North Royalton Chamber luncheon
Staying Human in the AI Future
How AI is changing your customers, and what you can do about it.
- Customer Psychology
- Friction Tolerance
- Trust in AI Systems
- Jobs and Work Slop
And how it affects your sales and reputation.
Wednesday, November 18, 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM
Amici Italian Restaurant & Bar, 13000 Royalton Road, North Royalton
$21 for members, $25 for nonmembers. Lunch, networking and the chamber update, then me for about 20 minutes.
Try this before you come
Some of your customers are asking ChatGPT about you before they ever call. It takes 30 seconds to see what they're hearing. Open it on your phone and ask who the best [what you do] near [your town] is. Then ask what it knows about your business.
Were you there? Was it right?
What I'll talk about
Customer psychology
Think of ChatGPT and tools like it as your blabbermouth friend. It knows everything, it's wrong far more than it thinks, and it has no shame. Now everybody has one at their fingertips, and they're asking it for recommendations and professional opinions.
And that has consequences for your business.
Friction tolerance
Remember looking up a CPA in the Yellow Pages, only to find "see Accounting"? Every extra step was a chance for a customer to give up. Google cut most of those steps, and in about 15 years the big book was gone.
Now Google has friction of its own. The ads come first, then sources you don't trust, and the zucchini bread recipe sits under somebody's life story. Asking the blabbermouth is easier than all of it, and people have noticed.
That changes what they'll put up with from you.
Trust in AI systems
An agent is a robot that does something on someone else's behalf in the real world. So how good does one have to be before you'd trust it with your business?
Jobs and work slop
You've heard AI is coming for all the jobs. Those stories aren't based on nothing, but they're deceptive. Automation does take jobs. It always has. "Computer" used to be a job, but being good at math didn't stop being valuable.
The nearer problem is slop. AI slop all over social media is creeping into business, and work slop is a real problem. Even the Nigerian prince emails are suddenly very professional. Words are cheap. Trust is everything.
And how it affects your sales and reputation
When someone asks about your industry, do you even come up? You could be losing customers and never know it. Here's what you can do about it.
Keep your information easy to find. Keep your website up to date, so the blabbermouth knows your services, your upcoming events and your place in the community.
Cut the steps. A long process to book an appointment, pay a bill or check on an order is starting to look archaic, and a slow callback can feel like incompetence.
Do what AI can't. Your biggest advantage against the giants is that you're real. Put your face on everything. Use photos of real events with real people. Shake hands and have real conversations.
Use the double agent. You have a blabbermouth friend too. Ask it what your customers are asking: is this a good price for this service? Test your messaging and your pricing against what it says. Just don't tell it your secrets.
Who's talking
I'm Dan Shaffer. I spent more than 16 years as a data engineer, building systems used by banks and insurance companies. Now I run 4D4 Labs from North Royalton and help small businesses and nonprofits get ready for this. More about me.