Automate Your Startup or SMB With These AI Tips and Tools

There’s a cost to doing things manually — and it adds up fast. Most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) lose hours each week to tasks that can be handled in seconds. Automation isn’t a luxury anymore — it’s a competitive edge. Entrepreneurs everywhere are using automation to boost all parts of their business. 

Are you making the most of it yet? Let’s break down practical automation and AI tools built for small businesses that help you stay ahead without stretching your budget:

What we’ll cover:

What is automation, really?

Automation involves simplifying repetitive tasks and processes to improve efficiency and productivity, often reducing the need for manual labor and minimizing errors. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) takes it further‌ — adapting to your needs and working in the background. For growing businesses, that can be the difference between catching up and leading.

According to the latest edition of the Small and Medium Business Trends Report, 89% of business leaders say an AI strategy is now a key factor when choosing a CRM, and more small businesses are adopting AI-powered CRM features to stay ahead.

Here are a few trends making the biggest impact today:

Sentiment analysis: 67% of businesses adopt artificial intelligence for active customer feedback, which facilitates decision-making processes.

Content creation: 30% of ‌small businesses implement AI tools. For example, using ChatGPT for content creation can increase both productivity and output

Customer service automation: Cost savings can be substantial, as AI chatbots can answer up to 80% of customer queries, reducing that expenditure by 50%.

Targeted marketing: 74% of businesses state that they see elevated levels of interaction, with conversion rates up by 30% as a result of targeted advertising with the help of artificial intelligence.

Operational workflows: 56% of companies have implemented artificial intelligence for the optimizations of day-to-day operations and have reported a time reduction of about 30%.

Why SMBs need automation

Automation is one of the basic requirements of modern businesses today. There are countless benefits derived from it. Overall, automation creates a smoother experience for your customers, keeping them coming back for more. 

Save up to 15 hours a week: Automation, powered by customer relationship management (CRM), takes routine work off your plate by simplifying repetitive tasks — especially the ones that drain the most time. In fact, 78% of businesses already use automation to cut down on manual work. From data entry and email responses to report generation, AI CRM handles the busywork, so business owners can focus on what matters most — building stronger customer relationships.

Reduce costs by 30%: Automation reduces the need for physical labor. Which brings down operating costs of any type of business. By automating certain processes, human interference is less, which means lower ‌workforce expenses and reduced costly mistakes. With fewer errors, companies save time and money by avoiding rework.

Become 99.99% error-free: AI and automation enhance precision and uniformity by cutting down on human errors. This reduces task variation, helps spot trends in data, and offers live adjustments. 
Level up your customer experience: Businesses that use CRM have reported a 32% increase in customer satisfaction. Customer service automation guarantees consistent and professional customer support. Build trust with your customers, and earn loyalty with reliable service, every time they interact with you.

Automate these areas of your small business today 

Wondering where to start? Here are some specific functions for your business that can be enhanced by automation.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation, powered by AI, can impact your small business’s email campaigns, social media management, and lead generation efforts. Here’s how to personalize your marketing, and prioritize leads to boost growth.

Email marketing: Manually sending emails can slow your team down. With Starter Suite’s built-in marketing automation, powered by Flow Builder, it’s easy to set up email journeys that respond to what your customers are doing. AI adds a personal touch, helping tailor each message so it feels timely and relevant. For example:

• Automatically send a follow-up after a sales call
• Welcome new subscribers with a personalized onboarding email
• Trigger confirmation emails the moment a purchase is made.

Social media management: Managing social media doesn’t have to mean being online all the time. With automation, you can schedule out social posts, respond to comments, and track engagement, effortlessly. An AI CRM can even suggest the ideal posting times and highlight trending topics, ensuring your content remains relevant to your audience. For example:

• Get AI recommendations on trending topics to join the conversation
• Schedule a week’s worth of social posts in advance
• Automatically respond to common questions in comments or DMs

Sales automation

Sales automation is one of the most impactful ways to improve business efficiency. By streamlining repetitive tasks, you can free up your sales team to focus on building relationships and closing deals. This section will cover key areas where sales automation, powered by AI, can transform your workflow.

Lead generation: Let automation capture leads so you can skip the spreadsheet marathon. AI helps by assigning scores to leads based on their likelihood to convert, allowing you to jump straight into closing deals. For example:

• Automatically add new leads from forms or chats into your CRM
• Use AI scoring to prioritize leads ready to buy
• Trigger follow-up emails or calls when a lead hits a high score

Lead qualification: AI helps by assigning scores to leads based on their likelihood to convert, allowing you to jump straight into closing deals. For example:

• Automatically add new leads from forms or chats into your CRM
• Use AI scoring to prioritize leads ready to buy
• Trigger follow-up emails or calls when a lead hits a high score

Lead segmentation: Divide your leads into groups based on their needs, behaviors, or demographics to tailor your sales approach. For example:

• Group leads by industry, company size, or geographic location.
• Segment leads based on their engagement with your website or emails.

Prioritize outreach to segments with the highest conversion rates.

Customer service automation

For customer service, automation can look like using chatbots and virtual assistants to instantly improve response times by answering frequently asked questions or qualifying customer queries to route them to the right agent. Powered by AI, these bots learn from every interaction, delivering smarter and more helpful responses over time.

Customer service automation: Provide consistent and professional customer support with automation. This builds customer trust and earns loyalty with reliable service every time they interact with you. Cost savings can also be significant — AI chatbots can handle up to 80% of customer queries, cutting related support costs by as much as 50%. For example:

• Use chatbots to answer frequently asked questions instantly.
• Automatically route complex customer queries to the right agent.
• Send automated follow-ups from service requests.

Support ticketing system: Efficient ticket management ensures no customer issue slips through the cracks. Automation organizes and prioritizes incoming support tickets, while AI-powered sentiment analysis identifies unhappy customers so teams can respond faster. In fact, 67% of businesses now use AI to actively track customer feedback, helping them make faster, more informed decisions. For example:

• Automatically categorize incoming tickets by issue type and urgency.
• Route specific types of tickets to agents with relevant expertise.
• Use AI to flag tickets from customers expressing frustration or dissatisfaction for immediate attention.

Commerce automation

Managing sales across different channels is easier with unified sales management. You can handle your website, social media, and commerce storefront from one platform, and when an item sells online, inventory automatically updates everywhere — no manual stock adjustments needed.

Storefront management: Managing sales across different channels is easier with unified sales management. You can handle your website, social media, and commerce storefront from one platform, and when an item sells online, inventory automatically updates everywhere — no manual stock adjustments needed. For example:

• Update product listings and pricing across all platforms simultaneously.
• Automatically process orders and send confirmation emails.
• Sync inventory levels in real-time between your online store and physical locations.

Product optimization: Automation also helps enhance the customer experience by making shopping feel more personal. Based on previous purchases, you can recommend products customers are likely to love, and a seamless, responsive store layout ensures buying is easy on any device. For example:

• Implement dynamic pricing strategies that optimize for demand and inventory levels.
• Use AI to recommend personalized products to customers based on their browsing history.
• Automatically adjust product displays based on customer demographics or seasonal trends.

Operations automation

Operations automation helps small businesses simplify internal processes like project management and team collaboration. By using automation and AI, you can organize tasks, identify roadblocks, and create personalized team experiences. In fact, 56% of companies using AI to optimize day-to-day operations report saving about 30% of their time — a big win for small teams juggling multiple priorities.

Team communication: With project management, automation keeps teams organized and on schedule, while AI identifies potential roadblocks before they become problems — giving you time to act early. Improve internal communication and collaboration within your business by automating routine updates and information sharing. For example:

• Automatically send daily or weekly summaries of project progress to relevant teams.
• Set up automated alerts for urgent tasks or changes in project status.
• Use AI to analyze communication patterns and suggest ways to optimize team interactions.

Workflow collaboration: Simplify your operational workflows to ensure tasks move smoothly and efficiently between different team members or departments. For example:

• Use AI to identify bottlenecks in workflows and suggest improvements for faster completion.
• Automate the assignment of tasks based on project stage or team member availability.
• Create automated approval processes for documents or requests.

Automation tools are designed to improve sales, customer service, and marketing, among other business processes. Here are some of the most effective options to help your business run more smoothly.

Customer relationship manager (CRM): A customer relationship management system, like Salesforce CRM, is most likely the only tool you’ll need to get started. It does much more than store customer data — it connects your entire business. It automates sales by capturing leads and prioritizing the ones most likely to convert. Marketing teams can run targeted campaigns without switching between tools. Customer service can access complete interaction histories for faster issue resolution, while finance teams track revenue pipelines and manage invoicing. Operations benefit from automated workflows, and leadership gains real-time visibility into performance metrics across all departments.

Chatbots: Service agents, now included in CRMs, are a great automation tool to respond faster and offer more personalized support. In commerce, inventory and orders stay in sync across every channel. And for teams, shared dashboards and collaboration tools keep everyone aligned. Built-in AI adds another layer by predicting trends and highlighting the best opportunities, helping small businesses build stronger relationships and close deals faster.

Social planner: Sprout Social is a social media management tool that helps schedule and monitor posts across platforms. It automates post scheduling and utilizes AI-enhanced analytics to provide insights that improve content performance.

Budgeting: QuickBooks is accounting software that automates financial tasks such as invoicing, expense tracking, and payroll. It also provides real-time financial insights, leveraging automation to keep businesses on top of their finances.

Content marketing: Writer is an AI writing assistant that helps create high-quality content. From blog posts to social media updates and marketing campaigns, it keeps the brand’s voice consistent and optimizes content creation, all while maintaining quality.

How Agentforce helps small businesses automate and scale

Agentforce is an AI automation tool designed for small businesses to handle repetitive customer service tasks. It functions 24/7 across email, chat, and social media, answering routine questions and routing complex queries. As customer volume grows, Agentforce scales effortlessly, taking on more without adding extra staff. Agentforce is built to scale with a business as customer volume increases..

VEV, a small Norwegian telecom company, is a great example. Using Agentforce through Salesforce Foundations, they now resolve 30% of support cases automatically, while smarter routing has made the rest 40% faster to handle. Customers get quick answers, and the team has more time for issues that need a personal touch.

Here’s what an AI agent like Agentforce can do for you:

• Handle routine questions instantly: Things like billing issues or password resets are handled automatically.
• Send the right cases to the right person: Important or complex issues are sent straight to the right team member.
• Scale service as you grow: As requests increase, the AI takes on more work for you

Step into the future with small business automation and AI

Manual work doesn’t just waste time. It slows small businesses down in ways that are easy to miss — a follow-up delay here, a report taking hours there. Automation and AI give that time back. They turn repetitive tasks into a well-oiled machine that runs in the background, freeing you up to focus on growth. For small businesses, that’s everything.

Start your automation journey with a free trial of Starter Suite today. Looking for more customization? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations today to try Agentforce.

AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.