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Lesson 2 of 5 · 7 min read · Beginner

AI for small business: a customer reply and a one-page plan with costs

Write a customer reply you would actually send and a one-page plan with a cost table, then decide whether the free tier or a $20 plan is the right spend for a business that uses AI a few times a day.

In this lesson you will

  • Draft a customer reply in your business's voice from the facts, not from a template
  • Produce a one-page plan with a cost table you can edit
  • Decide between free and $20 based on how often you actually use it

A small business does not need an AI strategy. It needs the same three or four jobs done faster every week: replying to customers, writing the plan the bank asked for, describing a product, chasing an invoice. The pattern from lesson 1 holds: give it your facts, name the format, then check the one thing that matters.

Task 1: a customer reply you would send

The reply recipe

  1. 1

    Paste the customer's message

    Word for word. The model needs to see what they are upset about, not your summary of it.

  2. 2

    Give the facts you are allowed to promise

    The refund date, the delivery window, the policy. If you do not state them, the model will invent something plausible and you will have promised it.

  3. 3

    Name the voice and the length

    "Friendly, plain English, under 120 words, no exclamation marks." You are the brand; the model is the typist.

  4. 4

    Read it once before sending

    Check every date and number against what you gave it. That is the whole quality control step.

Your turn

Your turn: the customer reply

Write a reply to this customer message from [BUSINESS NAME]. Tone: [TONE]. Under 120 words. Use only these facts and do not promise anything else: [FACTS].

CUSTOMER MESSAGE:
[MESSAGE]

Hint: The FACTS slot is the safety rail. A reply that invents a refund date you did not authorise is worse than no reply.

Task 2: a one-page plan with a cost table

The second job is longer but the move is identical. You supply the numbers you know; the model supplies the structure. Run this one as written to see the shape, then swap in your own business.

Try it

One-page plan for a mobile coffee cart

Three free runs a day on the site key. Add your own key for unlimited runs.

Knowledge check

Your customer reply came back promising a refund "within 24 hours", but you did not give it that fact. What do you do?

Lesson FAQ

Is it safe to paste customer messages into an AI?

Read the vendor's data terms first. Consumer free tiers may use your inputs to improve models unless you opt out; paid and business plans usually offer a no-training setting. Strip anything you would not put in an email, such as card numbers, before pasting.

Should a small business pay for ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro?

Only after you have hit the free cap on a normal working day more than once or twice. Both are $20 a month. Start with the cheapest step up (ChatGPT Go is $8) and upgrade only when a specific feature, such as file uploads or memory, is what you are missing.

Can AI write my whole business plan?

It can lay one out well if you give it real numbers. It cannot know your costs, your market or your prices, and any figure it invents to fill a gap will be plausible and wrong. Give it the facts, take the structure, check every number.

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