By Liat Zohar, Chief Marketing Officer at vcita. vcita won the ‘Best SaaS Product for Small Business / SMEs‘ category at The 2024 SaaS Awards.

Organizations that offer services to SMBs – such as telcos, banks, and marketing agencies – are constantly looking for ways to expand what they can offer to their SMB clients.

For instance, telcos today can’t merely offer phone or internet service. If they want to ensure they retain and gain SMB clients, they need to provide offerings that go above and beyond and provide tangible value to SMBs – namely, digital tools built on the most advanced technologies that can help SMBs run their business.

In today’s era of artificial intelligence, that means offering SMBs AI business management tools.

Although SMB are increasingly interested in AI – a recent survey found that 85% of SMBs are enthusiastic about using AI – there are still struggles when it comes to adoption. This is largely due to the fact that SMBs – especially solopreneurs and micro businesses – don’t always have the time, manpower, money, or technological prowess to devote to learning how to use these tools. According to recent research, the top concerns small businesses have about AI are data security, perceived cost, and learning curve.

While it is clear that organizations which service SMBs can – and should – invest in developing promising AI solutions, there is no guarantee they will be adopted. Indeed, countless hours of building a tool will be futile if these enterprises don’t figure out ways to help SMBs integrate them into their daily business operations.

Here’s how they can help SMBs adopt AI tools into their daily business operations.

Tailoring AI Solutions for SMBs

Unlike large enterprises, SMBs have limited resources, manpower and technical expertise – consider that the majority of SMBs in the U.S. operate without any employees. As such, tools designed for large enterprises may be too complex, expensive, and resource-intensive, making them impractical for SMBs.

One approach is to craft tools specifically tailored to the unique needs of SMBs. AI has often been branded as a monolithic, fix-it-all tool. However different AI models exist for different goals and are trained towards specific purposes. To effectively serve SMBs, it is crucial to develop AI stools that are not only specialized but also built upon a thorough understanding of the SMBs’ industry, environment, and specific business data. It is no longer enough to offer a generic AI tool – these services must be built and trained to serve the needs of SMBs.

Another approach is to think of use cases where AI helps SMB with tasks that are mission critical. The current landscape of AI SMB tools includes many apps that offer content generation for marketing purposes, an essential service for SMBs. But this is just the beginning of what AI can do. Companies should additionally deliver solutions that leverage AI beyond content generation, empowering SMBs to fully leverage the power of AI. Ideally, companies should offer AI tools that act as a business advisor for SMBs, providing strategic insights and decision support to enhance their operations.

By offering solutions customized for SMBs, organizations can ensure that AI technologies are accessible, user-friendly, don’t require major investment in data input, and are aligned with the scale of SMB operations.

Providing Intuitive, Easy-to-Use AI Tools

SMBs are often strapped for time, and many don’t have IT teams, so ease of use is one of the most important aspects of encouraging them to integrate AI. In fact, nearly half of all SMBs lack a full-time IT employee.

AI tools designed for SMBs must prioritize a simple, intuitive UX to ensure adoption. This will minimize the learning curve, allowing SMBs to quickly understand the tool’s functionalities without extensive training.

One of the most difficult aspects of using an AI tool is figuring out how to best prompt it. One of the basic principles of generative AI is that the quality of output is linked directly to the quality of the input. If prompts are lacking and nonspecific, the answers will be too. To make the most of AI, SMBs need inspiration and examples of what good prompts should look like. AI tools for SMBs should include examples and prompt templates they can use.

In addition, like any tool built for SMBs, AI tools should aim to minimize the need for manual data entry. This can be challenging since AI needs to learn and ask questions before it can provide value. However, companies should still strive to offer AI applications that are already linked to a source of data, allowing the AI to use this data to optimize the output.

Finally, some SMBs might not even realize the situations where AI can help them in the first place. Organizations should therefore offer AI tools that can be embedded into already existing platforms and will pop up when relevant. For example, if an SMB owner is drafting a business plan for a new service, imagine if an AI advisor then pops up to suggest pricing plans relative to other market offerings. As opposed to them having to seek out AI, which might not come intuitively to all SMB owners, the AI comes to them.

Offering Training and Support

Organizations should also offer training programs and ongoing support for SMBs to make sure they’re using AI tools effectively – indeed, only 46% of SMBs say they have only a beginner’s understanding of the benefits of using AI for their business. This will ensure that SMBs have access to assistance when encountering challenges or seeking optimization opportunities.

Organizations can also create a community where SMBs can connect, share experiences, and learn from each other. They can facilitate networking events, online forums, and peer-to-peer learning sessions where SMBs can discuss challenges, strategies, and successes related to AI adoption. This commitment to education and support not only enhances customer satisfaction but fosters long-term relationships as well, driving loyalty towards the organization.

Supporting SMBs Into the AI Future

In today’s competitive landscape, organizations that serve SMBs need to do everything in their power to retain their clientele – offering AI business management solutions is an easy way to do so.

But these organizations would do well to recognize that simply offering AI tools is not enough; they must actively support SMBs in their adoption journey. They should encourage a mindset of innovation and adaptation and help SMBs understand that AI isn’t replacing them – rather it’s helping them run the daily operations of their business so they can focus on what they love most – the business itself.