AI for small business: where it fits in your enquiry process

How many UK businesses use AI

AI use is growing, but it is far from universal. The Office for National Statistics reports that use of AI among UK businesses with 10 or more employees rose from around 12% in late 2023 to around 35%. Among businesses with 0 to 9 employees, 28% reported using at least one AI technology, compared with 49% of those with 250 or more employees.

The ONS also describes adoption as relatively shallow: the average number of AI technologies used by each adopting business with 10 or more employees has risen only modestly, from around 1.4 to around 1.6. Most businesses are using AI for a few tasks, not rebuilding how they work.

Why AI for small business starts well in the enquiry process

The ONS found that improving business operations is the most common use of AI. Its earlier analysis found that the factors most often preventing or delaying adoption were difficulty identifying business use cases, cost and a lack of expertise.

The enquiry process helps with the first of those. It has clear inputs (an enquiry), clear outputs (a reply and a next step) and a person who can check the result. That makes it easier to define a use case, test it and see whether it helped.

Three tasks AI can take on

1. Summarising the enquiry. AI reads a long message or form and produces a short summary: who they are, what they want and any deadline mentioned.
2. Suggesting a qualification. AI compares the enquiry with your written criteria and suggests whether it fits, with the reasons.
3. Drafting a response. AI prepares a first reply in your tone, using approved information about your services, for a person to edit and send.

Each task saves reading or writing time. None of them needs AI to make the final decision.

Why human review stays in the loop

AI can misread context, invent details or sound confident about something it got wrong. In a sales conversation, one wrong price or promise can cost a client. Keep a person in the loop wherever the output reaches a customer or changes a decision.

A practical rule: AI can prepare, a person approves. An automatic acknowledgement email that you wrote and approved in advance is fine. A reply generated on the fly and sent without review is a risk.

This is how Joinify scopes AI in the Enquiry-to-Appointment Pilot: an enquiry summary, a suggested qualification and response drafts, each for human review.

Lead response time: faster first replies without cutting corners

Speed to lead, the time between an enquiry arriving and your first reply, matters when someone has just enquired. In their Harvard Business Review article on online sales leads, Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington wrote that “most companies are not responding nearly fast enough”. AI helps by removing the slowest parts of a reply: reading, summarising and writing a first draft. The person still decides what is sent, but starts from a draft instead of a blank page.

A simple way to test AI on your enquiries

You do not need to change your live process to find out whether AI helps. Run a small, controlled test first:

1. Choose a sample. Take 20 to 30 recent enquiries, with personal details removed where you can.
2. Write the instructions. Give the AI your qualification criteria and approved information about your services.
3. Compare with a person. Ask someone experienced to qualify the same enquiries, then compare the results.
4. Review the drafts. Mark which reply drafts could be sent with light edits and which needed rewriting.

If the summaries are accurate and the drafts save real time, move to a live pilot with review in place. If not, you have learnt that cheaply.

Before you start

• Write down your qualification criteria and the information AI is allowed to use.
• Decide which outputs need review and who reviews them.
• Check what enquiry data the AI tool stores and where, and update your privacy notice.
• Measure your current lead response time first, so you can tell whether it improved.