You do not need a technology budget or an IT department to get value from AI. A ChatGPT account and a clear idea of what you want are enough to save a few hours every week. Here are seven practical ways small businesses can use it today, and what to watch out for.
What can ChatGPT do for a small business?
ChatGPT is best at first drafts, summaries and explanations: tasks where it saves you time and you still review the result. It is not a replacement for your judgement, your expertise or your relationships with customers.
1. Draft emails and replies
Paste in a customer’s message (with personal details removed), describe what you want to say, and ask for a polite, clear reply. It is especially useful for difficult messages, such as declining a request or chasing a late payment, where finding the right tone takes time.
2. Write marketing copy and social media posts
Ask for product descriptions, Facebook posts, ad headlines or a month of post ideas. Give it details about your business, your customers and your tone of voice, then edit the result so it sounds like you.
3. Summarize long documents
Contracts, tender documents, reports and meeting notes can be summarized in seconds. Ask for the key points, deadlines and obligations, then read the important sections yourself before making decisions.
4. Brainstorm ideas
Use it as a thinking partner: names for a new service, ways to promote an event, questions to ask a supplier, or objections a customer might raise. Ask for many options and keep the few that fit.
5. Prepare answers to common customer questions
List the questions customers ask most often and ask ChatGPT to help you write clear, short answers. You can use them in replies, on your website’s FAQ page and in social media messages, which also helps your business appear in AI search results.
6. Work with spreadsheets and data
Describe what you want to calculate and ask for the Excel or Google Sheets formula, or ask it to explain a formula someone else wrote. With file uploads, it can also spot trends in a sales export or tidy up a messy list.
7. Learn new skills quickly
Ask it to explain a tax term, a marketing concept or a piece of software step by step, at your level. Follow-up questions are free, so keep asking until it makes sense.
What should you watch out for?
- Check the facts. ChatGPT can state wrong information confidently. Verify numbers, laws, prices and dates against a reliable source.
- Protect confidential data. Do not paste customer personal data, passwords, or confidential business information. Check your account’s data settings, or use a business plan that does not use your data for training.
- Keep your own voice. Customers notice generic text. Edit drafts so they sound like your business.
- Stay responsible. You are accountable for what you send or publish, whoever wrote the first draft.
How do you get better results from ChatGPT?
Give it context. Say who you are, who the text is for, what you want and in what format, for example: “I run a small bakery in Banepa. Write three short Facebook posts announcing our new weekend opening hours, friendly in tone, under 50 words each.” If the first answer is not right, tell it what to change rather than starting again.
Need help putting AI to work?
Choosing the right tools and fitting them into how your business already works is where most of the value lies. Our IT consulting service can help you find where AI saves you time safely. Get in touch to talk it through.