As a licensed arborist and marketing strategist for tree care companies, I’ve seen my fair share of industry transformations. But none quite matches the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize how we operate our businesses, serve our customers and grow our bottom line.

At TCI EXPO ’24 in Baltimore, where I presented alongside AI strategist Jonathan Mast, we explored the practical ways tree care professionals can leverage this technology. I want to share these insights, because I believe understanding AI isn’t just helpful – it’s becoming essential for staying competitive.

The real-world impact of AI in tree care
Let’s be clear – AI is still in its infancy. The tools and processes we use today may look different in a month. But that’s exactly why understanding the fundamentals is so important. When you grasp the basics, you then can adapt to any changes that come along.

What excites me most about AI for tree care companies is how it solves real problems we face daily. Think about the challenges that consume your time: optimizing crew schedules, keeping up with equipment maintenance, responding to customer inquiries and converting leads to sales, to name just a few. AI can help with all of these.

Where AI delivers the most value
While implementing AI tools and systems in your business does come with an initial investment, mostly in terms of time and software, it can lead to significant savings in operational costs over time and allow you to grow your business more effectively.

• During my work with tree care companies across North America, I’ve seen several areas where AI delivers immediate results, including:
  Equipment maintenance and safety
  How much time do you spend flipping through equipment manuals or creating maintenance checklists? AI can generate comprehensive inspection protocols for your chain saws, climbing gear, chippers and aerial lifts by instantly analyzing manufacturer guidelines. Upload those 500-page PDFs just once, and AI will extract exactly what you need in seconds; just ask it what you need to know.
• Pest and disease identification
  When you encounter an unfamiliar pest or disease symptom, AI image recognition can help identify it. Simply snap a photo and upload it. This capability not only helps your team in the field but also can become a valuable service you offer customers – positioning your company as the local tree-health authority.
• Operational efficiency
  The technology can analyze your customer locations, factor in traffic conditions, estimate service times for each appointment, determine equipment needs and evaluate crew capabilities to create the most efficient schedule possible. Reducing drive time and time on site not only cuts down on fuel and labor costs, it also lets you fit additional customers into your daily schedule to increase revenue.
• Marketing content creation
  I can’t tell you how many tree-service owners tell me they know they should be sending regular emails or posting on social media, but never find the time. AI can draft newsletters, create social posts and even write educational content for your website – all in your company’s voice and style.
• Customer service
  This is where AI has perhaps made the most visible advances. Today’s AI chatbots aren’t the clunky, frustrating “customer-service” bots of just a few years ago. Instead, they provide genuine 24/7 customer support by having natural conversations via chat or text message, answering questions about your services, offering tailored recommendations based on the customer’s tree species and local conditions and even scheduling appointments.I’m particularly excited about how automated systems are improving the ongoing customer relationship. We’re seeing great results from AI-powered systems that send seasonal maintenance reminders, schedule follow-up appointments, check in after service completion and ask for reviews. And something as simple as implementing AI-driven service reminders can have a huge impact on repeat business.

The sales game changer
Let’s talk about the area where I’m seeing the most dramatic results: sales and lead management. Did you know that only 27% of local leads are actually contacted by small- to mid-sized businesses, and fewer than 40% of inbound calls are answered?

That’s money left on the table, especially when you consider that responding to a lead within the first minute increases your chance of closing the deal by 391%, according to study by Velocify, now a part of Mortgage Technology (mortgagetech.ice.com). After just five minutes, your chances plummet. The reality is that we’re all busy running our operations, and for most of us it’s impossible to answer every call immediately.

This is where AI chatbots are transforming businesses without requiring you to be glued to your phone 24/7. When a potential customer calls and doesn’t receive an immediate response, an AI chatbot can engage with them instantly. It can ask qualifying questions about their location, service needs and timeline – filtering out time wasters while nurturing genuine opportunities. When someone submits a form on your website at 11 p.m., the AI immediately engages them while interest is high, rather than waiting until business hours when they might already have called a competitor.

I know that, for one tree care company in Washington state, implementing an AI chatbot increased their lead conversion rate by 42% in just two months. The system automatically engages with potential customers, answers basic questions and – most important – sends immediate notifications for hot leads that meet their criteria. The business only gets alerted when there’s a qualified opportunity, not for every inquiry that comes through, letting their team focus first on prospects with the best chance of closing.

Getting started – the tools you need
You don’t need a degree in computer science to start using AI in your tree care business. Several user-friendly tools make implementation straightforward.

• ChatGPT and Claude
  These are my go-to, general-purpose AI tools. Both can now search the web in real time (previously, they were limited to only the dataset they were trained on, which was always out of date). I particularly like Claude for its more nuanced output, ability to work with larger documents and datasets and complex reasoning skills. Use these for creating communications, developing SOPs (standard operating procedures), analyzing data (Claude is great at writing scripts to process data in Google Sheets, saving a lot of time on routine data tasks!) and content creation.
• Perplexity.ai
  This has become my default search engine. It provides answers with citations and suggests related questions, making it perfect for research. It’s especially useful when writing FAQs (frequently asked questions) for your website or educational content for customers.
• Image-generation tools
  AI tools like Midjourney, DALL-E (built into ChatGPT), Leonardo and Flux can create custom visuals for almost anything you can think of. However, it does take some work to learn how to use them. For the more casual user, Magic Media inside Canva can generate decent images (e.g., for online marketing materials).

The investment is minimal – most tools offer free versions, with premium features available for around $20 per month. Think about it; for roughly $100 a month, you can have a custom advisor, data analyst, marketing assistant, sales assistant and operational guru working for you 24/7.

How to communicate effectively with AI
The key to getting useful results from AI is clear communication and providing as much information as possible up front. Here’s the four-step framework, including example prompts, I use to tell the AI what to do:

1. Tell the AI how it should act.
   “You are an expert in tree care equipment maintenance and safety protocols. I need your help creating a comprehensive checklist for maintaining and inspecting our chain saws.”
2. Give it context about the situation.
   “Tree care professionals rely on various tools and equipment, such as chain saws, to perform their jobs safely and efficiently. Regular maintenance and inspections are critical to ensure the equipment remains in good working condition and meets safety standards. We have six crew members who provide tree pruning and removal services for residential properties in western North Carolina. We use these chain saws from Husqvarna: T540XP Mark III, 372XP and 592XP.”
3. Tell it what type of response you want.
   “Please create a detailed checklist for each chain-saw model. Each checklist should include: pre-use inspections, regular maintenance tasks and intervals, safety checks, cleaning and storage guidelines, signs of wear or damage to look for and replacement or repair criteria.”
4. Tell the AI to ask clarifying questions – and then provide it with detailed answers to any questions it asks you.
   “Please ask me any clarifying questions that will help you provide the best possible response.”

I’ve found that treating AI as a team member – providing context, details and expectations – yields much better results. And unlike a team member, AI never has a bad day, never calls in sick and is available whenever you need it.

Avoiding the pitfalls
AI isn’t perfect. It will occasionally make things up (called “hallucinating”) or provide incorrect information. That’s why I always emphasize the importance of fact checking and drawing on your own knowledge and experience. If AI tells you you’re looking at bacterial leaf scorch but your area has been experiencing drought conditions, double-check before making recommendations to your customer.

AI also needs training to understand your business. Without proper guidance, it might use phrases like “leafy companions” or “green giants” – terms no professional arborist would use. But with the right instructions and examples of your preferred communication style, AI can quickly adapt to your or your company’s voice.

Taking action
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities, I recommend starting small. Pick one area where AI could make an immediate impact on your business – maybe it’s implementing a lead-response system, creating maintenance checklists or automating your email newsletter.

Focus on that one thing, keep tweaking it until you get it right and then expand to another application. The compounding benefits of each implementation will transform your business over time.

I’m passionate about helping tree care companies thrive, and I firmly believe AI is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. It won’t replace the expertise and hands-on skills that make our industry special, but it can certainly free us up to focus on what we do best – provide exceptional tree care services to our communities.

For companies willing to embrace this technology, the future looks exceptionally bright – and remarkably efficient.

Monica Hemingway has a Ph.D. in industrial psychology, is a licensed Connecticut arborist and is owner of Tree Care Marketing Solutions, a nine-year TCIA corporate member company based in Tucson, Arizona.

This article is based on her presentation on the same subject during TCI EXPO ’24 in Baltimore, Maryland. To view a recording click here.