UV Window Coatings has been operating since 1997, installing premium window film across Melbourne. I bought it last year, coming from commercial law and then a few executive roles, including time at a tech startup, so it was a genuine change of direction for me. What sets us apart comes down to our credentials and track record. We’re a 3M Platinum Select Partner, 3M’s top accreditation tier, and we’re certified by WFAANZ, the Window Film Association of Australia and New Zealand. Plenty of installers in this market compete on price and use the cheapest film irrespective of whether it’s suitable for the job. We’re trying to be the ones you still call in one, five, ten, twenty years when something needs looking at.

Mostly Google search, word of mouth, and commercial clients who’ve used us before and bring us onto their next site. I’d like more of it to come from people finding a specific answer on our site to a specific question, rather than typing "window tinting near me" and picking whoever comes up first. We’ve put real work into our site content with articles and practical videos answering things properly, like whether film on the inside of your glass actually stops condensation (it can help manage it but doesn’t stop it, though some competitors will tell you it does) or what our warranty actually covers. I want UV Window Coatings to be seen as the trusted authority for premium window tinting.

We’ve automated the quoting calculations, so Deborah, our products specialist, isn’t sitting at a desk building quotes by hand anymore. That time now goes into actually talking with clients, doing proper on-site glass assessments, walking people through their options in person. That’s the real value of AI for us, freeing her up to spend more time on the part of the job that actually needs a person, rather than replacing her. What didn’t work was going a step further and letting AI draft the product recommendation itself, which film for which job. It kept getting close but wrong in small ways, because it can’t see the glass or the building, so we pulled that back and Deborah handles the recommendation herself again.

Yes, and faster than I expected. We’ve had a few customers tell us directly that they asked ChatGPT who to use for window tinting in Melbourne and our name came up. That wasn’t happening a year ago. It’s made me a lot more careful about our facts being right everywhere, our site, our Google listing, our reviews and our social media, since whatever these tools say about us, right or wrong, seems to reach people before they’ve even opened our website.

Do this: look at where your staff are losing time to admin that AI could just take off their hands, quoting, scheduling, first-response emails, and give that time back to the parts of the job that actually need a person, like Deborah spending more time with clients instead of buried in paperwork. That’s where the real return is, in getting more out of the people you’ve already got, not in cutting headcount. Ignore the pressure to plug in every AI feature that gets advertised to you, especially anything promising to replace the judgment call itself. Someone still has to look at the output and make that decision, and AI should be clearing the admin out of the way for your staff, not making that call for them.