Case studies
How one change plays out.
Four worked examples, one per kind of business I work with, following the same steps: what the owner said, what the diagnosis would find, the one change, and what to leave alone.
These are illustrative scenarios, not client results. The businesses are composites and the figures are examples of what I measure. Groundfloor AI is taking on its first founding clients now, and real case studies will replace these, with permission, as they finish.
Illustrative scenario
Accountancy practice · 8 people
January ate the team's week. Most of it was chasing.
- What they said
- "We need another person for self-assessment season."
- What we'd find
- In a typical January week, about 11 hours went on chasing clients for records: generic reminder emails, then phone calls, then more emails. The average late client needed three or four chasers, and each one was written from scratch. Nobody kept a list of exactly what was missing.
- The one change
- A missing-items list per client, kept in the practice software. From it, a three-step chase (friendly, firm, final) goes out automatically from the practice's own Outlook, naming exactly what is outstanding and by when. Staff only step in after step three.
- Leave alone
- Changing practice software. AI bookkeeping categorisation, which their software already does well enough.
BeforeAfter four weeks
Illustrative scenario
Lettings and sales agency · 6 people
Enquiries came in at night and got answered at nine.
- What they said
- "We need more valuation instructions."
- What we'd find
- About 40% of portal enquiries arrived after 6pm. During the day the first reply took a few hours; in the evening it took until the next morning, by which time the applicant had booked with someone else. Negotiators also spent around 12 minutes typing up each viewing's vendor feedback.
- The one change
- Every enquiry gets a drafted reply with three viewing slots within minutes. In office hours a negotiator approves it with one click; out of hours an acknowledgement goes straight out with a booking link. Viewing notes become a finished vendor email in under a minute, for the negotiator to check and send.
- Leave alone
- A chatbot on the website. Changing CRM. Anything that sends to a vendor without a person reading it first.
BeforeAfter four weeks
Illustrative scenario
Physiotherapy clinic · 2 sites
Patients finished half a course and quietly didn't come back.
- What they said
- "We need more new patients."
- What we'd find
- Roughly three in ten patients stopped before the end of their treatment plan and were never contacted again. Around 25 enquiries a month arrived in the evening by email or web form and waited until the morning. Many were the same five questions about price, parking and whether a referral is needed.
- The one change
- Each month, the booking system lists patients who are six weeks past their last session with no next appointment. Reception sends each one a short personal note, drafted for them. Out of hours, common questions get an instant answer and a link to book. No clinical records are read or moved.
- Leave alone
- Anything touching clinical notes. An AI phone receptionist. New booking software.
BeforeAfter four weeks
Illustrative scenario
Freight forwarder · 14 people
Quoting looked slow. Only some quotes were.
- What they said
- "Our quotes take three days and we lose work."
- What we'd find
- 70% of requests were quoted within four hours. The other 30% took three to six days, because the request arrived missing a detail and nobody noticed for half a day. Drafting a quote took about 25 minutes either way.
- The one change
- Check every quote request on arrival. If something is missing, a templated follow-up asks for exactly that, straight away. Four weeks to set up, and easy to switch off.
- Leave alone
- A customer web form, carrier-rate automation, and changes to commodity classification. None of them were the bottleneck.
BeforeAfter four weeks
Want to be one of the first real ones?
I'm taking on three Hillingdon firms as founding clients at a reduced price, in return for honest feedback and a case study.
Book the first hour, free