AI Agents for a Small Business in Bognor Regis: What Gets Installed, and by Whom

What an agent is

An AI agent is a program that is given a job, access to the tools it needs and some rules about when to stop and pass things to a person. It is different from a chatbot sitting in the corner of a web page. An agent can read an incoming email, look up the answer, reply, make a note in the diary and tell you about it afterwards.

A worked example: the guesthouse inbox

This directory lists 40 hotels and places to stay, and 87 pubs and bars, many of them taking enquiries from visitors who are planning a trip to the seafront or to Butlin's. Picture a small guesthouse. Messages arrive by web form, email and WhatsApp, often late in the evening, and many of them ask the same things. The owner answers them on the sofa at ten at night or not at all.

An agent could reply to each enquiry straight away with the answers the owner has already approved, ask for the details needed to check the diary, and pass anything unusual to the owner with the conversation attached. The next morning there is a short list of people to ring rather than a flood of unread messages.

That is the kind of job Dean Keating's website lists: replying to new enquiries within minutes day or night, answering common questions across email, web and WhatsApp, sorting and routing messages, and escalating to a person.

Who can set one up

Dean Keating builds them, installs them in the tools the business already uses, trains the staff and supports the system. The work is done remotely from Horndean, Hampshire. His website says the service is installed for you, not handed over. He starts with the one task that makes the most difference, and the free call ends with a plan you can use with or without him.

Other providers exist, and some will be based in West Sussex. Ask each of them where the agent will run, who sees what it sends and how a person takes over.

Choosing the first job

- Pick the task that costs you the most sleep or the most lost work.
- Choose something repeated daily, so you can see whether it helps within a week.
- Decide in advance which messages must always go to you.

What it will not do

It will not make a quiet season busy, and it will not replace the way you speak to a guest on the doorstep. Treat it as a way of making sure nobody who writes to you is ignored.

You can read the Dean Keating profile to see the full list before you ring.

Contact

Call or WhatsApp Dean Keating on 07418 627304, or email dean@deankeating.com. See the Dean Keating profile on Bognor Regis.co. Websites: ai-agent.deankeating.com and deankeating.com.

About this guide

Bognor Regis.co is published by Dean Keating, who also runs the service described here. He is based in Horndean, Hampshire, and works with Bognor Regis and West Sussex businesses remotely. If you want someone in the room, say so on the first call and look at Bognor-based providers too. This guide recommends our own service, so compare it with other providers before you decide.