Amanda Joerndt
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — During the National Pest Management Association’s 30th Academy, industry leaders Courtney Carace, Pest-End; Anneke Cannon, Sage Pest Control; and AJ Treleven, Sprague Pest Solutions; shared their secrets to success in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.
AI Personalization.
Business owners shouldn’t look at AI as one -size -fits -all tool. Cannon said she likes to think of AI as an artist’s paint brush.
“You are never going to copy and paste what ChatGPT or [other AI tools] spits out. It’s not going to know your brand and company message. You’ll need to tweak it,” she said. “Marketing now is hyper-personalized. People are used to having a message that hits them at the right time and right place, so make sure you’re doing that.”
Cannon suggested the following tips when personalizing your AI message:
Prompting is you telling AI what you want it to do for you; for example, asking when the best time is to post on social media, or providing three examples of a Facebook ad that would do well.
Cannon said think of prompting like a really great rockstar employee or colleague.
“That employee only knows what you tell it to do, and will do exactly what you tell it to do,” she said. “Messaging content is important. You want to get as specific as possible and the more context you can give it, the better you’re going to get what you are asking for.”
Setting automation for AI in software programs is essential for efficiency, Cannon said.
“Think through timing and frequency of when your message will be sent out,” she said. “Your database and customer list are sacred, and [you] really should consider when you are carrying out campaigns.”
Audit your current processes and make inventory of the software platforms you are using to see if there is opportunity for AI use.
“Test one tool and measure that performance,” Cannon said. “Ask yourself, ‘Did this help us to get faster, grow our engagement or save us time and money?’”
Pest-End’s Personal Chatbot.
Carace shared how Pest-End uses AI and introduced attendees to the company’s latest AI chatbot, P.E.N.N.Y., which stands for Pest-End’s Expert on Navigation, Needs and You. The development for Penny came after Carace discovered one of the company’s pain points was getting information easily accessible to team members.
Carace said the company built the chatbot through Microsoft and uses it via Teams for employees to have this additional resource for problem solving.
“Our teams were putting customers on hold for far too long,” she said. “To improve customer experience, P.E.N.N.Y. is combing through the database to have all of the company’s information right at their fingertips.”
Pest-End is only one month into using the chatbot, but Carace said this information gives a new opportunity to see where additional training can be held within departments.
“It’s not perfect, but we are able to see on the backend what questions are being asked and what coaching we need to do with employees internally,” she said. “We’re gathering a lot of data on the backend. It’s not just to help the customers, but to make our entire team more efficient.”
The chatbot also helps Carace keep updated standard operating procedures (SOPs) in line to eventually create a technical, in-the-field chatbot for technicians to have on hand.
Another area Carace’s team has used AI is in video training implementation, specifically for employee driving safety. The company created a driver safety video that the entire team has to watch and sign off on in order to drive service vehicles.
“I just put in a few sentences for a prompt to create a marketing type of video. If you’re a one-or two-man operation, you now have access to tools that could help you,” she said. “Is it the best quality? No, but it definitely gets your point across.”
Financial AI Tools.
Treleven discussed several AI financing tools, such as Alteryx and UiPath, to help create structure out of chaos. “There are exciting new features with accounts receivable cash applications,” he said. “Anywhere you have unstructured data, you can bring these tools in house.”
These financial tools are chatbot companies that Sprague licenses and uses to train developers in the company, Treleven said. The technology will watch the employee perform the financial automation service on the screen and is able to mimic the same action.
“We were spending roughly eight hours a day. Once we implemented this - it takes about eight seconds in AI learning to apply our ACH applications,” Treleven said. “I believe that this is where our return on investment is headed in the future; anywhere you have unstructured administrative data that takes a ton of labor hours.”
Using these tools also helps create internal jobs and further career growth for Sprague employees, Treleven said.
“Your teams also get to level up because we have employees in our IT and accounting that are bot developers, and they see this as a huge step forward in their career while creating efficiency for the company.”
Take Home Message.
AI opportunities are endless, so don’t put yourself in a box when trying to discover new operational efficiencies.
“Operationally across your business, it can be used in really any way,” Carace said.