We run a thirty-person distribution business on EOS® and want to stop our sales and operations teams from chasing down inventory and shipping updates manually. What is a practical, non-theater first AI use case to streamline these updates without a massive software project?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Focus on your customer-facing communication delays. In a thirty-person distribution company, the highest-friction, lowest-value task is pulling shipping and inventory updates out of messy emails and ERP screenshots to answer customer inquiries. Instead of an expensive software development project, set up your first AI agent using the OpenAI Assistants API or a basic automation platform like Make.

Document the exact Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) your customer service reps use to look up tracking numbers and order statuses. Connect this agent to your inbound customer support inbox. Let the agent read the incoming email, query the order system, and draft the response for your human coordinator to review before hitting send.

By keeping a human in the loop, you maintain complete control over quality while eliminating the manual hunting and typing. Frame this to your team not as an artificial intelligence experiment, but as an operations-improvement project designed to free up capacity. This keeps your people focused on higher-value activities like proactive account management, directly supporting your Scorecard goals for customer retention.