4 Ways You Can Leverage AI Chat For Your Landscape Lighting Business

Everywhere you turn, it seems Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically generative AI text chatbots (or large language model applications), are in the daily headlines. It's true that AI text chat is a very hot topic, and I believe it's for a good reason. While it might seem like a passing trend, the fact is, AI is the future – and it's here to say. Language AI is impacting every industry, and whether you like it or not, landscape lighting is no exception.?

As a landscape lighting contractor, you may be thinking the technology doesn't apply to you, that you don't need to be bothered with AI models, or that these are just buzzwords to drop into conversation during the next social gathering (remember how we all felt when we were first told social media would be the future of marketing?). However, the truth is, knowing the benefits of the technology now and having even a rudimentary understanding of how to use it can give you a significant advantage and set you up for future success.

Technology is changing rapidly, the wealth of information is deep, and the breadth of capability is so vast that it can be intimidating to even the most tech-savvy individual. But this shouldn't stop you from taking advantage of the tools. In fact, all of this is what will make it possible for you to easily adopt AI chat. Yes, there is plenty to learn, and you'll never know it all, but by taking steps to begin using the technology, you will be prepared when it takes even deeper root in our daily lives — whether business or personal — in the years to come.?

In this article, I will discuss the primary ways landscape lighting contractors can – and should – be utilizing AI chat to transform and ultimately improve how you communicate with customers and operate your business. I'll dive into how you can tap into the potential of AI chatbots to drive growth, sales, and customer satisfaction and decrease costs, as well as offer insights to help you leverage AI chat effectively.

Know Before You Go

Before we examine a few of the primary ways you can immediately begin using AI chatbots for your business, there are some important things to know that will position you for success as you move forward in your journey into the extensive world of AI chat.

First, while OpenAI's ChatGPT is the current frontrunner in all things chat, the competition is fierce, and the leader of the race can change at any moment. The three top platforms include the aforementioned ChatGPT, as well as Bing's Chat, and Google's Bard. Each has its own set of features and benefits, as well as strengths and weaknesses, and it's a good idea to review these differences before you decide which platform is the best for you and your needs for any given project.?

For example, ChatGPT is best known as a "personal assistant," but it has not been updated with information beyond the year 2021. So, if you were to ask the question, "Who won the World Series in 2022?" you would get the following response:

"I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time information or the ability to browse the internet. My training only goes up until September 2021, so I can't provide you with the latest information about the World Series winner in 2022 or any events that have occurred after my knowledge cutoff. I recommend checking reliable sports news sources or conducting an internet search to find the most up-to-date information about the World Series winner in 2022."

On the other hand, Bing Chat is best known for understanding market research, delving into companies, and exploring current business trends, yet it tends to struggle with having more complex conversations. Meanwhile, Bard is better at brainstorming and offering more creative responses but doesn't save chats.??

Second, whenever you rely on ChatGTP for your business, it's a good rule of thumb not to cut and paste the answer or content the chatbot provides and use it verbatim. This is especially true if you plan to use the information on a public platform that can be crawled, such as your business website. Instead, you can use the AI-text-generated answers in response to your prompts (or questions) as a guide and rework the copy to make it your own original work. This is especially important for branding, so you will want to ensure the content is in your own voice and style. Of course, you may still need some help with wordsmithing, but at least you will have a framework to build from. You can also ensure you are adjusting the content enough to pass an AI content detector test. That's right. There are tools you can use to check copy to see if it is original work written by a human or if it has been generated by AI. A quick Internet search (or maybe a chatbot search?) will return a variety of free tools to choose from. Even OpenAI has its own tool.

It's important to remember that chatbots are not perfect. In actuality, they can and do provide information that is inaccurate at times, so you can't assume all their responses are correct. With that in mind, you should also double check the accuracy of the facts that an AI text generator provides.

Third, when it comes to using a chatbot, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is personalization. What do I mean by personalization? Essentially, the more specific you get with your prompts (the questions you ask or the command you give to the chatbot), the more detailed and targeted the responses will be. In other words, you need to dial in your prompts by describing things like the tone, style, or voice you want the response to be in; provide specific examples, and tell the chatbot to act as a certain personality/role (such as a homeowner looking to hire a landscape lighting designer, for example), and have a conversation in which you ask follow-up questions and request more refined answers. You can even ask the chatbot to explain its reasoning for the answer it provided, and you can encourage it to ask?you?questions so it can give you the best possible response to your prompt. With each prompt you give for a specific "conversation," you can refine the answer and even receive it in a specific word count or format (bullets, 3 paragraphs, listicle, etc). From there, you can adapt your responses for different uses and refine your follow-up prompts until you get the information you need.

If you've read this far and you are unclear as to exactly what AI is, how chatbots or generative AI text chatbots work, or you're confused on how to even begin to use them, I encourage you to take some time to do a little independent research to get a basic understanding of the technology. Read a few short articles or watch a few how to-videos (see more below), and then head over to the different platforms and start playing with them. Then, once you have a bit more clarity on how they operate, use the advice below and explore what you can do with the technology to bolster your business.

Top 4 Ways to Leverage AI chat for your Business

Now that we've gone over some of the high-level dos and don'ts of using AI chat for your business, it's time to take a look at some of the primary ways you can leverage the technology. Keep in mind these are also high-level concepts, and the more you explore and use the tools and research the many ways to use them, the better the outcomes you will achieve. In a nutshell, the level of success depends on the level of your willingness to research, explore, and test your prompts. But once you have it dialed in and understand the variables, you can adjust until you find the answer and information you are hoping to receive. It's no exaggeration to say the world is your oyster when it comes to AI chat.??

1. Sales

Whether you need help with producing the ideal sales pitch, you want to perfect your elevator pitch, or you desire insight into your competition, AI text generators can help. Using platforms like ChatGPT, you can gain insights into customer interactions and get tailored product recommendations for clients based on their needs and preferences. You can even optimize your sales funnel and improve overall conversion rates. The models can also help with lead generation when given the right data and prompts. Additionally, by asking the right set of questions, you can dig into your client's decision-making process, the pain points or reservations they may have about your services, and the objections they may have to your proposal or sales pitch. Further, you can prompt it to ask the chatbot to role-play and act as a customer who is thinking about getting landscape lighting and have the bot present its potential concerns. You can then take this information and formulate it into a proposal that anticipates those concerns and addresses them before the client even has a chance to react. Taking it a step further, you can prompt the chatbot to write a sales pitch addressing all the aforementioned concerns or issues, taking into consideration the hesitancies or reservations they may have in response to your proposal. Using that, you can even have it write a text message for a client to help you follow up and seal the deal. That brings us to the next and maybe the most obvious opportunity.

2. Customer communication/service

Emails, voice mails, responses to inquiries, you name it. You can get the content you need with the help of a chatbot. By entering specific prompts, a chatbot can deliver the communications you require for a wide variety of channels without you having to hire someone to create those responses for you. Want to automate newsletters? Check. Yes, you may need to fine-tune what the chatbot suggests, but you'll be one step closer to the final product with less stress and financial burden.?

Taking things a step further, with a little bit of tech know-how, you can even add ChatGPT to your company's website so it can interact with customers for you, ultimately saving you on the cost associated with hiring someone to manage customer inquiries for you.?Anywebsite, for example, allows you to integrate ChatGPT into your site so it can scrape your site, ingest its content, and then answer any questions visitors may have about your business. Of course, the more information you have on your website, the better the chatbot will respond to inquiries. Also, while it doesn't require expert-level knowledge of coding, you or whoever handles your website will need to have at least a basic understanding of how to add code to the backend of your site. These platforms can be trained to understand your customer's inquiries, gather relevant information, and generate email responses that align with your company's brand voice and tailor them to your customer's needs. By harnessing the power of chatbots for email communication, landscape lighting contractors can streamline their operations, boost productivity, and leave a lasting impression on customers.

If you leverage these intelligent systems, you can transform your customer communication strategies and deliver prompt and personalized responses. In essence, the opportunities are endless, and it is up to you to determine how little or much you rely on chat to help you communicate with your customers.??

3. Content Marketing

Not everyone is a writer, and not everyone who is a wordsmith has the time to write. Plus, not everyone has the time or resources to analyze data to make informed decisions on the type of content needed to target prospects, or that will drive clicks. That's why so many are turning to chatbots to do the work for them – to a degree. Whether you need help identifying your content marketing goals, writing a headline, producing a blog, optimizing a blog with keywords, creating a caption for an image, writing a social media post, or developing a script for a video commercial, you can use AI chat to steer you in the right direction. Chatbots like ChatGPT can make suggestions on topics to cover or what type of content would resonate most with a particular audience and can also make suggestions on what content to use on what social media channels, taking the pain out of the decision-making. Using recommendations from AI text generators, you can create messages and campaigns that target very specific groups, determine distribution strategies, and target the best audiences, all while decreasing your overall spend.??

4. Operations

After reviewing your operations and identifying your operational challenges and areas you need to improve, try using AI-powered language models to gain insights on how to address those issues. You can also ask the chatbot to make suggestions on inventory, order fulfillment, and even scheduling. Using your data, you can prompt the chatbot to come up with revenue forecasting, budget recommendations, market trends, and more. When it comes to vendors, a chatbot can even compare prices and assess and mitigate risk.?

Get Educated

No, you don't need a college degree, a certification, or deep knowledge of coding to utilize these platforms successfully. But you should put some effort into learning what you can about these tools. As with anything else, the deeper you understand a tool, the better you will become at using it. The suggestions and information I have provided here merely scratch the surface, but how deep you want to go depends on your interest and commitment to learning how to use the technology to your advantage. Luckily, because it's an emerging technology that will continue to grow and expand, there is plenty of information available from a wide variety of reputable sources – including the chatbots themselves! From webinars and YouTube videos to podcasts, blogs, and everything in between, you have access to more than enough free or affordable information to provide you with a solid foundation so you can make proper use of the technology.

Be sure to explore educational opportunities offered by the likes of LinkedIn Learning, the?Marketing Institute, Udemy, and more to get you started. With a little effort and time, you can begin to see the results of leveraging AI chat for your business.

In the meantime, let us know if and how you are using the technology for your business.?