Where AI Pays Off And Where It Costs You

Jessica Hunter (00:09):
So today I really want to share and talk about AI and how you can use it to benefit yourself in your business. I am deep, deep, deep in the weeds of using AI and I find it extremely helpful, but I want to share some things with you guys on how I use it and how I think that you can use it to better free up your time in your business. So I think for me, for AI as a consultant, I am using it nonstop to sort data. There's no question that it is absolutely so much faster than any manual process I've had before. And so it's great for organizing my life. Organizing sort of my thoughts, any sort of protocols I'm doing, anything like I want it to be templated. And of course for any financial data. And I'm constantly looking at data. I'm probably looking at my client's financial information anywhere between five to eight different times in a day.

(01:03):
And so for me to be able to really pull reports and ask it to sort X, Y, Z, to get really in the weeds is so, so helpful for me. I don't typically use it to ask questions. And I think this is where, again, down this AI rabbit hole where we really have to clarify how you're using it and how it can benefit you and also how it can kind of hurt you. So again, to organize your daily tasks, it can be really helpful. Summarize emails and like I said, sorting any financial information. But as soon as you start asking it questions that it doesn't have that anecdotal information or that background information is I think where we get into trouble. We expect it to answer as if it knows everything about us, our business, our providers, our services. And the reality is it just doesn't.

(01:50):
And there's going to be these nuances that only we know. So I think how we use it is we allow it to sort of do these mundane tasks for us, these really time consuming activities so that we can take a look at the information and then really understand and use it to make our own recommendations or our own suggestions or our own kind of path forward. I definitely think it does better at doing than thinking for us. I mean, I think how you want to use it in your practice is, again, to do sort of those things that would be really time consuming for you, A, and B, that you probably can't do consistently. So the best ways to use it within your practice is things like, again, confirming appointments, follow up to appointments when we're just trying to follow up or have an additional touch point, reminding of the next time for that particular treatment.

(02:46):
So if they've had Botox and you want to send them a reminder in about two and a half months that they should be thinking about booking again, that's a great use of an automated tool that AI can definitely generate for you and do for you. Now, where I would see that touchpoint of like humanness that we don't want to lose because we're in the service based business and that's essentially what our clients are paying for. They're paying for that high touch, high sort of value that they receive from us is checking in with them, making sure, "Hey, how's that swelling? How's that bruising? Are you doing okay?" And that can happen with technology. That can happen as a text message. That can happen as an email, but it can also happen over the phone. And I think those are those kinds of really human, genuine qualities that we have to kind of remain in our basket because it really does elevate our practice, our business, and who we are for the experience of the client.

(03:38):
So if you haven't ventured into using an AI tool yet, I would highly suggest it. And so what I would start with is probably the best business operational AI tool, in my opinion, is using something like Claude. And so when you go into Claude, try using it for the first time to maybe summarize some key ideas, summarize an email for you. And it's going to just format it, do all the spell check and organize it in a fashion that's easy to read, easy for you to copy and paste. And it's going to take away that time that you're going to be like, "How do I want to format this? How can I make this bullet point? How can I make this really fast and concise?" And so it's going to do those things for you. It absolutely can do things like research for you. So competitive research, those kinds of tasks are really easy because it just search the web.

(04:27):
It searches other websites. So if you wanted to find out what is a competitor doing down the street or something like that, I mean, you could absolutely easily find that. And so those could be kind of the first sort of touch points I would suggest using. We use it a lot when we're implementing softwares in terms of building out pre and post care information for all of our services, right? So really easy, kind of standardized, but we want it to be FAQ style, bullet points. We really want it to be concise. And so we use AI to kind of create that messaging for us because it's really easy to summarize what you want to say, have it really concise, and usually use the appropriate language that makes sense to our clients or patients. The other tip that I use a lot too is I will copy and paste someone's website into it.

(05:14):
And if I'm trying to brand something for their look and their feel for a client, just to make it a little more personal. And it will just take that branding and that look of that website and just reflect it onto the document or whatever you're doing just to make sure that it makes sense and it kind of looks and feels the way their branding does. So that's kind of a little tip too. I'm sure it can do even more than that, but that's kind of how I use it. One of the worst places to use AI right now is in social media. I think where you're seeing people really use it in a negative context is to try to use it to replace themselves. I would say the number one thing I hear about not wanting to do social media from an owner or provider's perspective is, "I don't want to be on camera.

(05:59):
I don't film well. I don't have the time." And all of those, I completely understand. But the only thing that you can't replicate, I believe at this point, is your own past experiences, your expertise. And this is where something like before and after pictures are so imperative that you do yourself, you talking on camera about what you do, how you do it, why you do it, nobody else can share your exact experience with somebody. And that is such an important piece and such a differentiating factor that no AI machine is ever going to be able to replicate. And using anything that is AI generated or anything on social, it actually just looks so fake. It really does. It looks so phony. It's not authentic at all and lots of other reads. It's not going to feed your algorithm well. So that's the other thing. But I was just encouraged to do less of it and to just more of the authentic, genuine content like that.

(07:03):
So I would say that's probably the worst place to be using AI right now. It's just cookie cutter everywhere. People can spot it a mile away and it's really, really unauthentic. One of the things I talk about when it comes to social media and AI and the difficulty of filming yourself and talking to a camera is I always say and say this to my social media girl, that I'm the queen of one take one nurse. She'll say, "Hey, I need some content." I'll say, "Okay, after this next meeting, and I will literally grab my phone and just start talking about what I know and I will send it to her." I mean, I'm not the best example in this, but that's the level of sort of, I think, authentic and genuineness that is really needed for social and I really would encourage you to just feel really comfortable in your skin because you care the most about you and nobody cares about you as much as you do.

(07:59):
No one's thinking about you as much as you are. And I think when you really understand that, then that sort of authentic, genuine side of just talking about what you know to be true, you really don't care what anybody would say. And you also realize that people don't care enough to say much. I'm seeing AI used a lot for lead generation and I think it can be really helpful there. I think in terms of the frequency and sort of the immediate touchpoints that need to happen when someone is reaching out and they're interested in a service. So listen, we know that if someone's reaching out to you for a service, that the response time should be less than a minute, which is crazy, right? And so if we can implement some AI strategies and some of those protocols to be able to do that and kind of engage with that lead up to a point that's really helpful to keep that lead engaged with you.

(08:46):
Now, I am a believer that you should be booking your own treatments. I think it's very difficult to train AI to know the nuances of an existing patient and a current patient and what they need and what they should be coming in for. And I also, again, think that that really is part of your expertise and it's part of that high end level of service that we offer. And so using AI to go down a lead gen and get us to a point where we can then engage with them on the phone, we can respond by email, those kinds of things are great because that immediate response can happen there. But I do believe that there's nothing worse, listen, than calling a company and it's a constant AI bot that's talking to you and I'm just trying to hit zero like a hundred times to talk to a human and nothing happens.

(09:36):
It literally says like, "This actually just happened." Zero isn't an option here. I'm like, "Oh my God." It's just so frustrating. And I think about that experience a lot when people talk to me about, "Oh no, it can schedule for you. It can do whatever for you. " And I'm like, Yeah, it could. It could. And I'm sure it makes just as many mistakes as a human would. So maybe less. But I also think that if it can help me get the lead to that place where then a human can talk to a person and a human touchpoint can do it, why wouldn't I do that? If it can get me 90% of the way, great. So I think this topic of using some sort of AI tool to be doing your consult, I think just think about it for a second. I mean, just think about it like, okay, so you're going to use AI to tell a patient what the treatment plan should be.

(10:28):
What is your value? It's almost laughable because that's why they're there to see you. Listen, they can search anything online. They can find any sort of information online. Why they're sitting in your chair in your office, they made the time to come see you is to get your honest, customized, unique opinion about what they need. And that really comes from you. I definitely would say using AI for any sort of consultation tool will be a hindrance to you as a provider because that's your value, that's your expertise. So if you're thinking about where the business stands or you'd like to get some guidance on what to do next, reach out to aesthetic brokers. We're happy to sit down, learn all about your business and give you some real support on what to focus on.