How to use AI to run a gas delivery business

What it is good at

The tools people mean by AI, chat assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT, are best at working with words and at finding patterns in information you give them. In a gas business, that covers a surprising amount of the office.

Writing to customers

Most customer letters are the same few jobs: a price change, a change to delivery days, a reminder about returning cylinders, a note about a bank holiday week. Describe what you need to say and who it is for, and an assistant will draft it in seconds. You then read it, correct it and send it.

Always read before sending. A draft is a starting point, and it will say things you did not mean with complete confidence.

Summarising the day or the week

Give an assistant a list of the day's deliveries, the failed drops and the drivers' notes, and it can tell you in a few lines what needs your attention. It is good at turning a long list into a short one.

Asking questions of your own records

Questions that would take an evening with a spreadsheet can be asked in plain English: which customers have not ordered in 2 months, which regular deliveries are due next week, which drops failed and why. The assistant needs to see the records to answer, either because you give them to it or because it is connected to the system they live in.

Tidying a messy customer list

Customer lists built up over years are full of duplicates, half addresses and names spelt 3 ways. An assistant is good at spotting likely duplicates and suggesting a consistent format. Let it suggest, and decide yourself which records to merge.

What it is bad at, or risky for

The same tools that write well will also state wrong facts fluently. Treat anything in these areas as needing a person to check against the source:

• Prices and money. An assistant can misread a figure or invent one. Check any price, total or balance against your own records.
• VAT and tax. Ask your accountant, not a chat window.
• Regulation and safety. The carriage of gas cylinders, vehicle limits, drivers' hours and gas safety all have proper sources: your gas supplier, a dangerous goods safety adviser and GOV.UK. Do not take an assistant's word for any of them.
• Anything final. Let it draft, summarise and suggest. Keep sending, charging and deleting with a person.

Customer data and privacy

This matters more than anything else in this guide. Pasting customer names, addresses and account details into a free consumer chat tool can put personal data somewhere your business has not agreed to, and possibly into what the tool learns from.

• Use a business account whose terms say your data is not used to train the model.
• Check what the tool does with what you give it, how long it keeps it and who can see it, before you give it anything personal.
• Give it only what the task needs. A price-change letter does not need anyone's address.
• If you are unsure whether a use is allowed, the Information Commissioner's Office publishes guidance for small businesses.

Terms change, so check them yourself rather than relying on what anyone said a tool did last year.

Getting started

Start small. Pick one job that eats time every week, such as writing the monthly reminder or summarising failed drops, and try an assistant on that alone. Keep what works, and drop what does not.