COVERSTORY


Colin Bemus, president of Bemus Landscape Inc., based in San Clem- ente, California, says they are utilizing automation in every possible way, as it streamlines things and helps them create standards across their organization. He estimates it saves them about 4% in labor and overhead costs. Swank says it’s important to measure the amount of time saved with auto- mation. With all the different software Ground Works uses, they performed 45,000 different automations. “Those add up, maybe attribute one


minute that’s 45,000 minutes,” Swank says. “That’s 700-something hours; break it down over a 40-hour workweek. Now you’re talking about months.” Swank says this gained time has al-


lowed them to focus on improving other areas of their business. “Specifically for us, we felt we had a


lot of room for improvement with our hiring and onboarding and more internal processes,” Swank says. “We were able to free up and then reflect on what we were doing now and then how can this get better.” He says they’ve transformed their


hiring process into something similar to a sales pipeline where offer letters can get automatically created. They can use e-signatures, whereas previously, they used fillable PDFs that had to be manually entered into the system. Gowda says their ATS automation saves them five hours per week and their staff


can focus on tasks requiring a personal connection. Swank says streamlining processes with


automation allows employees to engage in work that feels more fulfilling rather than mundane tasks that bog them down, like sales documentation. White says because they’re in the early


investigation phase, they haven’t saved a lot of time yet. “We’re kind of throwing a bunch of


different fishing poles in the water and seeing what fish come up,” White says. “So once we figure out where the fishing hole is, and what fishing bait to use, and then we figure out the system, I think it’s going to save our admin team around 15 to 20%.” For instance, AI can aid with takeoffs, but K&D doesn’t trust it yet, so they’re compar- ing results with the old-fashioned way. “We’re still kind of double dipping because we’re not fully trusting the AI capabilities, which I believe that’ll change in the next six to 12 months,” White says. White says automation helps centralize


your processes if you have a branch model. Using AI can also help you analyze and process your data.


“There’s a place for AI and


there’s a place for what I call emotional intelligence. People don’t want to sign $300,000


away to AI chatbot. They want to feel like they trust you. They want to be able to feel that


relationship a little bit.” - Adam Swank, Ground Works Land Design


RISKS OF AI AND AUTOMATION However, a balance must be struck when tapping into these types of technology. Not everything should be automated. “There’s a place for AI and there’s a place


for what I call emotional intelligence,” Swank says. “People don’t want to sign $300,000 away to AI chatbot. They want to feel like they trust you. They want to be able to feel that relationship a little bit.” The sales process, in particular, is best


left to the human touch. While automated emails during the middle of the process to keep the client informed are fine, White and Swank stress the importance of starting and finishing with personal interactions. “If you’re too transactional to automat-


ed, they don’t have anyone to refer, they just have a product or a result,” White says. This can lead to consumer pushback. In the past, K&D Landscaping had a chatbot on their website, but when they started getting negative feedback about how hard it was for customers to reach a human at their company, White says they moved away from the feature. Automating too many things internally can also make your employees feel like they are just a number. Gowda says when they first started using their ATS, a few applicants asked if they were talking to a robot. In response, they refined their mes- sage and updated the automations. “You can run the risk of becoming very


transactional with your employees and clients and that creates this commodity standpoint where they’re not relation- ship-driven,” White says. “They’re just doing it to transact business and I think you can lose your edge if you do that.” Another risk is the possibility of losing


access to some of these innovations. “If you put all your eggs in a basket without a backup plan and think of what happens if something goes down?” Bemus says. “You can literally stop your operation overnight. You’ve always got to be thinking about what happens if this doesn’t work, or if it doesn’t work for a couple of days or a couple hours?” Automations also need to be monitored


regularly to ensure they’re still running smoothly. “Making changes to a process that is


automated requires you to be diligent in reviewing the automation and making updates to it as well,” Gowda says. White notes he’s seen some people are


too dependent on ChatGPT to write web- site copy and social media posts which can put them in the uncanny valley for AI.


24 The Edge //July/August 2024


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