The AI Tools You Should Know For Growing Your Ecommerce Business with Brendan Jowett

Andy Splichal:

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. We are happy to welcome this week's guest discuss today's topic, which is the AI tools you should know for growing your e commerce business. Today's guest is the owner of Inflate AI agency and an official voiceflow ambassador, and the newest contributor to make each click count University. A big welcome to Brendan Jowett. Hi Brendan.

Brendan Jowett:

Hey, how's it going? Yeah, thanks for having me on here. Happy to help contribute to what you've got going on and obviously with my masterclass. Happy to contribute.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, awesome. We're happy to have you and happy to have you on the podcast. So let's get right into it. So obviously AI, it's not going anywhere. What would you say to those skeptics out there that maybe they haven't adapted to using AI yet?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I think this happens every time sort of new technologies come out, and obviously I'll probably be a little bit biased, but I think it ultimately comes down to sort of saving time and saving money. I think when we broadly look at AI and what it does so clearly in generating content just on Chat GPT, whilst it's not perfect, I think it'd be hard case to just straight up say that AI sort of doesn't help in any way. That's what I'd say.

Andy Splichal:

Now back to those people that are hesitant to use AI and maybe they just don't know where. I mean, where should they even start? Should they go and play with Chat GPT? Where should they even start?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I mean, if you haven't even used Chat GPT, that'd be quite surprising if you haven't. But yeah, it'd be a great way to get obviously familiar with just with how would it works and how it sort of starts and how to just play around with it from there. I think just thinking about the tasks you do sort of on a day to day basis, thinking it from the business perspective, and then just sort of pushing yourself to find the areas where the technology could be implemented. So some of the clients that I work with, I do sort of consulting as well. So I will essentially just look through the business and then just understand how can we can actually integrate it and then figure out the solutions that we can integrate. So I use every day in fixing content, sort of generating images, summarizing meeting transcripts as well. And so, yeah, I use it every day. Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

I mean, for people who have never ever used it, just going to Chat GPT and just using it to brainstorm, I mean, it's amazing. And I think it is so eye opening on what you're going to get out, you'll just be blown away. Now, you had mentioned images. What AI software do you use for images?

Brendan Jowett:

So I actually use the Chat GPT plus Dali three. So that comes with built in. If you just tell it to make you an image, it'll make you an image. I find that's really advanced. It's quite similar to. I think mid journey is probably a bit more advanced, but I've already got the Chat GPT plus extension. But I think mid journey is probably the number one system to use now.

Andy Splichal:

Is Chat GPT plus. Is that a paid version?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, that's the $20 a month. That's the paid version.

Andy Splichal:

And yeah, I mean, amazing that you can just. What it would cost in a graphic designer that it can replace.

Brendan Jowett:

It's incredible.

Andy Splichal:

How have you found the images?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I mean, I sort of use it through science, use it throughout my YouTube videos. When I've got sort of, instead of using stock images, I'll essentially just generate a pretty relevant image that I want to use as well as I've also used it for some clients as well. So in terms of, I built out a few chat bots and so when I put sort of a background to the chat bot, sometimes I actually use it to generate sort of a relevant background image. And so it can really do pretty much anything. It can generate sort of like full realistic images, but it could also do logos. It can do, if you want to sort of demo doing ad creatives, it can even mock up websites. It can really do a lot.

Andy Splichal:

So in your consulting, what are some of the ways that you are integrating AI for your customers to help them grow their business?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I mean, obviously every business is different, but for some of the ecommerce customers, I think if content is a key driving how you get sales, then using AI to generate content is going to be the best way to integrate. So that's some of the stuff that I've been doing in terms of ecommerce. I think one of the biggest thing that I've done is product recommendations. So I released a video that was just talking about a bit of a product recommendation system, and I've also gone through product recommendation system as well as content generation in the master class. And so I think they're sort of the two main things that I think as an ecommerce store, using this is going to be the best way to take advantage of it, just for now. And obviously, brainstorming pretty much takes brainstorming to the next level. You can just brainstorm all this content and then you take it, and then you review it, and then you look through it again, and then you just match it to what you've got and it can really just speed up process. And so that's how I've sort of pitched it to a lot of the ecom stores and then really gone from there.

Andy Splichal:

Well, let's talk about your masterclass. I had mentioned in the bio that you're the newest contributor to the make each click count University, and we're excited to have you. And your masterclass, which was just released, is AI tools for creating and enhancing product listing, product ads, product recommendations and more. Can you take us through the masterclass and what somebody would learn by taking this class?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, so I essentially start off by just covering quite the basic stuff. So I start off with a tool called any word. And any word is essentially a tool that allows you to start generating content and brainstorming content. And so this is just sort of used for sort of matching against Google words, Google Adwords and SEO. And you can look at the Instagram scores, you can look at the content that's generating, whether or not it's optimized for the platform, and that gives you a good review. That's why I sort of like using anywhere, but ultimately, it's just a basic way to get started. And then from there I talk about, and what I think is the most value, I think is the best skill to learn, which is actually building out these sort of systems. And what I built out is the product recommendation system.

Brendan Jowett:

And so I went ahead and built that on a platform called Voiceflow. And so voiceflow is this sort of conversational design platform, and it allows you to build out these sort of chatbots. And I think at the moment it is chatbots. And the big thing sort of is these chatbots. But from here it's going to sort of evolve into building out sort of these agents, and these agents are essentially just digital assistants, where essentially you give it a task and it goes ahead and completes that task. And I think evolving from chatbots, we're going to move over to agents. And so I think platform voice flow is sort of shifting to enable you to build those. And, yeah, that's sort of the basis of getting the basic skills and then evolving from there.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, no, I mean, the potential is amazing, for sure. Now, I see that you're also a voice flow ambassador in the bio for listeners who may not know what is voiceflow and how can it help you grow your business?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, so voiceflow is a conversational design platform. That just means you can sort of like just a website just has a canvas, and on that canvas you get some sort of blocks and you can drag sort of a little arrow between the blocks and you essentially build out chat bot. And so this is a way that you can build a very custom sort of conversation chatbot that you can add to your website and use it for customer support or the product recommendations, or order tracking or just really anything you want. And so this is quite similar to if you're not familiar with GPTs. So GPTs are something released by OpenAI, which is sort of create a custom version of Chat GPT where you essentially upload some files and you go ahead and you can add custom actions. And so this just means the GPT is a fully custom version of Chachi BT that only looks at your files you uploaded. And so this is essentially what voiceflow does as well. However, it takes it to sort of the next level because you can actually start to control exactly what's being said, rather than the GBTs, which you don't have a whole Hebrew control over.

Brendan Jowett:

And so that's just what voiceflow provides.

Andy Splichal:

Now, do you have an example of a client where what you've done using voiceflow and how it's helped them grow their business?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, absolutely. So I had worked with a client in Australia, so I'm from Australia. And so essentially I launched it a few months ago, and ultimately it's been great. So them answering super basic questions was quite a. I mean, most of the questions I had coming through were like very basic questions. And so now they really don't have to worry about those really basic questions, because when you sort of upload the document and you start to query that document, it's pretty good at answering from there. And so we've also set up a fallback system if a customer didn't like the response, they would get emailed if a customer is in need and they can just answer through there. And so for them, pretty much anyone who was sending through a question before, they had to type up a whole email.

Brendan Jowett:

And so that's every question that comes through now is pretty much an email.

Andy Splichal:

Saved now, is there a delay on it so it looks like it's a real person answering, or is the response immediate?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, it's immediate. I mean, there's no sort of hiding that it's a bot, I think. Okay. Just embracing that.

Andy Splichal:

Do you announce it? I'm a bot for this guy. Oh, you do?

Brendan Jowett:

Okay.

Andy Splichal:

You're not even trying to play off like it's a real person?

Brendan Jowett:

No, not at the moment. So it's identifying. You're saying that it is a bot and I think the customer will accept that. If there is a virtual assistant, they actually get what they want. Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

I was going to wonder, do customers have they adapted to accepting that a bot answers and they're fine and thinking that's good customer service? I mean, what have you seen on that?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I think it just comes down to whether or not they actually get what they're looking for. If they come to the bot and it's just about their sort of past experience, if they actually ask of something and they actually get what they're looking for and it assists them right away, then I think they'll absolutely love that bot. But if it's not a good answer and it's terrible and they hate it, then they're going to have a very bad opinion about it.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, that's a great point. Hey, I'm curious with you. How did you get involved with AI? It hasn't been out that long. When did you say, hey, I'm going to start. This is the direction I'm going with my company.

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah. So I'm not like super og to it, but pretty much the start of chat JPT, I started really looking into it as well. Obviously I hadn't looked into it a lot, so obviously it showed me what was sort of capable of. So, yeah, that was my first real understanding of what it actually was and what it was actually capable of, and then I sort of just started working with it from there.

Andy Splichal:

And when you're working with it with your clients, have there been any challenges that you've struggled with on trying to get them results by using AI?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I mean, it's not magic, but there are some sort of expectations that I do sort of set and then I typically just say that you can handle, like about 80% of inquiries, which obviously 80% is still great and a good start. Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

What are some of those limitations that people should be aware of?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, well, I think when you go ahead and create that knowledge base, you don't have an entire, if you've got lots of documents at the moment, the way it's set up, the control over that is sometimes you're going to be getting answers or it's not going to be 100% accurate just due to hallucinations. And so this is just something that is pretty heavily worked on. And being worked on in the space at the moment is just making sure that it doesn't hallucinate and doesn't make stuff up or doesn't pull out the wrong answers. But this is something that is able to be controlled and can be reduced. And there's things like a thing called temperature. And so temperature just is a measure of the randomness of the response that you actually get from the AI. And so you can pretty much either have that very high or have that very low. And so there's control over how it responds, and it just sort of depends on different businesses with different content.

Brendan Jowett:

Works different. So it's all about just testing it and seeing how it goes.

Andy Splichal:

How do you quality control when you first start using a chat bot?

Brendan Jowett:

Yes, I mean, initially I will go ahead and run a sort of a test phase, and so I'll start with the AI. So just making sure that the content that we're uploading and the way we're uploading it and the documents have provided me, this is like an ecommerce and we're just doing some faq questioning. We'll essentially upload the documents and run tests, and I'll just provide back those test results with scores. And so when you query a knowledge base, you essentially get back a series of similarity scores. And so you're able to identify how confident was in actually answering that question. And so we're able to actually measurably say, yeah, it's pretty confident doing your task that you want.

Andy Splichal:

Can you program an AI to give a certain voice with the answers, like a funny voice? What are the options? You can do more than just give back data, right?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, absolutely. In terms of.

Andy Splichal:

To capture the brand, the brand voice, I guess I'm going after.

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah. So you can edit the three types of prompts. So there's a system prompt, a user prompt, and an assistant prompt. And so these three types of prompts allow you to control pretty much different parts of the actual bot and how it responds. So the system prompt is you talking to the bot. So you tell it your role is to be an assistant for this store, and you tell it you should be a very happy bot. And then the user prompt is just the question. So that's just the actual user coming in, the customer coming in and actually asking it.

Brendan Jowett:

And so you can get a lot of control over how you want to actually respond in terms of the voice. Yeah, for sure.

Andy Splichal:

Trying to get a happy customer service agent isn't always so that there's some right there.

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, no, you can get that done. No worries.

Andy Splichal:

So tell me about inflate AI agency or agency. Who do you usually work with and who's a really good client for you?

Brendan Jowett:

Yes, I've been working with quite a few ecommerce stores, but I ultimately work with anybody that runs pretty much an online business that needs any sort of, has some sort of big sort of time issue, and you're sort of working on repetitive tasks and you can clearly identify that there is something or not. You can't identify there is something and you think that there's something you want to cover. That's essentially who I help and how I tackle these tasks is just looking at the areas where repetitive tasks are completed. And if we can go ahead and just an automated system, then we'll do that.

Andy Splichal:

And can you give me an example? What are some of these tasks that you've helped companies automate?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones has been sort of ticket summarizing, and so in terms of just the results, it's been big. So actually going ahead and summarizing customer support tickets, so taking that entire ticket, that entire conversation, and being able to summarize that and pull out certain information from that custom to the client? So it's not just like a full summary, it's summarized, but prompted to pull out particular sort of details from that and particular resolutions and outcomes and solutions and stuff. And so this has been pretty great because you're able to sort of immediately read over the ticket summary and then you've got a good idea exactly as to what's happened and you have to read through the actual ticket and rely on that.

Andy Splichal:

And you mentioned you're in Australia, you work with companies in the US, all over the world. Where are most of your clients?

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, it's pretty global. So UK, US, Australia, because it's my YouTube channel. It's come from everywhere.

Andy Splichal:

Well, it's been great. How can an interested listener learn more about working with you.

Brendan Jowett:

Yeah, you can go to inflate agency, so you can view my sort of landing page there, or you can book a call through my calendar link, which I think you said will be in the notes.

Andy Splichal:

Absolutely.

Brendan Jowett:

Yep.

Andy Splichal:

We'll put it in the notes for you.

Brendan Jowett:

Great.

Andy Splichal:

Well, thank you for joining us. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Brendan Jowett:

No, that's all good. Thanks for having me on here. Great.

Andy Splichal:

Well, thanks for joining us, Brendan. For listeners, remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding inflate AI or connecting with Brandon, you will find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're interested in his master class, head over to make each click count University, where you can access his current masterclass as well as all other content for just $19 a month. That's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy, and happy. Marketing I'll talk to you in the next episode.