Specialty manufacturer: from a stalled chatbot to same-day quoting.
Who
A family-owned industrial products manufacturer with about 80 staff. Quoting was the bottleneck: estimates took days because product history sat across spreadsheets, an ageing ERP and the heads of two senior estimators. An earlier chatbot pilot had been abandoned within months.
What we did
The free enablement audit scored the process pillar lowest: nobody had written down how a quote was built. So the first six weeks went on that, with the estimators in the room. Then a quoting agent, wired to the ERP and the spreadsheets, drafting quotes for the estimators to review rather than write.
Outcome
Quote turnaround from about four days to same-day.
- First quoting agent live six weeks after the audit.
- Quoting capacity lifted without hiring; estimators review rather than draft.
- The abandoned-pilot pattern broken: the tool the staff helped shape is the tool they use daily.
Online retailer: recovering the revenue that walked out overnight.
Who
An online retailer with about 40 staff. Carts were abandoned around the clock and leads that arrived after 6pm went cold before anyone replied the next morning. The team knew the revenue was leaking but could not staff a 24-hour response desk.
What we did
Deployed Mary, the AI sales agent, across SMS, email and chat, wired to the store platform and the CRM. Cart-abandonment recovery and lead nurturing ran on performance terms: the client paid on proven sales attributed to the agent, nothing else.
Outcome
Roughly one in five abandoned carts now recovered.
- Every lead answered within seconds, at 2pm or 2am.
- Zero fixed software cost: payment tied to sales the agent proves.
- Human sales staff moved to the high-value enquiries the agent hands over.
Professional services firm: an AI roadmap without the executive hire.
Who
A partnership of about 150 staff under board pressure to have an answer on AI. Partners disagreed on direction, staff were pasting client material into public chatbots, and a full-time Chief AI Officer was neither findable nor affordable.
What we did
Fractional AI leadership, two days a month. Built the roadmap from the audit findings, wrote and rolled out an AI use policy grounded in the firm's confidentiality obligations, ran build-versus-buy decisions on three capabilities, and reported to the board quarterly.
Outcome
A board-endorsed roadmap in month one.
- Firm-wide AI policy adopted, ending unsanctioned chatbot use with client data.
- Two deployments in production within six months, including a research assistant on the firm's own knowledge base.
- The cost of a few advisory days a month instead of a full-time executive salary.
Wholesale distributor: clearing the order backlog for good.
Who
A wholesale distributor with about 60 staff. Orders arrived by email, phone and a web portal, were keyed into the ERP by hand, and delivery exceptions queued behind one experienced coordinator. Every busy period created a backlog that took weeks to clear.
What we did
Audit first, which flagged the process pillar: the workflow had to be mapped and cleaned before automating it. Then Adam, the AI operations agent, on order entry and delivery-exception triage, wired to the ERP with clear rules for what escalates to a person.
Outcome
Standing backlog cleared, and staying cleared.
- Order entry handled around the clock.
- Exception triage no longer depends on one person.
- The operations team works the exceptions that need judgement, not the keying that does not.
- Payment tied to tasks completed and verified.
