AI Database Reactivation - SMS Sales | Gareth Rydon

their person's getting back to their inquiries on Tuesday when they're at work and they're not in that mode anymore and they're like, hey, they're not going to answer their phone, or they're just, they're out of that mindset. Whereas answering then and there, perfect. If you're responding to someone within the first half an hour of them making an inquiry, I think you're 10 to 12 times more likely to convert that to a sale.

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If you are looking for smart ways to apply AI in your business, I think most people, they get caught chasing shiny objects, and the real question to be asking is, what are you currently doing now and how can AI help you do that faster, cheaper, and better? And more than that, you want to think in your business, where's the money? Focus on the money. What are the real pain points, friction points that stop clients moving from, or even prospects from moving from, to whatever that next stage is? Prospect to client to raving fan. And we think about in terms of how do we keep them moving, surrounded by where the money is. That's what I think one of the lowest hanging fruits is right now. So for us, we're putting a lot of focus on this idea of lead gen, bookings, reactivation. That's what we're here to talk about today with Gareth Ryden from Fryye.ai. And I think it's fitting that we're chatting on a Friday, which is also otherwise known as Fryye. So thanks for making some time, Gareth.

And thank you for booking it on a Friday.

Yes, it's the best day of the week. So maybe just to start, I know you're deep in the world of AI, and just before we hit record, we were talking about the unlimited opportunities that AI presents, and sometimes it's all about focus. What, what got you to pay particular attention to sales and customer conversations as a place to get started applying AI?

Great question, because it's, it drives why our product's really focused in that space. Is if I think of small and medium businesses, because we're a small business, without cash flow, cash coming in, nothing else really matters. Yeah. So then we thought about that, and there's a lot, there's so much stuff you can do with generative AI tools. If you start with applying the tools where it can help make you money, you start making more money and then you can invest the additional money you make into starting to focus on the areas that are backend related or operational. So it was, there's no science behind it, it was just very practical. It's like we as a business, we need to make more money. So we used the tools that we've built to help us generate more money in the sort of sales space. And we've been able to reinvest that to then optimize the rest of our business.

Yeah, what I love about that thinking is oftentimes we're thinking about utilizing like unutilized assets. Like a business has leads coming in and maybe they're not squeezing the most out of those leads that they've already paid to acquire, or maybe they've got a big database of leads that is just sitting there that they haven't followed up, or past customers. I think oftentimes focusing in on that low-hanging fruit is the best place because you get the quick wins, and then that motivates you to do more and brings in, most importantly, the cash flow. So maybe, yeah, if you can— I know you've worked with a lot of different companies— how do you go through that initial thought process on where to start? Like, of those few we mentioned, we narrow in even more, and maybe thinking of a specific client, how did you narrow in, great, this is the opportunity.

What we learned, because, and I'll be really clear, I'm not a technical person. So my background, I'm an ex-service designer or human-centered designer. So I'm not approaching this from when we started knowing about code, I was approaching it from understanding experiences and problems from a business perspective. So a great example, there's, we've met so many great small and medium businesses that have been around for a while and they've got really hardworking owners. Who've done really well, they've built a good reputation. A real common pain point we were hearing was been around for so long and I'm serving my existing clients, but gosh, I wish I had an extra couple of days during the week because I've got 12,000 previous customers that I know if I picked up a phone and called them, I could get even more work, but where can you invent another day of the week? So that's, and we thought the things that we learned from that sort of conversation is, oh, I want to have conversations with them because I know if I have a conversation with this client, if I had the time, it would turn into revenue. So we thought, how do we help? How do we help do that? Because like you said, they've invested, they've may have sold products or delivered services to those clients in the past who've got a good experience with that business, but they just don't have the time. To reactivate them. So that was the cues about where we wanted to play and where we wanted to focus was where might we start to help those businesses have conversations at scale with all of their existing customers to convert them into either real conversations with humans to close the sale or actually book them in for those services. So bring that to life, an example, there was a great, like, pest control businesses, a couple of pest control businesses that we've worked with and the ones that do a great job have wonderful word of mouth and they would normally have a generic CRM outbound newsletter mail out, which would get them business because a pest control business every 6 months or 12 months, you should get a pest spray, especially where I live. Termites come back or cockroaches come back, 6 to 12 months. They were sitting on, I think their database was about 14,000, and they had the owner of the business, they had a lot of employees who are out there doing the sprays, and then the owner had his partner and I think his son and daughter were the head office, like they were on the phones. They didn't have the capacity to get to that massive list. So what we did is we created their assistant that was able to have conversations via the SMS channel with that list over a series of campaigns and book them in for pest sprays. So there's no, the team in the office having to hit the phones, try and get through. It was, they would continue to do what they did. They had an assistant that then reached out to all of these customers and then started booking them in for pest sprays.

Yeah, love it. And SMS is great because much easier to control the voice and make sure that it's on brand and non-intrusive, and it's got great cut-through, and person can reply to it when it, it suits them. Obviously, the, the company had a list of these past clients and prospects, and they've got their phone number, so What are some key things as we're setting this up? Getting that first message right is probably critical.

Yeah.

What thought goes into that first message?

A lot. You'd be surprised. For something that we have in less than 160 characters, quite a lot of design. But if a company is wanting to try it themselves, you've got to make that first message really easy to say yes to. Because we're all used to SMS blasts. So it's, hey, we've got a sale on socks, 20% off across the store, click this link. Instantly when I see that, and we know we speak to a lot of customers, they're like, oh yeah, I do need new socks. I might click on the link, but you expect it to be spam mass marketing. It's gotta feel like a conversation because as soon as you, the customer says yes, and then you have the next message following up straight away, it's different, differentiated. Like, oh, this isn't just a blast, this is a conversation. So things to get right there, make it really easy to say yes, introduce, be open about why and how. And also from a compliance perspective, there has to be people that have opted in to receive communications from you. But put simply, make it super easy for the person to say yes. So then your assistant can then start having that conversation.

So something like the pest control, what would be a good first message that they— I can't, I don't know if you recall what was sent out or something, the gist of.

Yeah, so that great one for that is, hey David, you got a spray from us in the past. You worried about termites in your area, or have you had a pest spray in the last 12 months or 6 months? So contextualizing why you're reaching out, we're connected because of this reason. And then have you thought about or have you done this? Yes or no? Oh yeah, actually I'm really worried about termites in my area because we've had heaps of rain, something like that. Yeah.

And there are different ways and channels. SMS is one option. I'm assuming the thinking would still be the same if it was through something like WhatsApp. I don't know if you've tested difference between using those types of channels? I think SMS probably has really— I mean, they both might have cut through. What are your thoughts on picking your channel?

So WhatsApp is much harder from a compliance perspective, and it's, it's harder to get set up and established. And that I'm talking from a technical perspective. Meta is very protective of that as a channel from like bots and things like that. So getting that set up, it does take a couple of extra steps. SMS is in Australia more straightforward than WhatsApp. They both get pretty good cut through, like way better than phone calling, way better than emails. And that's within Australia, other countries in New Zealand, much if you're a company operating in New Zealand, it's much more, it's even more difficult. And when I say difficult, I just mean it's more costly to get a compliant number and set it up and all that process. And rightly, like in Australia and New Zealand, like we wanna make sure that people aren't getting spam. So you have to have people that have opted in to have conversations with you. And it's really important that you as a business set it up in a compliant way because the fines are pretty solid if you don't do it right. But from a cut-through perspective, WhatsApp and SMS are the number one. WhatsApp's a little bit harder to get it set up and established than SMS. So the average business, the path of least resistance is get a regular regulatory compliant solution that sits behind the SMS channel. That's the fastest path to revenue.

Are there any particular— I think to be compliant, I'm imagining there might be a few criteria. I'm assuming maybe there's some sort of unsubscribe or stop option. Are there any other things? Obviously getting— you need to get a phone number. Now there's a good chance that the— especially if you haven't done SMS communication in the past to them, that this is going to be a new channel. Therefore, it's going to be a new phone number that comes through to them. Do you have any comments on both of those?

Yeah. So from a technical perspective, yes, you're getting a new number, that process, going through that process, getting that set up for your, for the, if I was to cut through, because we spent a lot of time getting clear on the Spam Act in Australia, your first message has to have opt-out options for customers. So it has to include words like end, stop, delete. I think there's a fourth one, but I always forget it., but we spent a stack of time crafting that message. So firstly, it's compliant, but also it feels human. Yeah, but you have to have that. So it's worth getting across the Spam Act in Australia, especially for digital communications, understanding that. And that's why I think it is a lot of our clients, they, if companies are wanting to do it themselves, it is worth investing the time, even the choice of one word over another in an SMS. Makes— we've seen the data— it can make a 5 to a 10% difference in someone continuing through a conversation. So spending time testing what language you want to put in your messages. So there's the human interaction side as well that's worth understanding and designing for that. Yeah.

So I think my brain can't help but default into thinking about steps, almost like an SOP. Like, you obviously need to Step number 1, get some sort of list together and a clear audience that you've had some sort of past communication with, and obviously find out what is appropriate and not appropriate depending on the country that you're in. And then getting that first message set up, and then there's going to be some of the technical setup that'll deliver the first message. And then obviously the goal here is to start up a conversation and then get a two-way, and then have someone respond and then the bot take over and then move them to the point of booking in to chat with a team member or booking in for the service. Yeah, do you have any thoughts on if I missed any steps there, or as we move to getting them to the point of wanting to book in to chat with someone, or ways that that might be improved?

So those— you've nailed the steps. Sitting across all that, a really good thing for a business to be clear on is when you're very clear about the job and the task that you want that assistant to do over the SMS channel, keep it really specific because sometimes people are like, and I want to do all this stuff through SMS. No, have that as another campaign. So if you think you're spot on getting a number, effectively you're getting a mobile number and you're getting a ChatGPT assistant or a Claude assistant sitting behind that channel. But being really clear around ultimately what do I want to happen. And our view is that the assistant should always be there to connect the right customer with a human, not to completely cut the human out of the process. So an example of a brief could be, say, medical centers that we work with is, well, we've just come out of summer and we want all of our patients to think about if they need to book in for a skin check. So therefore We want our assistant to help a customer, a patient, understand if they need to book into a skin check and then help them book into a skin check. That's it. So by having that real clear, this is the job of this assistant, that helps you design the messaging flow. If you try to get it to do too much stuff, yeah, very quickly, a, it's not a good user experience because over SMS your customer just wants to get everything done in 90 seconds or less, but they don't want to involve in a long back and forth at all. They just want to go, oh yeah, actually, yep, that's me. Yeah, that sounds valuable. I want to do that. Perfect. Book me in or take action. So keeping it really focused. And then later on, if you want to have another conversation, set up that another conversation with a really clear goal and outcome.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think crafting that first series of messages is going to be really make or break for the campaign and the relationship, really, because if someone sees that you're abusing their attention, then they just ignore it and then it's not effective. So we need to be delivering the right message to the right person that helps them genuinely solve a problem. For themselves to want to take some action and explore more. So I feel like that makes perfect sense. And then potentially having an ongoing conversation, but after some trust has been built and maybe some value has been delivered.

And if it helps as well, if most business owners, they are dying to have a certain type of conversation with a customer. When you actually ask them, go, if you had unlimited capacity right now to talk to every single one of your customers to get them to take one action, what would it be? Stripping everything else out. All of them go, oh, I would love if I could have another example, reach out to all of my existing companies that I've pitched for with a request for proposal and just ask them if they've got any other jobs coming up. Yeah, perfect. That's your first use case. So that would be the best way is cut everything out. If you could right now, imagine you've got 10,000 salespeople that are surrounding you going, we can call every single one of your customers and have one conversation to get them to take one action. What would it be? And write it down. That's the start of your brief.

Yeah, it almost feels start with one campaign because I could then imagine over time that you could build up a whole bunch of different campaigns that are firing off at different parts in a client's life cycle. There's probably a sequence that could be sent before a booking is made, after a booking is made, to get someone to make a booking, like all of those touch points, SMS can be really great. It's just about starting with one first. I think that gets you some wins. So you have the confidence in it. And then this is something that could very easily be built out and set on autopilot.

And I think that's— you've nailed that, that last bit. What the pattern we've seen is that so many of our clients, like, I just don't know where to start. Yeah, I should be starting. I'm so worried. I'm, have I missed the boat? Am I obsolete? And they fire out all this stuff and then they're like, now what? And that's why we, what we find, we say start with this one thing. And to your point, one conversation, because once they start with it and they see it working, then they're like, ah, okay, to your point, I wonder if I could then get it to respond to inbound inquiries. We went, perfect. You've done one thing and now you've experienced it, you've lived it. You haven't just seen a YouTube video or some posts about what it could be and listen to a podcast and you haven't started. You've started with it, a real example in your business and you've seen it work and then you go, now I think I could do this. So you, when they next try that next thing, it's coming from a lived experience and it's way more effective.

Yeah, it's, I think once you get that, that first one under your belt and then yeah, it's just like AI, you start to realize how many of these opportunities are sitting inside your business. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of these opportunities to improve what you're doing and automate and systemize. But where do you start? You gotta start with one. So why not start with where the money is and something that'll get that phone ringing, that inquiry to, to come through, that booking to be made. If you start there, that's always going to be probably the easiest way to get yourself and the team on board as well. In the tail end, are there any other opportunities, some other low-hanging fruit opportunities that you have seen, or maybe even a case study that you'd like to walk us through? You mentioned a couple as we've gone Anything you'd like to finish this with?

Another, like, low-hanging fruit, we call it speed to lead. Yeah. But that would be the next immediate opportunity. So the first one is always talk to your customers you haven't spoken to in a while, which you traditionally call database reactivation because that is like the lowest of low-hanging. You've got all these people you haven't spoken to, reactivate them and you'll very quickly get through that and have them reactivated. So that's what's next. A lot of businesses get a lot of people making inquiries on the website. And who hasn't got that? We've got your inquiry. Someone in the team will get back to you in the next 4 days. Yeah. Whereas your customer is in the buying mindset right then. Yeah. Having your assistant reply straight away, answer any clarifying questions and book that person in. So we work with a few wellness clinics in that space, like Hair Regrowth, you name it, Invisalign. And with those, so I wouldn't call them cosmetic, but those make me better, help me grow my hair, make my teeth straighter. We've noticed a really interesting pattern is that a lot of those businesses, Friday and Saturday nights, they get most of their inquiries. And when we dug into it, because people are out on the town or they're out having drinks, having dinner, and they're, oh, I'm like, I want feel a bit better about myself. If I'm going out for a date next week, my teeth to be really nice and straight. They're often making the inquiries then, but their person's getting back to their inquiries on Tuesday when they're at work and they're not in that mode anymore. And they're like, hey, they're not going to answer their phone, or they're just out of that mindset. Whereas answering then and there, hey David, you made inquiry about Invisalign, 'You said you want— you think about these treatments. Perfect. Here's some specifics. Do you have any questions on these treatments? Which one are you most interested in?' 'Oh great, option C.' 'Do you want me to book in with a person for a consult? Are you free next Monday at 9 AM to book in your consult?' 'Perfect, I've sent you the invite.' Like that. I think I won't get the stats exactly right, so people probably correct me on this, but if you're responding to someone within the first half an hour of them making an inquiry, I think you're 10 to 12 times more likely to convert that to a sale.

Yeah, I think we've all had that experience with trades-based businesses. That happens all too often.

Do you—

yep— need someone to come and unblock your toilet? You call the first couple, they go through the message bank and say they'll get back to you. Really, the first person that you get onto is generally the person who's going to win that business.

Exactly.

So I think having some way to catch the lead live as it comes in and respond straight away, even if it's, hey, yep, we got your inquiry. I'm going to book you into the calendar to chat with someone is infinitely better than, oh, I've just sent you to Message Bank and someone will get to it when they get to it.

Yeah. Yeah. Love it.

What I'll do, I'm going to include a link through to Frye. I think you guys are doing some really great things. And just appreciate you making some time, sharing a little bit of insight for business owners on how they can get some AI wins.

Awesome. Thanks, David.

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