Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, artificial intelligence (A.I.) is all the talk in the marketing and business world. Every industry is going to be affected by A.I. if it hasn’t already, it’s just a matter of time. A.I. isn’t new though. It’s been around for decades, but with the emergence of the first public platform, ChatGPT, it’s sparked a global craze over this technology and how it can be applied in businesses to make them faster, more efficient, and more profitable. In this article we’re going to dive into how you can grow your guide or charter business with A.I.

What is A.I.?

It’s a lot of things, honestly. And diving into them all is beyond the scope of this article. So for the sake of time and energy, we’re only going to look at a few features you can use to help ensure you never miss another customer opportunity again! But in short, A.I. is basically just a computer that learns and can respond based on the inputs it receives or based on the pre-inputs you enter.

How A.I. Can Help You Book More Trips And Make More Money

As a guide or charter, whether you realize it or not, you miss out on a lot of business because you’re out on the water with customers. By the time you get back to shore and check your missed calls, emails, or DMs, those people have already gone on to the next listing on Google and have booked trips with your competitors.

Remember, people are impatient and they want instant gratification. If they don’t get what they’re looking for, they’re gone and you’ll never have that opportunity again.

In other words, you weren’t able to answer their call so they moved on. It happens in every business. But in the guide and charter business where profit margins can be razor slim like a restaurant’s profit margins, every missed call is a significant amount of money lost, especially during the slower times of the season.

But if you had an A.I. system like the one I’ve helped many local business owners implement, then you can reduce the chances of losing customers to your competitors by as much as 62%. Think about that for a moment. What if you were able to save just one-third of those missed calls and turn them into paying customers? How would that affect your bottom line? Pretty significantly I would imagine.

Well with A.I. that’s possible. How?

This particular system has a multitude of features so I’ll briefly go over just a few that are the most impactful for guides and charters and help you grow your business.

First is the website chat widget

You’ve probably seen them around on websites. However most chat widgets are there just to collect your contact info and send it to a rep for a follow up call with you. With an A.I. system in place, like the one above, it can have “real” conversations with people, and based on their responses, it can direct them to your booking calendar, payment page, or wherever else you’d like to direct them.

The next feature is the missed-call text back

This one is my favorite and probably the most valuable feature of them all. When someone calls a phone number you set up specifically for this feature, and if you don’t answer, the caller receives a text message within 60 seconds or so. You can have it say whatever you want, but generally it’s something to the effect of “Hey Name, sorry I missed your call I’m out with customers on the water right now. I’ll call you as soon as I get to shore, but is there something I can help you with over text in the meantime?”

As soon as the person responds with certain keywords or any type of positive response, the A.I. system will reply back as if it were actually you texting them. Much like the chat widget, you can direct people to your booking calendar, payment page, or wherever. This dedicated number can be placed anywhere – your website, Google Business Profile, ads, banners, etc. No need to publically display your personal number anymore!

Google Business Profile Chat

There is a chat feature for business pages on Google, but it’s only available on the mobile version. When enabled, people can have real-time chats, much like the website chat widget, except they don’t need to go to your website to have a conversation with you they can do it right from the Google listings page.

Social Media DMs

The same A.I. automation features can be set up for your Facebook and Instagram pages. If someone sends you DMs on those platforms, the system can engage with them and have real time conversations based on keywords or pre-determined messages you enter.

Automated Reviews

One thing that is important to customers, especially tourists, are online reviews. When customers or tourists are searching for guides or charters, one of the top things they look at before placing a call is the reviews. Unfortunately, most business owners are horrible at asking for reviews and leave it up to chance that if they believe the customer had a great time on the trip, they’ll do it on their own. That seldom happens because people are busy, they forget, or they just don’t think about it.

With A.I. the system can be set up so that after a certain amount of days after the trip, usually within 24-28 hours, it will send out a text and email thanking them for the opportunity and if they’d be so kind as to leave you a review – again this is just a sample, you can make it say whatever you want.

Think about it, if you were searching for local Mexican restaurants online, one of the top things that would influence your decision on where to go would be reviews. The same applies to guide and charter businesses.

Payment Collection & Booking

One of the cool things about the A.I. system is that if you are out and about, talking to someone, and they want to book a trip right then and there, you can create an invoice on the fly and send it to them while you’re standing there. It’s much more convenient than telling them to pull out their phone, go to your booking platform of choice, choose a date, pay the deposit, and reserve it on your calendar.

All that can literally be done in less than 5 minutes with the A.I. system making the process much smoother and quicker for the customer. If someone pays and books a trip all on their own, then the system can automatically add the booking to your Google or Outlook calendar.

Centralized Conversations

There’s one last feature we want to hit on because you’re probably thinking “with all of this automation, how am I going to keep up with everything?!” I’m here to tell you not to worry because all of your conversations, whether text, DM, widgets, or emails are all managed within the app that comes included with the system. You’ll also have a desktop version with the entire system dashboard so you can even see money in the pipeline!

No more having to go to Facebook Messenger, Instagram, email inbox, Google chat, or text messages. Every conversation you have that is connected to the A.I. system will all be centrally located within the app. And whenever someone engages in a conversation on any of those platforms, the app sends you a push notification. Simple and organized!

One other cool feature is you can send short, personalized videos through text. If I made a call and didn’t receive an answer, but then in a minute or two I got a short video of you saying “Hey Mike I’m out with a family right now on the water, I’ll call you as soon as I get back to shore. In the meantime you can text me here and I’ll be sure to respond!” Think about how powerful that is from the customer’s perspective. It’s personal, and it’s directly to me. It makes me feel like you truly care about earning my business. Plus it gives me an opportunity to “see” you before I ever book the trip.

Social Media Content Creation & Posting

All business owners know they need to post on social media but they dread it. The tourism fishing industry is a little different in the sense that images and videos are one of the primary ways guides and charter captains promote their services. But it’s still very time consuming and when they’re busy, they often forget.

One of the features this system has is the ability to not only create content but schedule it in advance so you can get ahead on your social posts. Not sure what to write? No worries! A.I. is here to save you. Just tell it what to write and it will create a post for you. Simply change the wording to fit your style and brand and bingo-bango-bongo you’re done!

Websites without Paying Expensive Developers or Freelancers

If your website is not optimized for conversions, then you’re losing out on potential customers every day. If you don’t have a website, that’s even worse. This system has made it possible to design a website on your own or by hiring a cheap web designer on someplace like Fiverr and get it up and running within hours, not days. If you don’t have a website you can create one from scratch or use one of the pre-built templates.

No more waiting weeks for a beautiful looking website or paying thousands of dollars. There are over 100 website templates to choose from and are easily customizable to fit your brand or business. So if you don’t see something that fits your business, simply choose a template, make necessary changes, and you’re done! All sites, built from scratch or templated, are ready to accept payments, and send automated emails and text messages, plus MUCH more… all powered by A.I.

Earn More Cash

Most business owners leave a ton of cash on the table because they are terrible at follow ups. As mentioned earlier, the automated system can be designed to send automated emails and text messages using pre-written messages that are sent out over a specified period of time. It’s like this, if someone makes a request for more information about your guide services but never actually secures a spot or speaks with you on the phone, then the system will follow up with them prompting them to book a trip or call.

There’s a saying in the marketing world that goes “the fortune is in the follow up.” About 97% of people are not ready to make a purchase but are in what we call the “information gathering mode.” They are looking for information. And when you have an automated system in place, you’re able to nurture them until they are ready to book a trip. It’s in these follow ups is where the cash is made.

Wrap It Up

While there are probably more than 400 features, these are the top ones to grow your guide or charter business with A.I. As a guide or charter business owner, it’s critical to seal as many holes in your business as possible. Every opportunity lost is money down the drain. It’s bad enough to miss opportunities because you’re helping a customer have an amazing fishing experience, but it’s worse to not have an automated system working 24/7 365 days a year and letting potential customers be swept up by your competitors. The fishing tourism industry is fierce, you need every advantage you can get to stay ahead. If you’re interested in an A.I. system to help you, check out the only one we recommend here.

The important thing to remember is that time is of the essence. 85% of the people who reach out to you and receive no response will not reach out to you again. The longer a person has to wait to hear back from you, the greater the chances are that you’ve lost that customer. With an A.I. system in place you drastically reduce the time between a missed call and a response, which in turn greatly increases the opportunity for you to book that trip you otherwise would have missed.

And my guess is that you don’t have tens of thousands of dollars a year to pay a marketing manager, content creator, or even a dedicated admin to handle all of this for you. This is the best alternative to hit local businesses and dramatically help them since the internet came around at just a fraction of the cost of a marketing manager.

If you want a faster and easier way to book more trips without giving those other booking platforms all of your hard earned money, download our app and set up your account today, it’s free. It’s the only app on the market that is not just a social app to share photos and videos, but it’s the only app for anglers, guides, charters, vendors, and more to have the best fishing experiences of their lives!