AI workshops / programme 02
AI workshop for SMEs: automate processes, win leads, relieve service
A programme for operational teams — sales, administration, service, marketing and leadership. We go through your recurring processes and build on them: process automation, lead generation and outbound, an AI assistant on your own knowledge, customer service, and reporting somebody actually reads. We work with ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft Copilot — in the accounts your team already has.
We train inChatGPTClaudeMicrosoft CopilotMaken8n
- Individual quoteafter the intro call
- 4-person team, ZürichStrategy and delivery
- 6 building blocks4 steps
Starting point
Why SMEs lose time in small work, not in projects
In SMEs the potential rarely sits in a big digitalisation project. It sits in the fifty small steps per day: copying quotes together from old documents, forwarding enquiries by hand, retyping invoices, answering the same question for the twentieth time, pulling numbers for a meeting out of four systems. Each case looks too small to solve — together they add up to days per month. On top of that comes uncertainty: using AI without clear rules risks mistakes in front of customers and problems with customer data. This workshop makes both practical: first the process list, then working automations, then guardrails.
What we do
What the AI workshop for SMEs covers
- 01
Introducing ChatGPT and Claude safely across the team
Ten personal accounts become one team setup: configuring workspaces and privacy settings, creating shared prompts and projects for sales, administration and service, building custom GPTs or Claude projects for recurring tasks — and a rule for which customer data may go in and which may not.
- 02
Process automation in daily operations
We map your recurring processes and automate the most worthwhile ones: extracting documents and receipts, passing data between systems, classifying and routing enquiries, appointments and reminders. Always with an approval step wherever a decision has consequences.
- 03
Lead generation & outbound sales
From ideal customer profile to outreach: research and enrichment of company data, prioritisation by real signals, personalised first contact in your language, clean follow-up sequences — and where the line runs between personalisation and mass mail, legally and in craft terms.
- 04
AI assistants on your own knowledge
An assistant that knows your price lists, manuals, contracts and minutes and answers questions with sources — as a custom GPT in ChatGPT, as a project in Claude or, with many documents and tiered permissions, as a dedicated solution. We show how to build and maintain the knowledge base, how to control access, and how to spot an answer that isn't trustworthy.
- 05
Customer service & communication
Classify enquiries automatically, prepare reply drafts in the right tone, handle recurring cases end to end and escalate the rest cleanly. Plus the question that decides customer satisfaction: when does the assistant hand over to a human?
- 06
Analytics & reporting somebody reads
Bring metrics together from your systems, have anomalies explained in plain language, automate recurring analyses — and a monthly leadership report that prepares a decision instead of listing numbers.
How it runs
How the AI workshop for SMEs runs
- 01
Process inventory
Short interviews across departments: which tasks repeat, how often, how long do they take and where do errors appear?
- 02
Prioritise by effort and impact
We score the candidates together and pick the two to four that actually get built during the workshop.
- 03
Hands-on day with real data
The team builds the selected automations itself — on your documents, in your tools, with approval steps in the right places.
- 04
Guardrails & 30-day review
A lean AI policy, clear ownership — and a session where we check what's running and what gets automated next.
What changes
What changes in operations after the AI workshop
- 01
Two to four processes run automated after the workshop — in production, not as a concept.
- 02
The team can tell for itself which task suits automation and which doesn't.
- 03
Sales and service answer faster because drafts and triage are prepared.
- 04
Clear rules on which customer data may go into which tool — within the revDSG.
- 05
Reporting that comes together monthly without manual work.
Questions
Frequently asked questions about AI Workshops for SMEs
Who is the SME programme for?
For operational teams in small and mid-sized companies: sales, inside sales, administration, accounting, customer service, marketing and leadership. A mixed group from several departments works especially well, because the most worthwhile automations almost always sit at the handovers between departments.
Do we need new software for this?
Usually not. We start with what you have — Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, your CRM, your accounting, possibly an automation tool like Make or n8n. On the AI side a ChatGPT or Claude Team plan is usually enough, and many SMEs already pay for one. Only when a process genuinely doesn't work without an extra tool do we discuss adding one, including an honest estimate of cost and effort.
Are we allowed to put customer data into AI tools?
It depends on the tool, the contract and the type of data — and that is exactly what we settle in the workshop for your case. We go through which services offer business use without training on your data, where the servers are, when anonymisation is enough, and when a task shouldn't go into an external tool at all. The outcome is a rule that works day to day — not a legal opinion.
ChatGPT or Claude — which suits our SME?
Both work for the tasks in this programme; the differences are in the detail. In our experience Claude is stronger on long documents, quotes and a consistent writing style, ChatGPT on research with web access, images and custom GPTs that are easy to share across a team. If you already work in Microsoft 365, look at Copilot too. In the workshop we solve your tasks with the tool you have — and show on one or two cases where the other would have the edge. Our comparison ChatGPT vs. Claude for SMEs goes into more depth.
What if there's scepticism in the team?
That's normal and usually justified. So we never work with promises about the future, but with a task the person finds tedious themselves. If that one task gets measurably faster on the workshop day, the discussion moves on its own. We also talk openly about where AI is unsuitable — that builds more trust than any demo.
How quickly do we see an effect?
The automations built during the workshop run from day one. For simple cases like receipt capture or enquiry routing the relief is immediate; in sales and reporting it shows over a few weeks. That's why the 30-day review measures the same things as the start: frequency, duration and error rate per process.
Next step
Which process costs your team the most time every week?
Name two or three candidates. We'll tell you honestly which one suits a workshop day — and which is better handled as a project.
About the author
Tenzin Langdun
AI Expert & Marketing Lead at Hierarchy
Tenzin is an AI expert and marketing lead with an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Bath and over 10 years of marketing experience across strategy, paid acquisition, and SEO. He has held roles at leading organisations including KPMG, EY, Siemens, and Adnovum — with expertise in AI, cybersecurity, audit and consulting, and the insurance sector. Together with Martin Oswald, he co-authored an award-winning research paper on AI-based cancer detection, published in Nature and recognised with the National Siemens Excellence Award and the Lab Sciences Award.