Landscaping owner builds an AI receptionist that books estimates and only bothers her when a client is upset
Andrea Palacio bought a South Florida landscaping company that promptly lost 10 of its 12 staff and nearly half its revenue, leaving her working 80-hour weeks on booking, marketing and customer service. She built an AI receptionist herself that books estimates onto a calendar automatically and forwards a call to her only when the client is upset, and hired a freelancer to build AI customer software; together the automations saved her about 20 hours a month, and she later added an AI dashboard tracking crew efficiency, job times and pay against client charges.
How it works
- Customer calls the company
- AI receptionist answers and books the estimate on the calendar
- Upset clients are forwarded to the owner live
- Customer software tracks the relationship
- Dashboard compares crew efficiency, job duration and wages against what clients are charged
Why it’s worth knowing
She was not a tech person: she was a new owner driving an old truck with no air conditioning who taught herself to build the office she could not afford to hire.
Where it’s from
Summarized from a public post on fastcompany.com. See the original ↗