help create content for all marketing campaigns by generating free blog posts, social media captions, emails, and more.
- DALL-E can generate free images from text prompts to accompany your content.
- Grammarly can review your written content’s spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
- Buffer can schedule and publish content to multiple social media platforms from one dashboard. Buffer’s free plan also features an AI assistant that can repurpose existing social media posts.
- Sprinklr can gather analytics about social media content performance and audience demographics.
- Adobe Analytics can analyse customer data such as behaviour, preferences, and demographics to help create marketing campaigns that resonate with customers.
Website Creation
If you don’t already have a website or eCommerce store, AI-powered website builders can help you set one up with no technical skills required. For example, Hostinger’s eCommerce website builder offers small businesses:
- Ready-to-use templates.
- A drag-and-drop editor to enhance your website design.
- Mobile editing.
- Marketing integrations.
- A custom domain name.
Once you’ve set up your website or eCommerce store, Hostinger offers more AI tools to enhance it with minimal effort, including its Image Generator, Writer, Heatmaps, SEO Tools, and Blog Generator.
Market Research
Market research is an essential practice for small businesses that want to grow, and AI can make it much more efficient.
AI tools with natural language processing capabilities like ChatGPT or Google Gemini allow you to ask specific questions and receive detailed information and data about your business sector, competitors, and customer base.
(Image Source: ChatGPT)
Once you have that, you can use AI to analyse this data and quickly compile detailed reports to help you evaluate opportunities for your company to grow.
Bridget Greenwood, founder of The Bigger Pie, uses ChatGPT to research new markets for her business that provides training and networking for women in emerging tech. She said: “ChatGPT’s vast knowledge base enables us to seek guidance on data from specific industries, ask questions and receive well-informed responses.”
Conclusion
Small businesses have much to gain from allowing AI tools to enhance their operations.
As with any new technology, there will be challenges to consider before using these tools. One of the main challenges for small businesses is their budget. However, this article has mentioned numerous free AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Copy.ai, Grammarly, Dall-E, and Buffer.
To conclude, AI is game-changing for businesses of all sizes and is here to stay. So, stay current with the latest advancements in AI-powered tools and platforms to remain competitive in the digital world and grow your small business.
