What Can a Small Firm Offer Its Clients Now That It Couldn't Two Years Ago?

Many services that once needed a bigger firm, a development team or extra staff are now within reach of a business of ten or fifty people, because AI has made them far cheaper to design and build. The place to start is what your clients would value, before anyone talks about technology. Some of these services have AI inside them. Many don't, and AI is simply how they get built at a cost the firm can justify.

Two years ago, a firm this size would have turned down most of the ideas below on cost. Today they are realistic projects.

What has changed?

For most of the last twenty years, a small firm that wanted to offer clients something new had two choices. Hire people to do it by hand, or pay for software built to order. Both usually cost more than the idea was worth, so the idea waited.

Both costs have fallen sharply. AI tools now produce a first draft of a letter, a report or a summary in seconds, for a person to check. The same tools have made custom software much cheaper and quicker to build, so a small, well-tested tool that does one job for your clients no longer needs a big budget.

So the useful question has changed. Ask what you would offer your clients if cost and complexity were no longer in the way.

Most owners have an answer, often several. It's the thing clients ask for and don't get, the update they have to phone and chase, or the client the firm turns away because the fee wouldn't cover the work.

What could that look like?

Here are six examples, from simple to ambitious. They are invented, but each is the kind of thing a firm of ten to fifty people can now build and run.

A monthly note on each client's own numbers

An accountancy practice sends every business client a short note each month. It says how their sales, costs and cash compare with last month and last year, in plain English, and points out anything unusual. The figures come from the bookkeeping system the practice already uses. A tool drafts the note and an accountant reads it before it goes. Clients who used to hear from the practice once a year now hear from it every month, and those conversations often lead to more work.

A page that shows where things stand

A solicitor's practice gives each conveyancing client a private page showing where their purchase or sale has reached: what's done, what's waiting and on whom, and what happens next. Staff update it as they work. Clients stop ringing to ask, and the people who took those calls get time back for the files themselves.

A same-day first draft of the report

An engineering consultancy's inspectors record notes and photos on site. By the end of the day, a tool has turned them into a first draft of the client report, in the firm's standard layout, with each finding beside its photo. An engineer checks and signs it. Clients get their report days sooner, and the engineers' time goes on the findings, with the formatting already done.

A plan for each patient, and a check-in

A physiotherapy clinic sends each patient their own exercise plan after an appointment, with short videos the clinic already has. A few days later the patient gets a message asking how it's going. If they say the pain is getting worse, a physio hears about it the same day. Patients feel looked after between visits, and fewer of them drift away before the treatment is finished.

Reordering at any hour

A wholesaler lets its trade customers check stock, see their usual orders and reorder from their phone at any hour, with their own prices and delivery dates. Orders that used to come in by phone and email, to be keyed in by hand the next morning, now arrive complete. The sales team spends its time with the customers who want advice.

Taking on clients the firm used to turn away

The most ambitious change is to who the firm can serve. A small professional firm has always turned away clients with simpler needs, because taking them on and keeping their files up to date cost more than they would pay. When most of the routine work for each client, such as taking them on, keeping their file current and preparing a yearly review, is drafted for a person to check, those clients become worth serving. The firm grows into a part of the market it used to leave to others.

For a real example, see our work with an Irish wealth advisory firm.

Does it all need AI inside it?

Often it doesn't. In several of the examples above, what the client sees is ordinary software: a page that shows a status, an order screen that knows the customer's prices, a message sent on the third day. AI did its work earlier, by making the tool affordable to design and build.

That's a good outcome. A tool that follows fixed rules gives the same answer every time, so it's easier to test, to explain to a client and to check later. Where AI does sit inside the service, drafting a note or a report, a person reads the result before it reaches a client.

The part that needs judgement is the same either way. Someone has to decide what's worth doing, rethink the work around it, and make sure what goes live is something the firm can stand over.

Where do you start?

Start with your clients. Before anyone looks at a tool, write down:

• what clients ask for that you can't give them today
• what they complain about, or have to chase you for
• which clients you turn away, and why

Pick one item, the one your best clients would notice most.

Then look at the work behind it and ask whether that work should exist in its current form. Often it shouldn't. A client chasing an update usually means the update should have gone out on its own, and the fix is a change to how the work runs, with software as one part of it. Some steps get automated, some get redesigned and some get dropped. A tool built around a process that shouldn't exist only does the wrong thing faster.

Before anything is built, decide how you'll know it worked. Fewer calls from clients chasing news, reports out days sooner, more clients taken on without adding hours. Count it before and count it after, so the next decision rests on what happened.

Start small. One service, built well, tested and in daily use, teaches a firm more than a long list of plans.

How do you keep it safe?

Anything that touches client information has to be handled properly, and that's far easier to build in from the first day than to add later. In everything we build, a person stays in control of anything that matters, client data is handled in line with GDPR, and how each tool works is written down so it never depends on one person's memory. Our how we build page sets out the method.

How can dploy.ai help?

We look across your business for openings like the ones above: the new services AI makes possible, where your clients' experience can improve, and which processes to redesign, automate or retire. The roadmap is yours to act on with anyone. If you want, we then build the solutions on it ourselves, priced on the outcome and never by the hour.

If you'd like a quick read on where you stand first, our free AI Readiness Self-Assessment takes about ten minutes. A dploy.ai AI Operations Assessment gives you a ranked opportunity map and a costed roadmap in ten working days, for a fixed fee agreed before we start. Or book a free 15-minute call and talk it through.