The jobs you keep meaning to get to.
Reviews answered the day they land. A site that can quote a price at 11pm. Shipping labels that print themselves. I already run these for Okanagan businesses, and I name the job rather than selling you 'AI solutions'.
What you get.
Every Google review answered, in your words
Already running for clients. Replying to reviews is a ranking signal and most businesses do it late or never. The agent drafts a reply to every new review in your voice, mentions what the customer actually said, and either posts it or waits for your thumbs-up. You pick which. It never opens with 'Thank you for your feedback.'
Asking for the review in the first place
Also already running. The hard part is not the wording, it is the timing: the request has to land while the job is still fresh and it has to stop the moment someone leaves one. It fires after the work is done, once, and never nags a customer who already wrote you something.
Shipping, for online stores
Built this for e-commerce clients. Orders come in, labels and tracking go out, the customer gets told where their parcel is, and nobody retypes an address into a courier portal at nine at night. The version you need depends on your platform and your carrier, so this one gets scoped rather than sold off a shelf.
A site agent that actually knows your business
Live on client sites now. Not a bot with a script: it is trained on your services, your prices, your hours, your service area, and the questions you are tired of answering, so at 11pm it can tell someone what a bathroom reno runs and book them in. If it does not know, it says so and takes a message instead of inventing an answer.
Leads that reach your phone, not an inbox
The one almost every business needs and nobody calls automation. A form submission is texted to you the moment it lands, filed into your spreadsheet or CRM without retyping, and answered with a confirmation so the customer knows a human exists. Most enquiries are lost to a slow reply rather than a lost argument, and an inbox nobody checks on a Saturday is a slow reply.
Missed calls that text back on their own
For trades this is usually the highest-return thing on the list. You are on a roof, the phone rings out, and the caller phones the next name on Google. A missed call fires a text within seconds asking what they need, and the conversation carries on in writing until you can pick it up. It costs less than losing one job a year.
Quote follow-up that happens without you
Most quotes die of silence, not rejection. Send one and the follow-up runs itself on your timeline, in your tone, and stops the moment they reply or book. You find out which quotes are alive without spending an evening chasing them, and you stop wondering whether it is too pushy to send a second message. It is not, and the sequence sends it.
Appointments that remind themselves
Clinics, charters, salons, anyone booking time rather than selling a product. A reminder goes out the day before with the details and a way to reschedule, so a no-show becomes a moved booking instead of an empty slot nobody can refill at short notice. This is the cheapest automation on the list and usually the fastest to pay for itself.
The boring internal jobs
Intake forms that file themselves, invoices read and entered, bookings that land in your calendar and your CRM without retyping, quotes and estimates generated as a PDF from a form, weekly summaries of what came in. Unglamorous, and usually where the hours actually go. We pick the ones that cost you real time, not the ones that demo well.
It plugs into a site I built
This is the part an agency cannot match. When the same person builds the website and the automation, there is no integration project, no two vendors pointing at each other, and no waiting on someone else's API access. If the agent needs a new page or the site needs a new form, it happens the same afternoon.
What it costs
A single automation, like review replies or missed-call text-back, starts at $450 to set up and $49 a month to run. A website chat agent trained on your business is $950 to build and $49 a month. Bigger custom builds are quoted to the job, usually $1,500 to $4,000. Model usage is billed at cost and is typically a few dollars a month for a local business. No lock-in, and you can switch any of it off.
How this usually goes.
It starts with a job you already hate doing. Not a strategy conversation about artificial intelligence, and not a list of everything that could theoretically be automated. Someone tells me they are answering the same question fifteen times a week, or that they keep meaning to reply to reviews and it has been a month, or that orders are piling up because packing slips are being typed by hand. That sentence is the brief.
Then I check whether it is worth it. Plenty of things can be automated and should not be, because they happen twice a month or because the judgment involved is the actual value of the work. If your answer is that, I will tell you on the call rather than build something you quietly stop using. The jobs worth doing share a shape: they happen a lot, the steps are the same each time, and getting one wrong is cheap to correct.
Builds are small on purpose. One job, working properly, before anything else gets added. You approve the output for the first couple of weeks so you can see exactly what it is sending in your name, and it stays on approval for as long as you want it there. Nothing is locked in, nothing is bundled, and every piece can be switched off on its own without breaking the rest.
For e-commerce the work is more involved and the details stay private, because a store's shipping setup, carrier rates, and order volume are commercially sensitive. What I can say publicly is the shape of it: orders in, labels and tracking out, customers told where their parcel is, and nobody retyping an address into a courier portal at nine at night. If you run a store, the specifics get worked out on the call.
Answered, plainly.
Can AI really reply to my Google reviews for me?
Yes, and I already run it for clients. The agent reads each new review, drafts a reply that references what the person actually said, and matches how you write. You choose whether it posts automatically or waits for your approval. Most people start on approval, see a fortnight of drafts they would have sent anyway, and switch it to automatic.
Do you automate anything for online stores?
Yes. Shipping is the usual one: orders in, labels and tracking out, customer notified, nobody retyping addresses into a courier portal at night. I keep the specifics of those builds private, because a store's carrier rates, margins, and order volume are commercially sensitive and not mine to publish. What it plugs into depends on your platform and carrier, so it gets scoped on the call rather than quoted off a list.
What is the simplest thing worth automating?
Getting the lead to your phone. A form that emails an inbox you check twice a day is a slow reply, and most enquiries are lost to a slow reply rather than to a competitor being better. Texting the submission to you the second it lands, and sending the customer a confirmation so they know someone is there, costs almost nothing and changes how often you are the first to call back.
Is any of this locked in?
No. Each automation is built as its own piece, billed on its own, and can be switched off without breaking anything else. There is no bundle and no contract. If one of them stops earning its $49 a month, turn it off; I would rather you kept the two that work than paid for five that mostly sit there.
How is an AI chat agent different from the chat widgets I have seen?
The widgets you have seen are decision trees. They ask three questions and dump you into a form. An agent is trained on your actual services, prices, hours, and service area, so it answers the real question and books the job. The important part is what happens when it does not know: it says so and takes a message. It does not guess, because a bot that invents a price costs you more than no bot at all.
What should I automate first?
Whatever is currently costing you money while you are busy. For trades it is almost always missed calls. For clinics and restaurants it is after-hours booking and the same six questions. For anyone with a Google profile it is review replies, because that one also helps you rank. I will tell you on the first call which of your jobs is worth automating and which is not worth the money.
Will it sound like a robot wrote it?
That is the whole risk, and it is why I tune the voice against things you have actually written before anything goes live. You see and approve the output for the first couple of weeks. If it ever reads like a template, it goes back to approval mode until it does not.
Do I need a new website for this?
No. The chat agent and the automations work on a site you already have. It is faster and cheaper when I built the site too, because there is nothing to reverse-engineer, but that is a convenience, not a requirement.
What does AI automation cost for a small business in Kelowna?
A single automation starts at $450 setup and $49 a month. A website chat agent trained on your business is $950 and $49 a month. Custom multi-step builds run $1,500 to $4,000 depending on how many systems they touch. Model usage is passed through at cost, usually a few dollars a month. Those are the real numbers and they are on this page so you do not have to book a call to hear them.
Same work, other towns.
Tell me the job you keep putting off.
Free thirty-minute call. Describe the part of your week that eats the most time and I will tell you straight whether it is worth automating, including when the answer is no.