Use cases
AI Use Cases, by Function
Every operation we look at in an assessment, grouped by where it sits in the business. 31 of them. The 10 we have already built link through to the write-up.
Under each one is how you would know you have it. If none of them sound like your week, that is worth knowing before you book a call.
Sales and revenue
Money leaks here in two places. How long a lead waits, and whether the second follow-up ever happens.
Answering inbound fast
We have built this oneQualifying and booking inbound while the lead is still on the page
Inbound waits hours, and anything arriving after five sits until morning
Inbound qualification
We have built this oneScoring inquiries against the customers you actually want
The calendar fills with whoever called rather than with good-fit work
Second and third follow-ups
We have not built this one yet
The touches after the first one, which nobody has time for
Deals go quiet and nobody notices for two weeks
Proposal drafting
We have not built this one yet
A first draft off your own past proposals and pricing rules
Proposals wait for a partner who is in delivery until Thursday
CRM records
We have not built this one yet
Records written from what actually happened on the call
Your pipeline report is wrong and everyone quietly knows it
Renewals and accounts going quiet
We have not built this one yet
Watching how an account behaves and flagging what is about to leave
You find out about churn at renewal, not three months before
Customer service
The highest volume work in most companies, and the best documented, because every answer you have ever given is sitting in a mailbox.
Support inbox and chat
We have built this oneThe repetitive load, carried on your real replies rather than your help center
Two or three people answer the same forty questions every day
Ticket routing
We have not built this one yet
Queue and priority decided on what the ticket says, not on keywords
Tickets sit in the wrong queue and the clock is already running
Returns and exceptions
We have not built this one yet
Applying the policy you actually want applied, the same way every time
Three agents give three different answers to the same request
Where is my order
We have not built this one yet
Answering from the systems that already hold the answer
A big slice of everything you answer is people asking where their order is
Escalation handovers
We have not built this one yet
The history a human needs before they pick up an angry thread
Whoever takes the escalation spends ten minutes reading first
Quoting and pricing
Where margin is decided by judgment, and where that judgment lives with two people who are also doing four other things.
Quoting and estimating
We have built this oneDrafting the estimate off your catalog, your rules, and years of quotes actually sent
Two days is normal, and about a fifth go stale before they go out
Spec checks
We have not built this one yet
Catching the combinations that do not work before they reach a customer
A wrong spec gets found in production rather than at quote
Tender and RFP response
We have not built this one yet
First-pass answers assembled from what you have already answered
Every RFP restates the last five, and it still takes a week
Discounts below the floor
We have not built this one yet
Flagging what falls under the margin floor before it is promised
You find out what a deal really cost in the monthly report
Finance and cash
The cheapest systems to build and the fastest to show up in the bank. That is usually why they go first.
Same-day invoicing
We have built this oneThe invoice goes out the day the job is marked complete
You invoice the week after the work, sometimes later
Collections and chasing
We have built this oneThe right chase on the right invoice, in your voice, with humans flagged in
Cash sits in 60- and 90-day and one person chases when they can
Supplier invoices
We have not built this one yet
Reading supplier documents and matching them without re-keying
Someone types numbers from a PDF into a system every week
Expense checks
We have not built this one yet
First-pass review against your own policy, exceptions sent up
Expense approval is a rubber stamp, and then one month it is not
Reconciliation
We have not built this one yet
Matching what arrived against what was ordered and billed
Month end is a person with two screens and a spreadsheet
Operations and delivery
Usually the largest cost line and the least written down, because it is held together by people who have been there a long time.
Job dispatch and scheduling
We have built this oneAssigning and tracking work on your zones, skills, and job history
One person is on the board from open to close, and the day falls apart when they are sick
Client onboarding
We have built this oneThe whole setup checklist: contracts, folders, access, kickoff
Delivery cannot start for three days after signature
Order entry
We have not built this one yet
Reading orders out of email, PDFs, and portals into your system
Orders arrive in five formats and someone re-types all of them
Approvals that stall
We have not built this one yet
Routing a decision with the context attached, then chasing it
Things wait on an approval nobody remembers is theirs
The weekly status report
We have not built this one yet
Assembling the update from the tools that already hold every part of it
Hours a week go into building one report out of four systems
Supplier communication
We have not built this one yet
Chasing and confirming with suppliers, and reconciling what turns up
The founder is the supplier communication layer
People and knowledge
The work that turns your senior people into a search engine. Plus the retirement nobody wants to plan for out loud.
Hiring screen
We have built this oneScoring applicants against the actual role and the people who already do it well
First-pass screening has become a second job for managers
Floor and technical knowledge
We have built this oneAnswers pulled from your SOPs and from what those people have already said
The same forty questions land on the owner or the plant manager every week
Employee onboarding
We have not built this one yet
Accounts, access, and the first-week path without someone walking it through
New starters spend their first week waiting for access
Finding the right document
We have not built this one yet
Making years of contracts, specs, and correspondence answerable
Finding the current version means asking a person who asks another person
First-pass contract review
We have not built this one yet
Flagging against your own positions, with the decision left to a human
Standard agreements still queue behind someone senior
Our latest projects
Four of the ten, with the numbers attached and the limits named.
Customer support · Manufacturer
Customer support system
Three people on the same inbox
3 people
Inbox load the system carries
Hours to minutes
Time to first reply
Sales · Home services company
Speed-to-lead system
Inbound sitting for four hours
4h to 4min
Time to first callback
19% to 28%
Close rate on inbound
Quoting · B2B distributor
Quoting system
Two days to send an estimate
2 days to 4h
Estimate turnaround
Onboarding · Professional services firm
Client onboarding system
Three days before delivery starts
3 days to 40min
New client setup
Same week
Delivery starts, instead of the next
What not to automate first
A shorter list, and the one owners argue with. We would rather have that argument before the work than after it.
| Leave it alone | Why |
|---|---|
| Decisions that are political | The system becomes the argument. Settle the disagreement first, or pick something else. |
| Processes nobody can describe | If three people describe it three ways, you are automating a guess. |
| Work with no usable history | With no past cases there is nothing to train on and nothing to test against. |
| High-risk decisions with no review step | One confident wrong answer costs you the trust of everyone who has to use it. Build the review first. |
| Anything picked because AI is this year's mandate | That is how a working system ends up bolted to a cost line that was never the problem. |
| A broken process | Automating it makes it fail faster and more consistently. Deleting a pointless approval costs nothing. |
Which of these applies depends on your size
Find out what your most expensive operation is
The assessment covers every operation in the company, not only the one you would name. You get it in writing, and you can build from it with or without us.