Why Cultural Traits Will Be the Key to Business Success in 2024, Not AI
There’s a new AI tool every week.
Will AI give your company the edge to weather the recession in 2024? You might want to rethink this strategy if you’re counting on it as your only crutch. AI might have helped you stand out in the first half of 2023, but it’s no longer viewed as a value add; it’s more of a must-have to be on the same playing field as your competitors. Who hasn’t added “AI-driven” in their website and/or services description? How about AI reporting? AI Insights? You’re at a disadvantage if you don’t integrate AI into whatever you do.
With ChatGPT announcing the upcoming launch of their GPT store, this centralizes the availability and “digital merchandising” of AI tools, making it even more accessible to the masses. Everyone wanted AI when it seemed exclusive and required some skill to hack it; reflecting on the speedy progress AI technology has made in the past few months, it will become more and more accessible to the masses in 2024.
Alright, I feel like I’ve typed the word AI one too many times already, so let’s switch to the point of this piece — what IS going to set you apart from the pack in the coming years?
Here’s my prediction of what’s going to happen:
Companies are going to use 2024 to figure out what kind of productivity and cost efficiencies they can get from the technology.
Small to mid-size companies are going to expect that they could cut lots of costs and produce more using as a result of the new technology.
They’ll find out after testing things out for a year that the results aren’t as high or great as they thought it would be. They WILL get something out of it, but as usual, most people will set expectations that are way too high and be disappointed. They come to their senses and realize AI isn’t their core strength of market deliverable and agree that maybe they should outsource it to the experts.
Companies will look for outsource partners (by this, I mean all the agencies that service B2B) who are well integrated with AI tools and could offer more at the same price (compared to what they were paying, let’s say, in 2021 before the AI boom). This is because the outsourcing partners would have used 2024 to figure out how to integrate AI for cost and productive efficiencies to maintain their margins without significantly raising prices. Let’s face it: inflation is here to stay for a while and maintaining margins would already be music to a CEO’s ears; forget increasing profits.
So that’s what I think would happen. My other prediction in an earlier post this year on how the large guys would wipe out all the smaller, individual AI tools has come to fruition (OpenAI consolidating with the GPT store, Adobe integrating AI into their software offerings, Microsoft with Co-Pilot), so I am confident the AI market will somewhat follow the route I outlined above.
So, what will set you apart from the pack next year? I’m going to suggest a time-tested, old-school trait. It’s great customer service.
You probably want to say that this is dumb advice. People just do Zoom meetings nowadays anyway. However, taking the extra step to call your clients so they can hear your voice or even doing in-person meetings to provide attentive customer care will keep you top-of-mind, especially when it comes time for budget cuts (and there will be more budget cuts in 2024 as the full impact of the rate hikes is felt in the economy).
Let me give you an example. The holiday season is coming up, and usually, companies would send out e-cards to their clients with a standardized message, something along the lines of “Happy Holidays.” Sure, it’s nice. But you would probably send that directly to trash to free up inbox space.
Others send a bottle of wine. It's the same bottle of wine for everyone on the list with a standard card, but at least it’s a physical product, and the client likely will consume it at some point. As they open the bottle, they may recall, “Ah, this bottle came from so and so.” In this scenario, the client is reminded of you for two brief moments: when they got the bottle of wine and when they consumed it.
Then, there are crazy people like me who decide to build an entire campaign around our holiday client gifting. One of our clients runs a chain of liquor stores, so I asked them if their product consultants could help me pick out a bottle of wine for each client based on their personalities, lifestyles, and the number of years they’ve been working with us. The idea is to thank the client for their years of support and to personalize their gift to show how we’ve come to know them throughout the years. Our graphic designer created a wine tag where I could write the number of years the client has been with us.
I spent a weekend afternoon walking around a liquor store with the product consultant, rambling off each client’s persona, and they would select a beverage for either individual. But that’s not all. We also filmed a short video for each client that we sent to the client when we dropped off the gift in person. The short video tells them the story of how we picked their bottle. I spent many weeknights editing all those videos myself.
The point is that if a service provider invests the utmost amount of thought and attention towards your business, everything else being equal (including access to AI), customer service will matter. If you got a handwritten thank you card, would you rip it up and throw it in the trash? I still have one written to me from a student group that thanked me for being a keynote at their event. From twelve years ago.
If you’re in it to make a quick buck and then get out, this advice isn’t for you, but if you want to build long-term business relationships, it’s time to start delivering next-level customer service and post-sale care.
