Measuring, staying in control, and your four-week plan

The last step: knowing what works, and keeping control over everything that carries your name. AI saves you time on the making; judgement, checking and your relationship with customers stay with you.

What to actually look at

The numbers that count are the ones that lead to a customer, not the ones that flatter:

• Contacts: calls, messages, quote requests, bookings, sign-ups. For a tradesperson or a shopkeeper, this is the most telling indicator.
• The question at the counter: "How did you hear about us?" Note the answer for a month, in a notebook or a spreadsheet. It's simple, free, and often more revealing than any dashboard.
• For the newsletter: replies, clicks, unsubscribes. Open rates should be taken with caution, because some email apps distort that figure.
• For social media and your business listing: messages received, and calls or direction requests when the tool shows them, rather than the number of likes.

AI can help you read these numbers. Paste in a simple table, with no personal data at all, and ask: "What worked best this month, and what do you suggest I try next month? Also tell me what these numbers don't allow us to conclude." Check its calculations: it can get a sum wrong with great confidence. And remember that a month is short: a difference may come down to chance, the weather or the school holidays.

What you don't delegate

• Never fake reviews. Writing customer reviews yourself or having an AI write them, posting them under a false name, buying them: it's prohibited, it's a misleading commercial practice, and a customer who finds out won't come back. To get more reviews, simply ask your satisfied customers, with nothing offered in exchange for a good rating.
• Every figure is checked. A price, a date, a discount percentage, a lead time: anything the AI has written that commits your word passes before your eyes before it's published.
• Transparency. Never pass off a generated text or image as a real testimonial, photo or quote. If an automated assistant answers your customers, say so.
• The relationship. Replying to an unhappy customer, calling back a regular, thanking a volunteer: the AI can suggest a draft, but you're the one speaking.

Your four-week plan

• Week 1: the foundations. Your typical customer profiles and your one-sentence message (lesson 1). Update your online business listing: opening hours, description, real photos.
• Week 2: the texts. Two product or service pages, the "about" page, and a reply to every review that hasn't had one (lesson 2).
• Week 3: regularity. The month's posting calendar, prepared in an hour, and the first two posts (lesson 3). Start asking "How did you hear about us?".
• Week 4: the direct link and the review. Check how your contacts gave their consent, send a first newsletter (lesson 4), then take stock: what brought in contacts? Keep what works, drop the rest, and store your best AI requests in a document of your own.