The Automation Crisis Affecting Small Business
The commonplace phrase “we live in a digital age” is indeed accurate, everywhere we look and everything we do is done using a high amount of diverse and revolutionary technology. Education, finance, health, entertainment, and almost everything we engage in daily has become digitized. That is to say, digitized in order to optimize, make more efficient, creating an interface which allows for human interactions to become more seamless, convenient, and satisfactory.
That is the point of emphasis here. Technology which is most successful and profitable is used to aid humans, not replace them, especially when connecting with each other a brand or business.
As human beings we feed off emotion, connection and the ability to relate. Gathering in groups, sharing in experiences and collaboration in success has been a mainstay of civilization since the dawn of man. Technology has succeeded in bringing humans together, closer and more interconnected than ever before. Allowing us to build stronger bonds, larger networks and boost our intellectual, emotional and societal growth as a whole.
That’s where technology succeeds, connecting people by making everyday tasks more efficient. People connect when they are engaged with others, the longer we spend head down working the less time we have for social interaction.
New technologies, particularly AI, can help humans delegate tedious tasks and focus on forging valuable connections with others. These connections build our network, customer base and partnerships. In business the network of people around you are essential, just as a maestro assembles an orchestra, each member playing a different instrument to create a harmonious sound, building a functioning and sustainable network is conducted in a similar way by entrepreneurs.
There is, however, a push in the world of automation to cut out or attempt to automate critical human to human interactions, which are essential in building those all-important partnerships, connections, and customer base. The innumerous plethora of AI startups are forcing this approach upon small businesses at a seemingly relentless pace, and more startups and small businesses implement this customer-facing automation approach.
From a consumer perspective it has become an increased rarity to interact with another human during the ordering, design or purchasing of a product or service. This can prove to be a misstep by business owners especially during the early stage of a business where partnerships, initial customer reviews, comments, feedback and experiences are key to set the tone, approach and a path to sustainability of their brand.
As the majority of small businesses take on this front-facing automation concept it has left customers craving the opposite and has put a premium on genuine human interactions like never before.
So many founders I speak with can’t understand why they don’t turn customer interest, messages or site visits into sales, often times it’s the inability to differentiate their product or service from a competitor. Through automating the touchpoints with customers when they spark interest in your brand, it’s increasingly difficult to differentiate what you do from a competitor when the customer is met with the same chat bot, auto-generated response, follow up email and so forth as the other businesses in the marketplace.
These AI companies aren’t creating a unique service to handle customer interaction, they take existing automation software, slap their label on it and sell it to businesses as unique where in reality the same tech you’re using, your competitor is as well.
It’s an interesting dynamic, small businesses will work tirelessly to create a brand, recipe, or service to be unique vs a competitor, yet are willing to easily automate the interactions with their customers using the same system as everyone else.
Business owners who think they can automate every aspect of their business, especially interacting with customers or business partners, will be left behind. There is a reason why the top rated and largest businesses across the world take pride in the real human services they provide. American Express, always connects its customers with a real representative, financial institutions, such as Charles Shwab or Fidelity will always have another person on the line to serve you. Top CEOs such as Stephen Ross and Keven O’Leary fly in to meet their partners or host them directly as well, why? If those companies I mentioned, who pay their staff and tech team millions collectively per year are not automating their customer-facing and partner experiences they know something most don’t that’s what they are worth trillions.
Finally, if you are a business owner of future entrepreneur and have the impression or strive for the some scenario where you can run your business via sitting on your couch or in a remote location never having to field emails, meet people in person or answer messages, you will not be successful. Every single business owner or guru everyone is so apt to listen to and want to emulate has spent their time connecting with people directly. Automation is a tool not a replacement, the value has been emphatically placed back on authenticity, emotion and being genuine, three things a program can never replace.
To gain personalized guidance for your business on this topic and others contact us.
- Vince Calace
Founder - Venture Business Development