Solving Problems with Ai for Local Business Owners

So it's not uncommon. As a guy and a digital marketing agency owner, when something comes up that someone you know is having a challenge and it's in your wheelhouse to fix it or to make a, to create a solution, what do you do? Well, you come up with a solution. And so let me just paint this scenario. My wife is a hairstylist. She owns a salon and she has it for a long time. And customarily, towards the end of the day, I will ask her when she comes home, hey, how was your day? And she'll say something like, well, you know, Sarah didn't show up today. And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. And you know what this does? It creates a hole in her schedule. And that can be expensive. So this happened like two or three days in a row. And I thought, there's got to be a solution. Why don't I see what I can do? So what I did is I created a voice assistant that would take incoming calls and make appointments, as well as call outbound or send text messages to that person to remind them of their upcoming appointment. And I thought that would be a great idea. So I just want to share this with you. I'm just going to pause it while I. While I dial the phone number. Hold on just a second.

Hi, this is Sarah, virtual assistant from Hair Salon 733. How can I help you?

Hi, Sarah. I'd like to make an appointment for a haircut.

Sure. Could you please let me know if it's a men's or women's haircut and your preferred date and time for the appointment?

Yeah, it's a men's haircut. And how about on the 28th in the morning?

The 28th is a Friday and we are open from 10am to 6pm could you please specify a time in the morning that works for you?

Sarah, is 10 o' clock available?

Let me check. One moment, please.

I see that 10am is available on the 28th for a men's haircut. Would you like to book this time, Sarah?

That would be great. Yes.

Great. Could I have your name and phone number, please?

Sure. Jeff Harrison, 760-413-3508.

Booking your appointment now.

Your appointment is successfully booked for February 28th at 10am Would you prefer a call or text message reminder for your appointment?

Sarah, can you send a text message, please?

Sure. A text message reminder will be sent to you if you need any further assistance. Feel free to call us. Have a great day.

Thanks, Sarah. You too.

You're welcome. Goodbye.

So here's the cool thing about that is what we do is we gather the information from my wife's website. Also we tie into her to our scheduling. If it's electronic, we put it into schedule so it. It integrates with everyone that's already in there. And the cool thing about this is the day before their appointment, as you heard, it will call or text. Now we've added the text piece in there because I thought, well, that makes. It makes it even easier because a lot of people like text. So nine o' clock the day before, everybody receives a phone call or a text to remind them of their schedule. And I thought if this could just, you know, turn this around and eliminate the need for holes in her schedule, at least, let's say, 50% of the time. Well, it certainly pays for itself. The other thing that's really cool about this is let's say, for instance, somebody calls in because they can call the number and they just want to confirm their appointment. They can do that as well because often, especially in some industries, like my wife, is the people will set up appointments two or three in advance. And especially for us out here in the Coachella Valley in the Palm Springs area, we have snowbirds. So they'll set up, you know, several appointments while they're there. The other thing that is nice is they can call in and if they need to change their appointment, they can also do that. And then my wife is then sent a message. She's notified that there's been a change. So there's, there's an opportunity there to put somebody else in. So the whole idea was to design it so that, you know what, she's busy with a client, she can stay focused. If her phone rings, it goes right to Sarah. Sarah handles the entire call. You heard how she deals with it. She's pretty sharp. And it's fairly interactive, so it's really nice. And this allows her to then take care of her customers, both on the phone, who are looking to make an appointment or make a change of their appointment, as well as the people she has in the chair. Now, the cool thing about this is it isn't just limited to someone who's a hairstylist. It could be anybody who has appointments like this and, and they have an issue with, you know, what so and so didn't show up today. It could be a chiropractor, it could be a dentist. And all of these are something that when you, when you pencil it out, it's far less expensive than having your staff and quite frankly, more efficient than having your staff or hiring somebody to make those same calls, because you never know when it's going to be somebody calling in and canceling or needing to reschedule. So this is just one of the many things that we offer, and this was more of a need driven kind of an idea that is becoming more and more common. Again, we call it a voice agent and because it's an interactive voice and we can set up a phone number specifically for the business so that that way it's something common and then again forward that information to the business owner so or their staff to let them know that something has changed. So if you thought this was handy, you're thinking, hey, my use case, I have a possibility like that, please give me a holler. My name is Jeff Harrison. It's JeffWingPoint Media, just like it says in the corner. Jeff WingPoint Media. Let me know if this is something that you say, hey, you know what, do you have something like that for my business? Let me know. The cool thing about this is it doesn't matter if you're in the Coachella Valley or you're in Phoenix or wherever you're at. This is all virtual online. So we can set this up for you and get it running again. Thank you. I just wanted to share this with you. I thought that was a kind of a cool thing to do. Again, it solved the problem for my wife and her business and I know it can for you too. Thanks.