Automation can help businesses save time and money, but a recent survey found that 70% of consumers prefer to talk to a human than a chatbot or a digital service representative. This situation provides a huge opportunity for one-person businesses willing to interact with customers.
Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research founder Dan Faggella offers tips on how one-person businesses can maximize the opportunity provided by consumers’ preference for a human touch in their transactions.
1. Avoid doing routine tasks that can be automated. Owners of one-person businesses should focus their energy on services and tasks that require mandatory social intelligence and human involvement.
2. Empathize with customers. Faggella says that if you can layer connection into your job, it will be extremely hard for machines to model. Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot connect and empathize with customers the way humans do.
3. Become a leader and linchpin. Software and automation tools can improve the efficiency of project management but they can never manage people. Faggella says AI cannot understand different goals and personalities, different life contexts and the different tools people need to use.
4. Data interpretation. Software and tech tools can be efficient in gathering data but they can never interpret it as well as a human can. They can never show how data fits into a broader body of information, says Faggella. Subject matter experts and seasoned professionals can excel in this area.
