Same technology.
Set up for you.
ChatGPT vs LeanLoop: can ChatGPT answer your customer emails?
Plenty of small businesses already pay for ChatGPT, or use the free version. So when we say we'll set up software to answer your customer enquiries, it's fair to ask: can't ChatGPT do that already? Often, at least in part, it can. This post is about the gap between "it can" and "it does, every day, without you watching it".
Can ChatGPT answer your customer emails?
It can draft them, and it's good at it. Whether it answers them every day, the same way, without you asking each time, comes down to how it's set up.
- Use ChatGPT for the work that's different every time: a tricky email, a first draft of a web page, ideas for a post.
- Use LeanLoop when customer enquiries arrive every day and you'd rather someone else set the job up, tested it and kept checking it.
What ChatGPT can do for a small business now
ChatGPT is more than a box you type questions into. On paid plans it can run tasks on a schedule and connect to apps such as Gmail and Outlook. For eligible paid users it can start a task when a new Gmail message arrives. You choose, app by app, whether it asks before it sends a message or changes something, or just goes ahead.
For teams there's ChatGPT Business, priced per person per month with at least two seats. OpenAI says it doesn't train on your business data by default. The current plans are on OpenAI's pricing page.
The work between "it can" and "it does"
ChatGPT gives you the parts. To make it handle your enquiries well, every day, someone has to:
- Pick the job worth doing first, and count the hours it takes today.
- Write down how your business handles it: your prices, your rules, your tone, what never to say and what always comes to you.
- Connect it to the right inbox, with only the access the job needs.
- Test it on real enquiries before it replies to a customer.
- Decide what it may do on its own, and what it must ask about first.
- Check its work every week, and change it when your prices, stock or opening hours change.
OpenAI describes ChatGPT Business as "a self-serve workspace plan for teams". Self-serve means that list is yours.
Where LeanLoop comes in
That list is the work we do, for one job at a time. Steps 1 and 2 are the time audit: a fixed price, agreed before we start, and usually about a week. Steps 3 to 5 are setting up, including a test on 20 real examples from your business, with the results shown to you. Step 6 is the monthly service, with a short report of what the assistant did and what you approved, changed or binned. See how repeat jobs work.
ChatGPT vs LeanLoop, side by side
| ChatGPT | LeanLoop | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A general assistant from OpenAI, for anything you ask it | An assistant set up for one job in your business, run by us |
| Who sets it up | You | We do |
| Testing before customers see it | Up to you | 20 real examples from your business, results shown to you |
| What it does without being asked | The tasks you set up. On eligible paid plans, it can respond to new Gmail messages | Drafts each new enquiry, order or invoice as it arrives |
| Approval | You choose for each app, from always asking to going ahead on its own | Drafts wait for your yes, unless you tell us a kind of reply can go straight out |
| When your business changes | You update it | We change it |
| How you pay | Per person per month, and there's a free version | A fixed price for the time audit, a fixed price to set up each job, then a monthly service |
Is ChatGPT Business worth it on its own?
For a lot of the work, yes:
- The work is different every time. A one-off letter, a new product description, a plan for next month.
- It's about one person working faster: writing, summarising, thinking something through.
- You like setting things up, or someone on your team does, and there's time to keep checking it.
- The job is small. If it takes an hour or two a week, an assistant from us may not pay for itself, and we'll say so on the first call.
When to hand your enquiries over
- You've meant to get ChatGPT doing it, and never found the time to set it up properly.
- You want someone else to notice when it gets things wrong, and fix it.
- You want it tested on your own enquiries before it goes near a customer.
Count your own hours too
ChatGPT's price is easy to see. The hours you'd spend on that list of six are harder to see, and they come out of the same week you're trying to get back. Count both. You can keep ChatGPT for everyday writing either way.
Already on Microsoft 365? See Microsoft 365 Copilot vs LeanLoop.
