Future-proof your practice with AI

Implementing AI into your practice is no longer optional – it’s essential.

In today’s world, marketing strategies are rapidly changing, especially in the new era of AI and everything it brings to the table. To stay lean, mean and profitable, think about how your business can stay relevant and keep engaging your target audiences.

The impact of voice technology

The use of voice assistants, and voice technology more generally, has been on the rise over the past few years thanks, in part, to the rapid consumer adoption of smart speakers and devices.

However, the pandemic made it clear that voice technology has now become imperative where it was once simply considered a ‘nice-to-have’ addition to medical practices. For businesses and workplaces, the implementation of voice technology is no longer a novelty. Rather, it has advanced customer service and facilitates great strides towards improved efficiency that patients appreciate.

The newest frontier in patient communications is voice-activated search. I often refer to Alexa and Siri as my ‘employees of the month’. I sometimes unwittingly say ‘thank you’ when they complete a task for me, which speaks to the fact that the more you use them, the more ‘human’ they become.

Most voice searches are used by mobile users, so your site first needs to be SEO optimised for your local market to receive considerable ‘citations’ as a ‘trusted’ source for search engines to bring up. You can also optimise your local business for discovery via brand and knowledge voice search queries.

SEO for voice is pretty much like SEO for any search. The main difference is that you need to create content that will be able to talk back. Consider how a consumer in your target demographic may search for your practice and use the same words or cadence to reach them.

First, choose the key metrics for your main objectives:

• What is your target audience?
• Define your secondary audience.
• How are they using voice search now?
• What words and phrases are clients most likely to be searching for to find your practice or medspa?
• How can you convert people who are searching for what you offer to become real, aka ‘paying patients’?

This will vary depending on the country, city and even postcode where you practice. For example, if you cater to a more mature demographic, they may not be as comfortable with technology as Gen Z, but they will get there soon.

The instant gratification generation (Gen Z and Y) expects their needs to be met or preferably exceeded instantly and efficiently. Voice search has taken it to a whole new level!

Introducing chatbots to your practice

Chatbots have emerged as an essential component of a modern and functional website, and a must-have AI application for all businesses. They provide support and assistance 24/7 to increase customer satisfaction and reduce response time when your business is closed.

The technology is constantly improving to be more sophisticated and personalised, giving each customer a different experience. For example, they can be programmed for your specific needs to ask customers what they need help with and share a list of options to choose from.

The next generation of chatbots will offer more customisation that will take their capabilities from the basics to providing visitors with specific answers to questions about procedures and scheduling.

Consumers are now acclimated to dealing with chatbots from a wide range of businesses they deal with every day. Customise what your chatbot can say and do to continually keep up with patient demands.

Start with basic tasks, such as, ‘Where are you located?’ or ‘Is there parking nearby?’ and go from there. As you get accustomed to it, create more complex responses for your chatbot to help with, such as:

• I need to change (or cancel) my appointment
• Do you offer (specific treatment) or (skincare brand)?
• When is the next appointment available?
• Is there a fee for a consultation?
• What days do you see clients?
• Can I get laser hair removal in your clinic?
• Does Nurse Jane do skin tightening?
• Do you have HydraFacial?

Take it to the next level by getting more granular. Think of it this way: Programming an intelligent chatbot is like having your office open 24/7 for current clients and prospective clients to get answers to everything from simple to more specific queries, depending on how sophisticated your bot has been programmed. They can also be programmed to respond to specific queries with next-generation systems that continue to get more sophisticated by offering smarter options to tap into.

There is really no limit to what chatbots can do. The myriad of benefits far exceeds the reasonable costs that are involved in setting up a system for your practice or clinic.

Cross over to the Age of AI

In 2015, OpenAI started out as an AI research company founded by Silicon Valley investors (Elon Musk et al) and quickly went from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, as these things tend to go.

Released on November 30, 2022, ChatGPT is credited with being the first model of this technology. From where I sit, it has dominated the category until 2023 when AI really took off.

Of course, as one would expect, a plethora of Silicon Valley techies and elsewhere jumped on board in record time to get their piece of this powerful and potentially life- changing trend.

OpenAI is a natural language processing tool driven by AI technology that allows you to
have human-like conversations and much more with a chatbot. The language model can answer questions and assist with tasks such as composing emails, essays and code.

ChatGPT allows users to type natural language prompts and generates copy in seconds. The important thing to keep in mind is that the copy it spits out may not be accurate and may have been curated from many sources.

‘IMPLEMENTING AI IN YOUR BUSINESS HELPS YOU WORK FASTER, BETTER, CHEAPER AND MORE EFFICIENTLY.’

Get on board or risk extinction

At this point, all or most industries, from small businesses to global conglomerates, are now using voice search and WIFI-enabled marketing, and more continue to follow. This is the new normal, so don’t get left behind!

AI quickly became a buzzword for marketers, and it has proven to be a force to revolutionise the way all businesses approach their marketing strategies, including aesthetic practices and medspas.

AI uses algorithms and machine learning to automate tasks and make predictions based on data analysis. Thus, it can analyse consumer behaviour, improve targeting, personalise content and automate customer service, among many other important time-saving tasks.

AI can process and analyse vast amounts of data in real-time, which makes it an essential tool to tap into when promoting your services to prospective patients. The more efficient your marketing tactics are, the better results you can achieve from your efforts, which can also reduce costs and manpower.

Change is welcome when it makes things better and advances what we can do. Progress is the ultimate result when change is good. The rapid advancement of AI represents a sea of change in the way we work, engage with each other and learn. It will impact everything you do from now into the future to market and grow your business. This is not just a fleeting trend: it is coming to a device near you, whether you know it or like it or not.

Navigating prompt engineering

Anyone can type anything into AI, but getting good results requires an understanding of how to choose and use prompts. ‘Prompts’ is short for ‘prompt engineering’.

Learning how to use the right prompts is a critical success factor if you want to master your AI skills. After all, you are interacting with a robot that doesn’t have a brain and didn’t go to Harvard.

This is one of the most important key learnings for AI. Although you may be able to get what you need by using simple prompts, the quality of results you achieve is dependent on how much information you provide the AI and how well it is crafted. It sounds simple and straightforward on the surface, but it is not even close.

A prompt may contain information like the instruction or question you are passing to the model and include other details such as context, inputs or examples. You need to use these elements to instruct the AI in the best possible way to generate the specific results you need.

Mastering how to use prompts will help you get the most out of your AI experience. The more concise and on-point your prompts are, the better responses you can get from the technology. A prompt may contain information such as a question you want to pose with additional details in terms of context, inputs or examples. By using the right prompts, you will reap the benefit of better results with greater specifics faster.

Looking ahead

New developments in AI may be able to put in just a little information about your brand, and then chat- bots can spit out a slew of ideas for content. You could then be able to drag and drop the ones you want to try. I am open to anything that will improve our productivity and increase accuracy, while potentially lightening our workload.

Many platforms have integrated their own versions of augmented reality and are all over this development. For example, check out Canva and see what pops up on your screen. The site is a perennial favourite around the world for creating everything you need for gorgeous graphics, invitations, social posts, charts, posters, and much more. They jumped on AI early and included Magic Write®. I keep it open on my desktop 24/7, and suggest you do the same.

AI tools will be soon be implemented in all aspects of marketing, management, content creation, interactive content, and much more. As business owners, it is important to pay careful attention to these innovations and stay ahead of the curve.

Implementing AI in your business helps you work faster, better, cheaper and more efficiently. We already know that AI has the potential to revolutionise the way you operate your business. Embracing it now gives you a competitive edge in your community. AMP