How Manufacturers Can Use AI to Strengthen Customer Relationships

By Donna Peterson

More manufacturers are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to evolve their approach to relationship management. Used correctly, AI doesn’t replace the human connection that makes the industry strong, it enhances it. It can help you communicate in a personalized manner, stay consistent across your team, and free up time to focus on what really matters: building lasting customer relationships. Below I will give “quick prompts,” or concise, focused instructions you can provide to an AI tool, that you can begin using today.

How AI Is Already Being Used in Manufacturing
Here are a few ways AI has been successfully deployed in manufacturing settings.

1. Personalized Follow-Ups with Audio Capture
At a recent event, we discussed notetaking apps with built-in AI features, like Fathom (www.fathom.video). These tools free you up to be fully present during calls because they record and transcribe everything for you.

Afterward, you can use those transcripts to analyze tone and voice. Are they warming up to taking action? What got them most engaged? You can also extract action items to create a clear plan to share with your team or follow up with individuals. In addition, you can use these tools to identify key priorities, pinpointing what really matters to them and use that insight to create more relevant follow-ups and content.

My workflow: After a call, I upload the transcript into ChatGPT and ask:

Quick Prompt

This turns a generic “thanks for your time” email into a personalized note that builds trust, without spending an hour writing it.

2. Turning Product Information into Customer-Focused Campaigns
One manufacturer I worked with, Kohler Germany, wanted to get more value out of their product brochures. Using AI, we transformed these technical materials into audience-specific email campaigns.

A CEO received messaging that focused on operational impact and ROI. A plant manager received emails that addressed day-to-day process challenges and usability.

Quick Prompt


3. Post-Tradeshow Outreach
Industry events can create dozens of new relationships, but too often we get caught up in everyday work and we do not follow up in a timely fashion. The leads go cold.
Here’s my process to follow up shortly after the event:

• Right after a conversation, I dictate key takeaways using ChatGPT’s audio feature.
• I prompt: “Draft a follow-up email thanking them for visiting our booth, mention a personal topic we discussed, address their key concerns, and invite them to reconnect.”
• I also take photos of business cards and ask AI to build a clean contact file for easy import into my CRM. This saves me time and avoids any input mistakes.

Quick Prompt

How to Get Started
If you’re new to AI, here’s the secret: what you put in determines what you get out. Go and just start talking to it. Treat your large language model (such as ChatGPT) as a friend you are meeting for tea/coffee. Don’t just leave at the first response; dig deep to get the exact response you’re looking for.

Before typing a prompt, ask yourself:

• What am I trying to achieve?
• Who is this for?
• What do I want them to do next? 

Then:

• Try it: Paste a customer email into ChatGPT and ask: “Make this sound more personal and conversational.”
• Experiment: Request the same draft in different tones: “Make this sound like it’s from a technical director."
• Reflect: Review and refine until it matches your voice. Your output is only as good as your input. Thoughtful, detailed prompts lead to better results.

When you have mastered this, you can start to create prompts that can eliminate the redundant long text prompts you use. This is called prompt engineering, but I will save that topic for another time.

Taking It Further: Using Custom GPTs
Once you’re comfortable with basic tools, consider creating a custom GPT, a private AI assistant trained on your company’s tone, products, and processes.

This ensures consistent communication, speeds up repetitive tasks, and helps your team respond faster. For example, you can feed it FAQs, brand guidelines, and customer insights to create a “shared assistant” for drafting quotes, outreach emails, or even repurposing technical content.

Dean Philips, technical director of the Precision Metalforming Association, sees AI transforming how teams access and use training materials. He says, “AI can provide the correct material specific to the need you have at the moment and do so in the best format for you to learn. Sometimes descriptions work best, others a picture can help identify key components, and a video can help show complex interactions. AI optimizes content delivery so everyone can use it effectively.”

This is exactly how a custom GPT can shine: hosting training materials, worksheets, and resources in one place so your team can quickly find and apply what they need.
To explore GPT, open ChatGPT and on the left-hand side click ‘GPTs’ and then start to explore. My colleague Matthew McClosky created a Director of Sales GPT which you might find interesting to review.

Video to Help Your Brand Stand Out
Outside of in-person meetings, video is the next most powerful way to let people see and get to know you. With so much AI-generated content flooding the marketplace, customers are trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not, and with video, there’s no question: you’re real.

Here’s how to get started:

Go to ChatGPT and ask: “Draft a 60-second script introducing our services for a LinkedIn video.”

• Record yourself reading it on your phone camera. Don’t be critical, we all dislike seeing ourselves on video.
• Take that raw recording (no matter how rough) and upload it to Descript (www.descript.com), a video editing tool. Follow their tutorial and watch how your unpolished video transforms into a professional, shareable piece of content. Now you can start to insert videos into your emails to help increase your response rates.

Quick Prompt


Conclusion & Takeaways
AI isn’t about replacing people; it’s about enhancing your team’s ability to connect.

Start small. Use tools like Fathom to capture and analyze customer conversations. Try ChatGPT to repurpose product information or tailor content for different decision-makers. Build confidence with small experiments before moving into advanced tools like custom GPTs.

AI is evolving quickly, with new features and tools becoming available almost daily. While this is exciting, proceed with caution. I once invested in a promising platform that could automate content from our podcast episodes. I put so much confidence in the platform I shifted a team member from marketing to sales. But then that platform lost funding and shut down, and I had to quickly rebuild our process. The lesson? Embrace AI, experiment, and see what works for your company. But don’t put all your eggs in one basket, especially with unproven tools.

At its core, AI is just a tool; the real key to growth is relationships. In order for brands to succeed in the future, they must continue to value and work on developing meaningful connections with customers by having their real voices and faces out in the marketplace. When used wisely, AI gives us the time and tools to do exactly that.

Donna Peterson is president at World Innovators.