As we entered the 21st century, we saw many amazing and top notch technologies come into existence. These were something that we couldn’t even imagine, making impossible things possible for us. Technologies that we had only seen in movies like Star Trek and Star Wars. Hand-held devices that would open a portal to the entire world, people talking to gadgets fixed on their wrist, and so much more. Ever since these technologies hit the market, they changed the way we do business. These include AI (Artificial Intelligence), VR (Virtual Reality), 5G, and so much more. 

One of the most anticipated and the most revolutionary technologies among them is AI. Businesses across the globe are rushing to apply this technology to their business model and automate parts or all of their business. AI has a lot of potential and AI based solutions can really bring a disruption to the market, the scale of which we have never seen. This includes things like automating customer communications as well as finding out the best product suitable for the market, and others.

AI is not only meant for the big companies and the huge conglomerates, but for every business out there. The CEOs of small and medium businesses were asked questions about AI and a survey was conducted. Out of all of them 29.5% said that AI is going to impact their businesses a lot in the next year. You too can find an IoT app development company that offers AI facilities and hire them to take your business to the next level.

Many small to medium business owners are going for Artificial Intelligence App Development because they know that apps are the next big thing and so is AI. But apps are not the only way that AI can benefit small to medium businesses. SMB owners can benefit from AI with:

• Less time consumption
• Less cost
• Better results
• Enhanced productivity
• Less risks
• And more.

Here are four ways artificial intelligence can be really effective for your small business.

1. Improve Sales and Marketing

Every business needs a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Using these systems, businesses can gather their customers’ data from multiple channels like emails, social media platforms, phones and more. This can help them improve customer experience and automate their sales process. If businesses can integrate AI into the mix, they can easily automate the process of collecting the customer data as well as analysing the customer feedback from various channels. This way, businesses can better form marketing strategies as well as lead generation activities.

With an AI-powered CRM, you can not only automate your lead generation and marketing strategies but also save a lot of money, all the while acquiring new and valuable insights into optimizing your customer relationship process.

2. Customer Support

Customer support is one of the most important features of any business. The way you handle your customer will tell you whether they will be back for more or not. Ever since AI has stepped into the market, the way customers are dealt with has changed drastically. Now, we have chatbots that are a revolutionary addition to the industry and they are quickly becoming a necessity. We have seen that chatbots are more suitable for customer support than anything else. 

With AI-based chatbots, you can perform the following things, among others:

• Automate manual tasks
• Fix various issues
• Correspond to customers based on collected data
• Help customers 24×7

3. Streamline Human Resource Tasks

Not only is AI a boon for customer support, it is also beneficial for other departments like HR, and more. You might not think it is possible, but a lot of companies have started using AI for human resource purposes. AI tools can really help out small to medium businesses with their hiring and onboarding process as well as getting feedback from employees. You can easily find out how you can improve your HR practices and that can greatly impact the way you do business.

For example, if you want to hire a couple of new employees for various positions, you can use AI to sift through the hundreds of CVs that you receive and select only the ones that match your criteria. This means that you will save a lot of your time, effort, and resources and get the list of employees that are actually relevant for the jobs. Also, once the hiring process is done, AI can take care of the onboarding process and help the new employee get settled in by sending them training videos, manuals, as well as asking questions to make sure that they understand their role and updating them about the company policies about health, benefits, and more.

4. Acquire Competitive Intelligence

What if you knew what your competitors were up to at any given moment? Well, that is not a dream anymore. With the help of AI, you can do just that. You can find out what kind of content your competitors are producing. You can find out what keywords they are trying to rank for. You can know what social media posts they are publishing and what are their strategies for these posts. Once you have all this data on your fingertips, you can easily sift through it and find out the data that is relevant. There are already multiple tools in the market that allow you to do so with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Conclusion

AI has entered the marketplace and it is here to stay. The businesses that integrate AI with their operations will have the clear edge over their competitors. Make sure that you are one of them.

Also Read: 5 Best AI Based Apps For Different Activities