We live in an era where efficiency is king. With everyone strapped for time and inundated with information, businesses that figure out how to exhaust fewer resources will come out on top. Using AI to increase sales is one of the ways businesses can take advantage of emerging technology. This includes businesses in the trades industry. AI tech isn’t reserved for office work or tech start-ups. It’s a versatile tool that the trades industry can leverage to create efficiencies, improve processes, and outpace their competition.
When Are Small Ideas Not So Small?
When They Optimize B2B Sales.
Imagine a mosaic, each piece small and seemingly inconsequential on its own. But when combined, they form a beautiful, intricate picture. This analogy holds true for innovations in business.
As Kim Scott writes in her New York Times bestselling leadership guide, Radical Candor,
“A culture that captures thousands of ‘small’ innovations can create benefits for customers that are impossible for competitors to imitate. One big idea is pretty easy to copy, but thousands of tweaks are impossible to see from the outside, let alone imitate.”
Kim Scott, Radical Candor (2017)
Don’t think of AI as something that can replace workers, experience, or equipment vital to the trades industry. Instead, think of it as a virtual assistant who can help you create efficiencies and improve productivity in a variety of ways. Let’s explore a few tactics that make using AI to increase sales easier than ever for the trades industry.
Using AI to Anticipate Problems and Improve Time Management
Time is a precious commodity in the trades industry. If you can finish jobs and respond to needs faster than your competition, you have a huge advantage. That’s where AI comes in.
Customers can use remote monitoring and diagnostic devices in their homes and buildings to alert contractors whenever there’s an issue with their HVAC system. By getting on board with this powerful tool, businesses in the trades industry can:
- Utilize predictive analytics.
- Preemptively address problems.
- Efficiently plan service calls to avoid peak times.
As sales manager Levi Bouwman puts it, these products can tell you if you’re going to have problems with heat exchangers, igniters, or gas valves. Monitoring and diagnostic devices can measure units’ energy currents and indoor air quality (IAQ) so you can spot problems months ahead of time.
“You’re going to have a lot of calls when it’s 35 below zero in Minnesota. But if you knew that you were going to have a furnace issue, say in the next six months… you could then schedule that work to do when it’s, say, 45 degrees outside.”
Levi Bouwman
These tools’ artificial intelligence doesn’t just save time; it redefines service quality and client satisfaction.
Using AI Content Marketing to Grow Brand Awareness and Customer Loyalty
One of AI’s potential major legacies will be its impact on channel partner marketing. While typical marketing platforms like Hubspot and Pardot start at 10K a year and still require a dedicated manager or team (and a certificate) to run them, AI could make these programs’ capabilities accessible to mid-market channel partners.
Rather than dense platforms made for B2C businesses with huge audiences and full-time marketers creating content, AI facilitates mid-market-friendly options like Extu’s GoTu Grow.
GoTu Grow costs less than $400 a month to run and features generative AI that produces regular, fresh content relevant to contractors, salespeople, and customers in the trades industry. You can then send that content automatically in the form of regular, consistent, multichannel marketing campaigns that keep you top of mind with existing customers and expand your reach to new business.
In the shifting landscape of digital marketing, AI offers an unparalleled advantage, democratizing sophisticated marketing tools for the trades industry. This not only levels the playing field for mid-market channel partners but also streamlines the creation and distribution of targeted content.
By leveraging AI-driven platforms, businesses can enhance brand awareness and customer loyalty through personalized, automated content marketing strategies, ensuring they remain competitive and relevant in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Using AI to Increase Sales and Customer Satisfaction via Chat Tools
In today’s digital age, customer interaction is paramount. AI-driven chat solutions can integrate into your website and social media pages to help customers when they need it. As Phoenix-based George Brazil Plumbing and Electrical discovered, AI chat functionality can generate more service calls and convert web traffic into reliable leads.
140
new service calls
$120,000
more in revenue
Looking to lighten their customer service representatives’ workload and collect more valuable customer information, George Brazil implemented a live chat solution that offered regularly updates and improvements and an affordable price tag. With customized conversational abilities, George Brazil generated more than 140 new service calls and nearly $120,000 in revenue.
By providing instant responses and collecting vital customer data, AI chat tools ensure that businesses can connect with their customers more effectively, leading to increased service calls and improved customer satisfaction.
Using AI to Streamline Documentation and Administrative Tasks
The administrative side of the trades can be overwhelming. AI can significantly reduce the time spent on creating documents such as installation instructions or delay notification letters. As demonstrated at the PHCC Super Foremen Workshop, what took humans 15 minutes to compile, AI could produce in seconds, not only faster but often more comprehensively.
Attendees of the workshop spent 15 minutes creating a step-by-step list for installing underground piping. They then asked OpenAI’s free-to-use AI system ChatGPT to do the same thing after giving it a two-sentence prompt detailing their needs. Within seconds, ChatGPT generated a detailed installation instruction sheet, including crucial steps the workshop attendees had missed.
Workshop instructor Kirk Alter showed how ChatGPT could generate recommended construction finance books, calculate duct installation productivity rates, and compose a construction delay notification. As professionals in the trades industry become more familiar with AI tools like ChatGPT, they unlock continuously increasing efficiencies and speed, leading to enhanced B2B sales, improved B2B sales strategies, and cumulative competitive advantages.
In Conclusion
The trades industry stands on the brink of a technological revolution, where AI can be a strategic ally. By embracing AI, businesses in the trades can enhance their time management, improve brand awareness and customer loyalty, while streamlining administrative tasks that lead to significant gains in efficiency and sales. Small tweaks, enabled by AI, can lead to substantial competitive advantages, proving that in the quest for improvement, no idea is too small, and no innovation is insignificant.
