CRO & Automation · AI Agents services
AI Agents for Marketing and Sales, With People in the Loop
AI agents can now hold a useful conversation, look things up and take simple actions. Used with clear limits, they give every enquiry an immediate, informed response. Used carelessly, they invent answers in your name. We build the first kind.
- Best for
- High enquiry volume with repetitive pre-sales questions
- Works alongside
- CRM, WhatsApp, website chat, calendars and sales teams
- Typical horizon
- Pilot in 4 to 8 weeks; wider scope only as accuracy is shown
- Measured in
- Reviewed accuracy, qualified meetings booked and handover rate
In short
What is an AI agent for marketing and sales?
An AI agent for marketing and sales is a software assistant built on a large language model that holds a conversation with a prospect, answers questions from approved company information, asks qualifying questions and takes simple actions such as booking a meeting or creating a CRM record. A responsible agent discloses that it is automated, stays within a defined scope and hands the conversation to a person when it is unsure. It can make mistakes, so its conversations are reviewed.
The problem
Signs it is time to rethink AI Agents.
- 01
Enquiries outside office hours wait until morning.
- 02
Sales spends hours on leads that were never a fit.
- 03
The same ten questions are answered by hand every day.
- 04
A chatbot was installed and customers dislike it.
Why AI Agents matters
Speed of response strongly affects whether an enquiry becomes a conversation. An agent can provide that speed at any hour, as long as it knows its limits.
What is included
What do our AI Agents services include?
Assistants that answer, qualify and book, with guardrails and human handover. The scope is set by the audit: you get the parts you need, in the order that pays back soonest.
- 01
Use-case selection
Not every conversation should be given to an agent. We look for tasks that are frequent, well documented and low in consequence if handled imperfectly, and we rule out the ones that are not.
- Enquiry volume and topic analysis
- Risk rating for each task
- Tasks reserved for people
- Success criteria agreed before build
- A narrow first scope
- 02
Knowledge and grounding
An agent is only as accurate as what it is given to read. We assemble approved content into a structured knowledge base and instruct the agent to answer from it, and to say so when the answer is not there.
- Approved source documents and FAQs
- Content structured for retrieval
- Named owner for each topic
- Update process when facts change
- Answers that cite their source
- 03
Guardrails and disclosure
Guardrails define what the agent must not do. They cover topics it will not discuss, commitments it cannot make and the wording it uses to tell people they are talking to AI.
- Clear AI disclosure at the start
- Prohibited topics and claims
- No pricing or commitments beyond approved text
- Handling of personal and sensitive data
- Resistance testing against misuse
- 04
Website and WhatsApp deployment
The agent should be available where enquiries already arrive. On WhatsApp that means the official Business Platform, with its consent and template rules respected.
- Website chat widget
- WhatsApp Business Platform channel
- Consistent behaviour across channels
- Out-of-hours coverage
- Language support where content exists
- 05
CRM, calendar and handover
An answer is useful; a booked meeting with context is more useful. We connect the agent to your systems with the minimum permissions it needs, and define how a chat reaches a person.
- Lead creation and updates in the CRM
- Calendar availability and booking
- Qualification answers saved to the record
- Handover triggers and routing
- Conversation summary for the salesperson
- 06
Review and evaluation
Deployment is the start of the work. Conversations are sampled and scored, errors are traced to their cause and the knowledge base or instructions are corrected.
- Test set of real questions before launch
- Regular sampled conversation review
- Accuracy and tone scoring
- Error log with root cause
- Re-testing after every change
How it works
How does an AI agent decide what to say?
An agent does not look answers up the way a database does. It generates text, guided by instructions and whatever information it is shown. Understanding the five steps explains both what it does well and where it can go wrong.
- 1
Receive
The agent reads the visitor's message together with the conversation so far.
What we doOpen with a clear disclosure and a short statement of what the agent can help with.
- 2
Retrieve
It searches the knowledge base for passages relevant to the question.
What we doStructure and maintain approved content so the right passage is found, and gaps are visible.
- 3
Generate
The language model writes a reply from its instructions and the retrieved passages.
What we doInstruct it to answer only from supplied content and to admit when it does not know.
- 4
Act
Where permitted, it calls a tool: check a calendar, book a slot or update the CRM.
What we doLimit tools to low-risk actions with narrow permissions, and confirm details with the visitor first.
- 5
Escalate
If the request is out of scope, sensitive or unclear, the conversation passes to a person.
What we doDefine escalation triggers, route to the right team and pass on a summary of the chat.
Process
What does a typical AI Agents engagement look like?
Timings are typical and depend on site size and how quickly changes can be shipped. You will know the plan, and the reasoning behind it, before execution starts.
Read our full methodology- 1
Weeks 1 to 2
Use-case assessment
We analyse the enquiries you receive, rate candidate tasks for value and risk, and agree a narrow first scope with measurable success criteria.
- Use-case assessment
- Scope and success criteria
- 2
Weeks 2 to 4
Knowledge base and guardrails
Approved content is gathered, gaps are filled by your subject experts, and the rules for what the agent may and may not say are written down.
- Structured knowledge base
- Guardrail and escalation rules
- 3
Weeks 4 to 6
Build and internal testing
The agent is configured and connected to your CRM and calendar, then tested against a set of real and deliberately awkward questions.
- Configured agent with integrations
- Test results and fixes
- 4
Weeks 6 to 8
Limited pilot
The agent goes live on one channel or a share of traffic. Every conversation is reviewed during this period, and errors are corrected at source.
- Pilot deployment
- Reviewed conversation log
- 5
Every month
Review and controlled expansion
Sampled conversations are scored and the knowledge base updated. Scope is widened only where reviewed accuracy supports it.
- Quality report
- Knowledge and scope updates
Deliverables
What you receive.
- Use-case assessment
- Knowledge base
- Configured agent with guardrails
- Website and WhatsApp deployment
- CRM and calendar integration
- Review and escalation process
- Quality report
Technology and tools
- Large language models
- Retrieval and knowledge tools
- WhatsApp Business Platform
- CRM and calendar APIs
- Conversation analytics
Platforms we typically work across. Named for clarity, not as partnerships or endorsements.
Expected business outcomes
How is AI Agents success measured?
- 01Response time
- 02Resolution without handover
- 03Qualified meetings booked
- 04Accuracy in reviewed conversations
Targets are set after the audit, against your own baseline. We do not promise figures before we have seen the data, and results vary by market and starting point.
Who does what
AI accelerates
- Answering common questions
- Qualifying and booking
- Summarising for the sales team
Experts decide
- Deciding what the agent may do
- Writing and checking its knowledge
- Reviewing conversations
Compare
AI agent or rule-based chatbot: which is right for your enquiries?
Both automate conversations, by very different means. A rule-based chatbot follows a decision tree somebody wrote. An AI agent composes its replies, which makes it more flexible and less predictable.
| AI agent | Rule-based chatbot | |
|---|---|---|
| How it replies | Generates text from your content | Follows scripted paths |
| Open questions | Handles varied phrasing | Only what was anticipated |
| Predictability | Lower; needs guardrails | High; says only scripted text |
| Error type | Can state something wrong | Gets stuck or misroutes |
| Upkeep | Knowledge and review | Rewriting flows |
| Best use | Varied pre-sales questions | Fixed, regulated or transactional steps |
Our viewChoose rules where the wording must never vary, such as regulated statements or payment steps, and an AI agent where questions are too varied to script. Many good builds combine them: fixed flows for the critical steps and an agent for everything around them.
See our WhatsApp automation serviceWho it is for
Is AI Agents right for your business?
- Businesses with high enquiry volume
- Teams with after-hours demand
- Companies with repetitive pre-sales questions
- Organisations replacing a poor chatbot
AI Agents by industry
AI Agents by market
Questions
AI Agents services: frequently asked questions.
Something we have not covered?
Talk to a Growth StrategistHow much does an AI agent cost to build?
Cost depends on the number of tasks, the condition of your existing content, the channels and the integrations required. There are also ongoing model usage and review costs. We scope and price the work after a growth audit, and do not publish a fixed fee.
How long does it take to deploy an AI agent?
A narrow pilot is commonly live within one to two months. Most of that time goes on preparing accurate content and testing, not on the technology. Widening the scope afterwards is gradual, and depends on how the agent performs in reviewed conversations.
Are AI agents worth it for a small business?
They can be if you receive enough repetitive enquiries that replies are slow or missed, particularly out of hours. If enquiries are few, or each one is complicated, a person with good templates is usually the better answer. We check volume and topics before recommending a build.
What is the difference between an AI agent and a chatbot?
A traditional chatbot follows a fixed decision tree and can only handle what its author anticipated. An AI agent uses a language model to understand varied questions, compose answers from your content and take actions through connected tools. It is more flexible and needs more supervision.
Can an AI agent give wrong answers?
Yes. Language models can produce confident statements that are incorrect or unsupported. Grounding in approved content, a narrow scope, guardrails and regular review reduce how often this happens, but nothing removes it completely. That is why high-stakes topics are routed to a person.
Do we have to tell people they are talking to AI?
We always do. It is honest, customers respond better when they know, and some jurisdictions and platforms require it. The agent introduces itself as automated at the start and offers a route to a person at any point in the conversation.
What do you need from us to start?
A sample of real enquiries, your approved product, service and policy content, and access to the CRM, calendar and chat channels. We also need a named person who can confirm facts, and agreement on which team receives conversations the agent hands over.
How do you measure whether an AI agent is working?
We score a sample of conversations for accuracy and appropriateness, and track response time, handover rate, qualified meetings booked and what sales says about lead quality. A high share of chats resolved without a person is only good if the answers were correct.
Is our customer data safe with an AI agent?
It depends on how the agent is built, so we design for it. We limit what the agent collects and can access, review the data terms of the model and tools used, and avoid sensitive categories unless there is a clear, lawful basis. Your own legal review should confirm the setup.
Related services
What works best alongside AI Agents?
- Marketing AutomationCRM, lead routing, email and WhatsApp journeys, and AI agents that qualify and nurture.
- WhatsApp AutomationBusiness Platform setup, consented messaging, chat flows and CRM integration.
- Lead GenerationCampaigns, offers, pages and qualification designed around sales-accepted leads.
More in CRO & Automation:Conversion Rate OptimizationLanding Page OptimizationMarketing AutomationWhatsApp AutomationEmail Marketing
Further reading
From SERPMOZ Research.
Start with a growth audit
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What happens next
- 1
You tell us where you are
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- 2
A strategist reviews it
Search, AI visibility, paid media, content and conversion, read together.
- 3
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The highest-impact opportunities, in order, with the reasoning shown.
No obligation, and no guaranteed outcomes promised. Just an honest read of where you stand.
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