Aider counts more than beans for Mike at Meebz
Meebz is a coffee roasting shop in Milford on Auckland’s North Shore. It’s become a mecca for caffeine aficionados to pop in for their morning kick start and to buy their ‘precision roasted’ beans.
The solution proves to be that Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, can’t quite hear Mike over the funky music playing. After turning the music down the Echo Dot starts to ring colour. Alexa opens Aider and hears Mike loud and clear – “What was my revenue for last week?”. Alexa replies with a spot-on answer and Mike’s grin widens.
When asked how business is going overall, Mike tells us that he is pleased: “We started the shop with almost 100% retail sales and have now grown the wholesale side of the business which now equates to 60% of the total sales. Obviously, our wholesale has increased but so has retail meaning that our overall business has increased, over double actually, since taking over the shop.” It’s a lot to keep a handle on.
Mike is enjoying using Aider, the digital assistant for small business, that is driven by artificial intelligence. By connecting Aider with Alexa, he can get meaningful information from voice commands as he sets up for the morning rush – killing two birds with one stone.
He is constantly striving to find more efficient ways to work and increase profitability utilising the data his business generates.
“Currently I have connected Xero, Vend, Shopify and social media channels, Instagram and Facebook to Aider,” Mike says. “For now, I am asking Aider the generic questions you might ask around a business but I am starting to ask Aider more questions that will reduce administration and paperwork.”
Mike is quick to point out that he is a novice with Aider. But being able to question using the voice activated assistant function via his mobile phone, or the Echo Dot, means Aider is quick to turn that data into meaningful and actionable insights about beans bought, roasted and sold or the turnover of café items.
Mike says “The Aider ‘Did You Knows’ have also given me info that I didn’t even realise was valuable to my business, but I can now make more informed decisions based on these day to day”
As a soon-to-be-Dad, getting extra family time will be a must. He has a few weeks left to get Aider tuned to his way of thinking. With artificial intelligence at the heart of the app, that shouldn’t be too difficult.