Using ChatGPT for Work Tasks
Learn how to use ChatGPT for work tasks like customer service responses, content generation, data analysis, sales campaigns and even coding
AI Tool: ChatGPT
Level: Beginner
Access: Free
This guide is part 4 of the free course Learn how to use ChatGPT.
In this guide, we will cover using ChatGPT for work tasks including:
Customer service
Content generation
Data Analysis
Sales
Programming
Using ChatGPT at Scale
If you need help setting up ChatGPT, see part 3 of this course.
Using ChatGPT at work
While ChatGPT can't perform every task in your business, it can perform many tasks well and much quicker than any human could.
When used well, ChatGPT can be a huge productivity booster in your work, getting routine repetitive tasks done quickly and with ease.
There are a wide range of work tasks ChatGPT can help with.
In this guide, we will cover a broad range of tasks that would be needed in a range of different businesses including:
Customer service: Creating a professional reply to an unhappy customer
Content generation: Writing an email and social post for a product launch
Data analysis: Analysing sales figures
Sales: Brainstorming effective lead-generation tactics
Coding: Explaining code and debugging errors
Customer service
How a business handles complaints can be critical in the modern age. Poor customer service responses can be easily publicised and shared widely on social media, with the potential to cause significant damage to a professional brand.
Also, the impact on staff that need to continually deal with difficult or negative customer feedback can have a considerable impact on their stress levels and mental health.
Businesses are increasingly realising that they need to do more to improve mental health in the workplace.
Dealing skilfully with customer complaints, while also reducing the negative impacts on employee mental health is a significant challenge for many businesses, and it is a challenge that tools like ChatGPT can help with
Using ChatGPT, staff can draft more thoughtful, empathic responses that are specific to particular customer complaints, which can be given the final checkover by human staff.
This can vastly speed up the complaint response times while maintaining high-quality responses and reducing the negative impact on employee mental health.
Let's look at an example prompt template we could use to deal with a range of customer complaints:
Example prompt
Our business has received the complaint below from an unhappy customer. Please help me craft an appropriate and considerate response email.Â
Unhappy customer email
[Email]
Reasons the business acted as it did
[Reasons]
Options the business is willing to offer
[Options]
Here's an example:
The Customer Service Representative could then do a final review, and further changes before sending, saving considerable time.
You could then reuse this template for further complaints, substituting the parts in brackets, to generate appropriate responses to those complaints.
Content Generation
In our digital age, businesses are under constant pressure to produce a steady stream of engaging content, from emails and social media posts to blog articles and more.
However, the creative process can be fleeting, and inspiration can evaporate as quickly as a drop of water in the desert.
Fortunately, ChatGPT's content generation capabilities offer a great solution to this problem.
Imagine you're preparing for a product launch and need to craft a compelling launch email and social media posts to generate engagement.
Instead of getting stuck in front of a blank page, struggling with writer's block, you can turn to ChatGPT to ignite your creative spark.
While I don't recommend using AI-generated content copy and paste for tasks like this, ChatGPT assistance can help you complete 80% of the work quickly, leaving you to refine the final 20% and add your personal touch.
Example prompt
Write a concise, product launch email and a Twitter post for my new offering. Keep the email as brief as possible while conveying key information. Make both engaging and fun, intelligent and understated, and not too over the top.
Product details: [Insert product description here]
Here's an example:
Not bad. I especially like the good use of emojis in the Twitter post, nicely done!
I’m going to order one of these disco ball cat helmets right away, or maybe 2?
Data analysisÂ
It's not only data analysts who need to do data analysis, many roles now require some data analysis skills, which can be tricky and painful at times. As a former data scientist myself I understand the pain involved sometimes.
Extracting valuable insights from business data - be it sales numbers, marketing performance, or operational expenses - can be a time-consuming and laborious task when done manually.
ChatGPT offers a solution by automating this process: simply upload your data and let the AI handle the complex analysis.
Let's use as an example this csv of sample sales data.
Upload it to ChatGPT.
Example prompt
I need help reviewing our sales numbers. Can you provide a concise summary and analysis of this uploaded data?
So this is just a top-level summary.
We can do a more detailed analysis by just asking:
Identify the top selling products
Quite impressive right?
One key point here, as we mentioned in an earlier guide, is when we want factually correct answers from ChatGPT we need to be extra careful to check the answers as ChatGPT can make mistakes sometimes.
I would strongly advise not blindly trusting this AI analysis, but doing some additional checks on the key findings, by going and looking at the data yourself.
Even by doing these extra checks that the analysis is correct, using ChatGPT AI would still save you considerable time over doing this data analysis manually.
Sales
Developing innovative, effective approaches to attract new sales prospects is an ongoing challenge for many businesses. Even seasoned sales professionals may occasionally find themselves short on fresh ideas.
When you need to brainstorm creative ways to generate quality leads, ChatGPT can serve as an excellent & helpful ideation partner.
Prompt example
Suggest some effective lead-generation tactics for our sales team.
Description of the business and any current sales efforts
[Description]
Let's try it out:
Not bad.
Want to deliver consistent, insightful sales reports? ChatGPT’s got you covered.
Prompt example
Can you help me create a template for our weekly sales report presentation?
Thats great.
Programming
As a former web developer myself, I know working with code can mean getting stuck in complex debugging at times, which can be time-consuming.
Finding the causes of bugs can be painful and involve too many cups of coffee into the night!
Rather than drinking too much coffee and getting stressed trying to find problems in your code, you can simply call super-hero ChatGPT to help you zone in on the problem and help you fix it.
Example prompt
Can you explain what this code is doing?
Nice.
How about if I have a bug in my code but can't see it?
Example prompt
I'm not sure if my code is correct, can you help me debug it?
That's very helpful.
We can also get ChatGPT to write code for us if we give it a description of what we want.
Good job.
Using ChatGPT at Scale
Think back to our customer service complaints example, while copying and pasting the text into the ChatGPT web interface gets the job done, you'd imagine for a large company with many complaints that might get a bit tedious.
Is there a way to use ChatGPT more easily at scale? Yes, there is, that's using the ChatGPT API, which is a way to integrate ChatGPT into automated processes.
API integration allows you to integrate ChatGPT's diverse functionalities such as customer service responses, content generation, data analysis and more directly within your applications, tools, and workflows - eliminating the need to constantly toggle between different interfaces.
Furthermore, you can use automation platforms like Zapier to link ChatGPT with your existing technology ecosystem.
This opens up new avenues for automation, enabling ChatGPT to produce content, respond to inquiries, or examine data based on triggers from various business systems.
Whether you're a programmer aiming to craft customised AI solutions or a non-technical user seeking to incorporate ChatGPT into your day-to-day tools, the API and integration possibilities make implementing this state-of-the-art technology more accessible than ever before.
Next guide in the course: Writing Better Prompts for ChatGPT