Drinks wholesaler Mr Lemonade has reported making “significant savings” and growing its business after implementing new AI technology.
The London-based company has estimated saving £50,000 after implementing AI tools by supply manager specialist Choco AI.
The wholesaler improved its operations by automating tasks including back office, payment and invoicing to suppliers and customers.
Mr Lemonade is also using AI for order processing, where customer calls and emails are received and processed by AI on the wholesaler’s central system.
“Choco’s algorithms have been able to gradually learn different language characteristics, languages, and accents across our customers,” said Mr Lemonade founder and MD Karol Chamera.
“It also leverages the customer’s order history to know exactly what they want and ensures orders go directly into our system without errors that could arise from language barriers or miscommunication.”
The business is also using AI to automate its invoicing and payments with a service called InstantPay, which allowed it to reduce payment collection time from 30-35 days to two days.
“The InstantPay feature reduces the risk significantly, and you get the cash two days after issuing the invoice,” said Chamera. “We’re paid upfront on a weekly basis for the value of all invoices sent the previous week, regardless of the payment terms and regardless of whether the customer pays.
“One of the most stressful parts of this business is chasing down payments from customers, especially when we have to wait weeks to collect payment. Now, we’re able to reinvest that money in the business and have added two new warehouses without a lot of the anxiety we had when we previously expanded into new space.
“Using AI helped us to grow the business and have a wider outreach due to flexibility of the system, and ability to offer different payment and credit solutions.”
The business went from being led by married couple Thaiz and Karol Chamera “out of a council garage with just £2,000 in cash” in 2016 to a business with a £3.3m turnover employing 30 members of staff this year.
Mr Lemonade supplies grocery stores, restaurants, foodservice outlets and retailers with a variety of craft drinks, sodas and snacking products.
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