4 Ways AI Can Help You Build a More Efficient Business

Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be an asset for many small businesses. And integrating AI doesn’t need to break your business budget. In fact, turning your business into an AI-enabled, data-driven company may be easier than you think.

We sat down with small business expert Barry Moltz to discuss how AI can benefit small business owners. Moltz shared his expertise on how businesses can streamline workflow and boost profits utilizing artificial intelligence.

AI Tools are Building More Efficient Businesses

There are a number of AI tools at the fingertips of business owners. Leveraging AI tools for business growth and success has become of great importance for companies. “A lot of buzz about AI, consumer AI, Siri, Cortana, with the new user interfaces,” Moltz said. “There are AI tools that can improve sales, accounting, etc.”

“When it comes to tech, it’s one of the big things coming down the line,” Moltz explained. “For example, there are AI tools that analyze sales people conversations, and compares techniques that other sales people use, they transcribe and analyze data and then use it for training materials. It’s amazing stuff.”

Many reports and businesses owners share Mr. Moltz’s AI enthusiasm:

• 72 percent of business leaders agree that artificial intelligence is a “business advantage.”
• The AI market will be worth over $100 billion by 2025.
• 16 percent of American jobs will be automated by the end of the decade via AI.
• 85 percent of cyber attacks can be handled by artificial intelligence.
• 85 percent of customer interactions will be via AI by 2020.
• 30 percent of businesses will use AI in sales processes in at least one way by 2020.

How can you integrate AI into your small business? Let’s take a closer look at four ways AI tools can make your small business artificially intelligent, and how to get the funds needed to pay for it.

1. AI-Enabled CRMs

CRM systems compile consumer information across multiple channels, such as email, phone, and social media. This data lets sales teams manage interactions with potential and existing customers, as well as automate lead generation and marketing processes.

“Now you can see the CRM and pull in social media activity of the individual you’re trying to sell to, so you can get to know that customer better,” Moltz said. “There are AI tools in Salesforce now, that allow you to do that.”

Salesforce launched Einstein AI, a tool that lets developers integrate AI into their CRM applications. How does this benefit small business? It essentially helps small business owners analyze consumer sentiments in emails, reviews, phone conversations, and social media posts.

“Imagine you want to sell to a customer, you’re in their record, and on the side you can see the mentions for the company or what they talked about on social, it’s an integration to give you more insights,” Moltz explained.

Once you analyze the data, you can develop or adjust marketing efforts for maximum effectiveness. AI-enabled CRM allows small businesses to get deeper customer insights to increase conversions.

2. Artificially Intelligent Customer Service

One of the biggest catalysts for small business success is exceptional customer service. However, maintaining a high degree of customer satisfaction can be challenging. Unique customer support experiences are often overshadowed by the daily repetitive tasks support reps need to perform.

Artificial intelligence can remedy this issue by automating repetitive tasks. “Any way you can automate, less people to hire, fewer resources to outsource,” Moltz said.

AI-enabled customer service automates answers, classifies customer tickets, and if needed, routes more in-depth issues to the right human support agent quickly. This helps small businesses reduce handling time and improve customer satisfaction.

3. AI Data Solutions

A small business owner can now plug AI tools into any business workflow that involves data. You can essentially leverage sentiment analysis, classification, and predictive algorithms to gather fast business insights from any form of data.

Small businesses can use sentiment analysis in Google Sheets, Excel Data, and CSV without coding. AI tools also automate classification, tagging and processing for just about any data-driven business process a human presently does.

“These [AI tools] can help, not just small business, but also what jobs people do inside organizations,” Moltz noted. “For example, in the next 5 years traditional finance jobs will disappear because they’ll be done by AI. We’ll just ask the computer to show the data, we won’t need people.”

This can save a small business a lot of payroll, and the data can be processed and delivered faster. If your small business is data heavy, it may be time to look into artificial intelligence solutions.

4. Accountancy Artificial Intelligence

AI is making accountancy far more efficient for small businesses. Artificial intelligent tools are able to interpret contracts and deeds faster, as well as compile and analyze key terms to quickly perform risk assessments and other accounting functions.

Accountancy functions like managing finances and financial reports can also be done via AI. “For accounting, there’s a chatbot called Pegg, it helps manage expenses, simplify cash flow, it’s free,” Moltz explained.

“There’s a zillion things like that, it’s the biggest tech advance that’s happening with small businesses,” Moltz added.

There are definitely plenty of AI applications small business owners can use to make their businesses more efficient, grow, and become more successful.

Call Mulligan Funding at 855-326-3564 to discuss your financing options today.

The information shared is intended to be used for informational purposes only and you should independently research and verify.

Note: Prior to January 23, 2020, Mulligan Funding operated solely as a direct lender, originating all of its own loans and Merchant Cash Advance contracts. From that date onwards, the majority of funding offered by Mulligan Funding will be by Loans originated by FinWise Bank, a Utah-chartered Bank, pursuant to a Loan Program conducted jointly by Mulligan Funding and FinWise Bank.