Mahi Naturals cuts email queries by 90% with a chatbot
Meghna Patel runs Mahi Naturals Limited, which has imported and distributed natural beauty and personal care brands in the UK since 2011. The business sells online and through retailers including Wholefoods, Planet Organic, premium pharmacies and independent health stores, with products ranging from hair dyes to eczema skincare. What makes this story worth reading is the practical split between where AI helped fast and where it still did not replace a human designer.
AI has been useful where the questions are repetitive and document-led: a chatbot now handles product ingredient and usage queries on the hair dye site, cutting email enquiries by 90%. But image design and simple marketing artwork still work better with a person, and the founder is clear that businesses should do one channel well rather than spread themselves thin.
What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?
Since 2011 my company has imported and distributed international natural beauty and personal care brands in the UK . We sell online and also offline through retailers like Wholefoods, Planet Organic, premium pharmacies and independent health stores. The brands we sell offer customers better and more effective natural formulas that don’t contain any nasty chemicals and so are better for your body and the planet . products range from hair dyes and eczema skincare, to lip balms and vegan cosmetics.
Since launch, what have been the 1-2 real turning points for your brand: decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability, and what did you learn from them?
Previously customers would discover our brands in health stores after recommendations from store staff or natural health professionals. Now most people discover us online as it is easy to read reviews, check ingredients and compare products. We wish more business came from customers discovering our products through online content and micro influencers reviews on social media platforms – it is an area we are actively working on.
Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now, and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?
On our hair dye website we used to get a lot of email enquiries from new users asking the same type of questions re product ingredients and usage guidance. We had a chat bot built that could pull info from all our technical docs and customer query emails have reduced by 90% as the bot is successfully helping customers get the guidance they need. We have tried to use AI for image design and simple marketing artwork but the results are not good so we still use our designer for that.
How are you thinking about search in 2026, across Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What have you changed to stay visible?
Yes we have seen in the past few months customer discovering us through Chat GPT recommendations which is exciting. We are working on building the content online and SEO to ensure it offers visitors the most accurate information possible and to make sure we are always featured alongside competitors with our USP’s clearly identified.
What do you do to turn first-time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well?
Work on SEO, social media presence and use Google Ad words to drive traffic. It is easy to spend on all the different social media platforms and agencies but take time to see which is genuinely a good fit for your product and if the demographic is right other wise it can be a costly process with minimal sales. Better to do 1 well than have thin presence across many that ultimately does not drive growth.
Thank you to Meghna Patel and the team at Mahi Naturals Limited for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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