AI Concierge: Why Traditional Websites Are Dead (And What Comes Next)

Speaker A: AI demands that you have that information on your site ready to go for your customers. The people that do that, the best and the cleanest and the thoroughest are gonna, are gonna get the results, they're gonna get the revenue, they're gonna get the traffic, they're gonna get everything that. Hi visitors don't want to browse your website. Instead they want answers. And the quicker we give them those answers, the better. So when we say traditional websites are gone, this is my vision or what I believe is going to be the future of websites. Effectively, websites are going to become miniature AI engines. And basically what that looks like is you need to build your sites in such a way that um, it's a repository of information for AI, not only to pull out later, as you'll see here in a second, but for the AI search engines, if you will, to comb and gather the information because they effectively have taken over search for, for the human side of things to deliver results, ah, that the, the human wants, so to speak. So um, again websites need to give, give answers. Okay, and next step, uh, options for the visitor is a, is a theme here. So traditionally what you would have to do, you'd land on a website like this, um, and you, you know, you got different pages, you got different options for uh, different services let's say. And you, you've kind of gotta look around, read everything, try to find uh, what, what you need, right? And this isn't a bad site. Um, this is one of our sites. It's just not gonna be the future of, of websites. So um, hopefully by the end of this podcast and this, this YouTube video, um, you'll, you'll understand and re, begin to rethink um, what your website should do. So um, it, and it, just by doing this right, you're going to create more leads and more um, opportunities. So what do people actually want from a website and what does that shift in behavior, um, look like? So when people arrive to your website, either through Google or Social or email, um, they have a specific question in mind. If they don't see a clear path or an answer, excuse me, in 10, 20 seconds they're gone. Okay, so with a traditional brochure site like this, they, they fail. They have huge menus, vague headlines, you know, 10 services on a page. Uh, the visitor is forced to reverse engineer and figure out is this, is this the right message, uh, so to speak. So your, your website is no longer a portfolio. Think of it as a decision support tool. Okay, so let's, you know, let's, let's hop to a, uh, you know, a quick example uh, of that here, real, real quick. So we take a look at Amazon, okay? We've all used Amazon. We all know that their search is very good. Um, you know, you top type in ropper, sorry, rubber boots for men. Um, I want to fertilize my lawn here this spring so I want to wear these rubber boots. So when the fertilizer goes everywhere, you know, it's not going down my pants leg, it's not going in my shoes. It's, you know, here's what it is. But regardless, I need some rubber boots. So they've, they've got a great search tool, they refined it and they deliver people, you know, what they need. And then you can go in here and you can, you can dial it in by price, you can dial in by review, review score or whatever the case is. You dial it in by volume, sold and everything else that goes with it. So Google know or not Google, but Amazon knows this. They've known this for at least 10, maybe 15 years. They've dialed it in, refined it and they're one of the largest, you know, e commerce, um, companies out there. So we as small business owners or service based um, uh, owners, we, you know, we've been getting by with having substandard websites because people just show up on it, they know they're just supposed to call and everything that goes with it. So what we need to start thinking of in terms of building our site is it needs to become more of an AI concierge, um, that can answer all your questions, pull up the information and there's this exchange of information and basically there's a currency of sort that we need to understand uh, as um, website developers, as ah, SEO and everything that goes with it. And that's this. You would never in a retail setting go into a store and have somebody pull up a clipboard and the first thing out of their mouth is I need to get your name, email and phone number. Like as soon as that happens, when you walk through that door you'd be like, see ya. I um, need you to answer a question for me. Do you have what I want. Do you have rubber boots? Do you have rubber boots under $40? Do you have good quality rubber boots and where are your rubber boots? So that's the mindset that we need to develop in terms of building websites. They need to deliver information. AI demands that you have that information on your site ready to go for your customers, the people that do that, the best and the cleanest and the thoroughest are gonna, are gonna get the results, they're gonna get the revenue, they're gonna get the traffic, they're gonna get everything that goes with it. So when we say websites are dead, websites obviously still be there, but they're going to evolutionize or evolve to a more of an AI engine. And the more you build answers into your website, the better you structure it, better you organize it, the more transparent you are about pricing, time it takes to service or time it takes to do things. The, the better your, the better results you're going to get for your website on a couple of levels. One on the search piece, then also on the conversion. So that's really important you understand that. So we're going to jump into a couple examples here in a little bit. But um, you know, I'll just give you a couple examples. So let's say you're, and this is pretty vague, but let's say you're um, a frozen warehouse company. Okay. So food has to be kept in bulk in large frozen warehouses and um, or even uh, refrigerated warehouses. And let's say you need pallet racking, right? So you have a question for somebody on this site, um, you show up and basically you're, you're wondering, hey, can you, you know, do you have pallet racking for frozen, um, for freezing? Hi, this is Robert with Minneapolis Pallet Racking. Can I help with pallet racking pricing, layout, inspection or removal today? Hi Robert, I was wondering, um, do you have, and is there a special pallet racking needed for let's say, ah, a frozen environment like a frozen warehouse? Do you guys sell something like that? Yes, we do offer pallet racking solutions suitable for frozen environments. These are typically designed to handle the unique challenges of cold storage such as maintaining structural integrity in low temperatures and accommodating specific inventory types. If you'd like I can help you explore the options or provide more details based on your specific needs. Let me know. Yeah, uh, Robert, we have a 20, uh, foot high ceilings frozen uh, warehouse. Uh, we have around 2,000 square feet and existing rack. I was just wondering if a rep could come out and take a look at our situation and make some recommendations. Got it. It sounds like you'd benefit from an on site assessment to evaluate your current setup and recommend the best racking solutions for your frozen warehouse. Let me take down a few details so we can arrange for a representative to visit. Could you share your name, contact, company name and the address of the warehouse. So now there's been an exchange of information. Okay. He's answered a couple of my questions. I'm willing to give up my information at that point. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but if first thing out of Robert's mouth is, can I get your name, phone number, color, um, of your eyes, blood type, and on and on, I'm not sure I want to have a conversation with that person. I need you to prove to me that you know what you're talking about and can answer my questions first because I'm kind of vetting you out. I want to know, you know, do you have what I need, are, uh, you experience in what I need and then kind of go from there. So this is kind of an example of what we're talking about where AI can kind of fill that role, but more importantly, you as a. As a web designer or builder or an owner that. That is having all this done. You need to understand what's on the horizon for your website. And is it happening right now? No, of course not. But you want to build towards that because in the next. For sure, in the next six to 12 months, it's heading towards that for sure. 18 months is the outside. So you want to jump on that now. And these are tools that can kind of help you do that. So another, um, you know, another example, people say, download our ebook, um, book a call, um, before you're answering anything. You know, again, it feels like this exchange and that exchange price is very high for the. For the person visiting your site. You want that threshold to be low, you want those barriers to be low, and you want to be able to answer questions clearly and accurately. And so now, again, it comes back to building a website that can do that for you and has a good knowledge base. And it's not just fluffery where, um, you know, you got some pretty pictures and some vague ideas. So, um, so. And people are going to want to know about pricing, they're going to want to know about timelines, what's your process? Uh, and again, this is a vetting exchange situation, um, that's going to occur. So if you don't give that value right up front with your concierge or AI concierge, um, then you're gonna. You're gonna end up with somebody just really, um, bouncing. The other thing the concierge can do is kind of qualify the visitor too, and say, okay, you know what? Um, you know what, what qualif. You know, we. Whether we should give you the service or not, because you may not be a Good fit for our company. We might not be in this case the right company for you obviously. So by that exchange of questions and answers can uh, help help uh, you in that, that situation. So I'm just going to give you another example of what a uh, good site looks like. And in this case this is just a phone repair site. Um, we keep going back to this, but the other thing the site can do is be bilingual. So in this case we're speaking Spanish and um, we're not going to get into the Spanish side of it. But um, but this, what's cool about this site is it's going to give you pricing and possibly even some other options. So let's go in an example here real quick.

Speaker B: Hola. Hi, this is Heather at HelperTech and Egan. What phone model and repair do you need today? I can also check trade in value for eligible screen damaged phones.

Speaker A: Interesting. Hi Heather. Yeah, I have an iPhone 12 with a broken screen. I'd be interested in getting that trade in value and uh, some options there as well.

Speaker B: Got it. Let me check the repair and trade in options for your iPhone 12. Before I dive in, could I get your first name and the best phone number to reach you in case we get disconnected?

Speaker A: Yeah, Bob Brennan, 612-772-3535.

Speaker B: Thanks Bob. Just to confirm, I heard 612-772-3535, is that correct?

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: Alright Bob, here are your options for the iPhone 12 with a broken screen. 1. Repair option. The repair cost is $120 if you book now or $130 as a walk in. The repair takes about 30 minutes. 2. Trade in option. Pending a visual inspection, we may offer $80 for your current phone as a trade in. You could use that toward a refurbished iPhone 13 which starts at 195. After applying the trade in value, your estimated out of pocket cost would be about one, uh, hundred fifteen plus tax. Would you prefer to repair your current phone or explore the upgrade option?

Speaker A: So those are some interesting options. Right. So you know, here, here's a person that has an older iPhone 12. Do I want to pay $120 and have the screen swapped out of it or do I want to upgrade for about the same price? So AI can do cool things like that in terms of offering your customers option. So there's a great exchange that occurs there. So again, we want our sites to perform almost like a, again to use the term AI concierge or a salesperson, um, much like somebody who works in a retail setting or is A representative of your company. So that's, that's one example. So what we're looking at here is transitioning from, you know, a traditional website that might have um, some vague blogs and other information on it and really dialing things in that has a good body of information for AI to draw from. Not only if you're going to utilize a product like this that, that's giving quotes and giving answers to customers. Um, and then um, really move also for AI search, which is really important. So we're looking at things like um, you know, again, laying in the proper schema, the proper uh, structure within the site and again proper, proper data. So um, so that's just one, one example of, of what we're talking about here. The other thing we need to approach or how we need to approach this is in this situation, I don't know if you caught the um, the welcoming message we'll just pop over this site. So obviously we're, we're trying to denote that this is bilingual. And um, we're using a full name here to give you an estimate. Click here to speak live. Okay, so this is a homepage for this site, but let's just say um, we don't have it set up this way, but let's just say you went to a service situation. This message should change for service because service in this situation involves installing pallet racking or removing pallet racking. So this message should be, hola, hi, I'm Robert Brennan, or, I'm sorry, Robert Martinez, here to give you, uh, an estimate on installation and removal of pallet racking. Click here to speak to me live. And so then you do click on that. You do initiate a conversation. The data set is the same. Okay, but what, what triggers the conversation is important and that's, that's here. So you know, for a, for a larger site that has a lot of services, a lot of dynamics and people are landing on different pages, this pop up needs to address that for that page. So let's just say you were in the auto industry and you showed up on the financing page. That pop up should say, hi, I'm Robert. Uh, I can help you qualify or figure out if you qualify for financing for various vehicles. Da da da da, uh da. And a die again. Now a dialogue begins back and forth. Do you have a decent credit score? Da da da da da. Now because of ftc, I don't think we can actually quote with AI yet on that, but we can get them enough, further enough down the path that they will exchange their Information. Okay. And now you have their information and then you can have a qualified person get, get a, uh, finance quote for them, if that makes sense. So this m is all changing really quick, but it's really important that we understand that we need to begin the process of looking at how we're going to change our sites, how we're going to put tools on the site to help people get answers. Okay, you give people answers, you will get conversion, you will get activity. We will get them to provide their information that you can follow up on. But the mindset has to change from um, a guarded one where we're just, all we're doing is, is providing some preliminary information and people really have to fill out forms or even call or whatever the case is, um, to, to get even more information. We gotta provide enough information for them to give up their information. It's kind of straightforward. So need to make this site easy for them to navigate, easy for them to get information. And that's kind of the crux of this. I'm gonna do a couple of quick examples, um, and then I will um, move on, um, to, to some of the summary thoughts here that we're talking about today. So again, this is an example of a, ah, of a spa. They're coming out here saying, hey beautiful. And this is important too, right? So I'm a dude, so I don't know what to put on here. You know, I'm like, hey, what do you need help with? Um, there's a great person, uh, within our company took a look at this and say, you know, women want to go to spas to feel beautiful, look beautiful, and they need that nurturing that, you know, men don't typically do. So any rate, she came up with this phrase which is wonderful. Hey beautiful. Need help choosing, uh, the perfect treatment? My name is Kayla Jones. Click here to talk. So we're going to do that.

Speaker B: Thank you for calling sopa. This is Kayla, your virtual concierge. I can help you choose the right service, answer questions and assist with booking. What are you looking for today?

Speaker A: Hi Kayla. Uh, I am considering a, uh, couples massage.

Speaker B: Makes sense. That sounds like a lovely idea. At Soak Spa, we offer a variety of couples massage options designed to help you both relax and connect. Are you looking for a traditional massage experience or would you like to explore a package that might include additional treatments or enhancements?

Speaker A: Well, it's my wife's and I's anniversary, so yeah, uh, let me know about some of the higher end packages.

Speaker B: Happy anniversary to you both. For a special Occasion like this, our higher end couples packages would be perfect. They typically include luxurious massages along with added indulgences like aromatherapy, hot stones, or even foot soaks. Would you like me to share details about a specific package or should I gather your contact information so the team can follow up with personalized recommendations?

Speaker A: Well, we have a budget around $300 to $400. Is there a package that, uh, works for that?

Speaker B: Here are a couple of options that fit your budget and would make for a luxurious anniversary experience. 1. Couples Oasis, $384 gratuity included. This 90 minute experience starts with a peaceful foot soak in our Zen foot sanctuary featuring Epsom and pink Himalayan salts, lavender and rose essential oils. Afterward, you'll enjoy a 75 minute signature massage in our couple's suite. It includes a heated neck wrap, aromatherapy inhalation and hot towel therapy for ultimate relaxation. 2. Couple's seasonal organic body scrub and shea butter wrap. $398 per couple. This 90 minute treatment includes a seasonal sugar scrub and a luxurious shea butter body wrap. It exfoliates and hydrates your skin followed by a therapeutic neck, scalp and foot massage. It's a full body rejuvenation experience, perfect for a special occasion. Would you like me to help gather your details so the team can assist with booking or provide further guidance?

Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be great.

Speaker B: Perfect. Let's start with your name. Could you share your full name please?

Speaker A: Test Brennan.

Speaker B: Got it. Tess Brennan. Could you also share the best phone number to reach you?

Speaker A: 000-000-0000 makes sense. So I did that because this is a live bot and I don't want their team calling me back. So uh, uh, it's really important and I don't want to put a fake number down. Well, it's fake, but it's obviously fake. Okay. So you can see how powerful this is and what it can do for your business. And, but the idea here, the other thing I want to get across is this as good as this is, it's bad because most of these chats reside in the normal area that we've dealt with chats for probably 20 years. And most chats are not effective. They don't work right. Uh, they don't answer questions. They don't really give you the currency that we're looking for, right? Where people are coming, they're looking, looking for answers. In these chats, we're supposed to deliver that, but I have not seen one that's effective yet. So what I would argue is this where the Change is going to happen. First of all, these chats can't reside in this corner anymore. They need to be really upfront. They need to have uh, they need to get the message across that I am here to answer your questions within 10 seconds or something like that. So we have to be upfront and say, not only can I answer your question, but I'm going to answer it in ten seconds. Right? Um, and so now that the mindset has changed and the visitor is like, oh, well, well, this guy's going to have my answer or answer my questions in 10 seconds. I will click on that. They're not clicking on this now and I'll tell you why. Again, it's the bias of these chats are not working. They're not effective at all. And I'm not even going to bother with my time to click on it. So we have to change how that construct is, is done and it has to be up front. It has to um, come across differently and that's what we're going to be in the process of doing. And then what I see the next, the vision of the next in the future, and I know there's tools out here that do that already, is somebody will ask a specific question, you can answer it, and then it will cite or show the page that you can click on to get the detailed information. Right. So it's not only answering it verbally, but now it's bringing it up for you to click on and visit that page or site or the article within your, your website that you can actually read and get more detailed information. So AI concierge I believe, is the future, along with structuring these sites to be not only found by AI, but also having AI sell the services or give that exchange of information to your client. So I hope that helps if this is something you want more information on. We just launched a tool out there called leadgrab AI and um, love for you to go out, check it out. Uh, we will create an AI bot for you for uh, your website to check out and test. Um, and you have an opportunity to click on our AI, obviously and ask it a bunch of questions, you know, as it relates to your, uh, as it relates to your business. So I'm excited about the future more than I have been ever before. But this is uh, this is where everything is going and uh, it's going to change your business for sure. Uh, we just got to get on the bus, get going now and uh, we're all going to be reaping, uh, the rewards here. In the future. Hope this helps. Uh, our next episode, what we're going to talk about is just that this transition from, uh, a traditional chat scenario to a very complex, high performing AI chat, uh, that will get you results. Thanks. Thanks for watching. Local SEO Tactics Podcast if you found this episode valuable, don't forget to like this video. Subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell so you never miss new insights. We've got more expert tips on SEO, AEO and digital marketing strategies coming your way every week. Want to dive deeper? Check out our other videos right here or grab our, uh, free resources in the description below. Thanks again for tuning in. And remember, staying ahead online starts right here.