What an AI audit actually looks at

The audit starts with homework I do on my own time, not yours. I look at your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and how a customer would try to reach you at 7 pm on a Tuesday. I check how long it would take a stranger to get an answer out of your business. A surprising amount is visible from the outside, and the outside view is what your customers see.

Before our session, you fill out a short form: what the business does, how customers reach you, and what is eating your time. It takes a few minutes. It exists so our live time goes to work instead of introductions.

We spend about 75 minutes together, on video or in person if you are local. We map a real week of work, in roughly this order.

• The phone. How many calls come in, when they come in, and how many get answered. Missed calls are one of the most common money leaks in service businesses, and one of the most undercounted.
• The inbox. Quotes, questions, scheduling requests. How fast they get answered, and by whom.
• Scheduling and intake. How an appointment actually gets booked, from first contact to calendar.
• Follow-up. What happens after a quote goes out. In many businesses the honest answer is one attempt, then nothing.
• Repeat questions. The questions you and your staff answer over and over. These are prime automation candidates, because they are frequent, predictable, and boring.
• Paperwork and documents. Where information lives, and how hard it is to pull an answer out of it.

Every business is different, but the same patterns show up often enough that I can describe them honestly without pointing at anyone:

• A meaningful share of calls goes unanswered during working hours because everyone is doing the actual work.
• New leads wait hours for a first reply, and after-hours inquiries often get none.
• Quotes get one follow-up, then get forgotten when the week gets busy.
• The same five to ten customer questions get answered many times a week.
• Scheduling runs on phone tag spread across two or three apps.
• Important answers sit inside documents that only one person knows how to search.

You will not have all of these. The point of the audit is to find yours, not to read from a script.

Within 5 business days of the session, you get a written opportunity plan. It includes:

• The three strongest opportunities, ranked by impact, effort, risk, and readiness. Specific to your business, not a generic list.
• Recommended tools with current public prices when available, meaning the number the vendor actually charges.
• Estimated impact, cost, and potential return, based on the information available and clearly stated assumptions. Anyone who promises exact returns is guessing.
• What not to automate, and why. This section matters as much as the rest.
• The prioritized next action: what to do first, what can wait, and what to skip entirely.

No fake precision. No 60-page deck. No list of 40 tools you will never open. The plan fits on a few pages, because a plan you will actually use beats a binder you will not.

Whatever you want. Execute it yourself, hand it to another vendor, or hire dbar Labs for a proof of concept or implementation. If you book either within 30 days, the full audit fee credits toward it. The plan is yours either way.

That is the whole product: a clear picture of where your time and money go, and an honest sequence for getting some of both back.