By using AI, the team at Little Chief & Co. are constantly enhancing and personalizing client service, while also finding efficiencies in their operations.Supplied
It started with an Airedale named Maizey.
Years before they started a boutique dog store in their hometown of St. Catharines, Ont., Mike and Jen McKenna were looking for natural health products for Maizey, with little luck. They wanted food, treats and natural remedies with effective formulas that were made from clean ingredients and prioritized sustainability, but there were few options in their own community, or even in bigger cities nearby.
Little Chief & Co.’s goal is to make natural, eco-friendly pet products accessible to Canadian dogs (and their owners).Supplied
The couple spent about 15 years nurturing the dream of opening such a business, but neither had a background in retail. (Mr. McKenna is a former Bell Media executive producer turned consultant, while Mrs. McKenna is a geochemist.) It seemed out of reach. Then, in the summer of 2018, Mr. McKenna travelled to Europe for work and saw store after store doing exactly what he and Jen had dreamed of.
“I came back and said, ‘Let’s do this. This isn’t available in Canada [to the level] we see in Europe.’ We just decided on a whim. We registered the business in January, 2019, signed our lease in February, and were open in April.”
The store, Little Chief & Co., offers discerning pet owners eco-friendly toys, holistic wellness products, natural food and treats and more – it also reflects the family’s core values. They stand behind the products they sell as well as their business practices, including paying employees a thriving wage.
The store has become a core part of the canine community in St. Catharines – its Google Business Profile has a 4.9-star rating – and now the couple is exploring expanding Little Chief & Co.’s presence in the Canadian pet market. That’s where AI comes in, Mr. McKenna says.
When the company was starting out, there were no accessible tech tools to lean on. Now, things are very different. “Coming from the media and gaming spaces, I kind of had knowledge of AI. I knew I was going to have to use it somehow, but I didn’t have any concept of how,” Mr. McKenna says. “But now it’s a daily thing. It’s something that I intuitively do because it’s benefiting us, giving us so much insight and really helping us make some smart decisions.”
“The businesses we’ve seen adopt AI gradually often end up saving time, cutting costs and freeing themselves up to focus more on their customers,” says Digital Main Street CEO John Kiru.
“A small shop can now market itself with the sophistication of a much larger company by using AI for targeted ads or personalized customer communication. And on the creative side, AI tools are helping small businesses design visuals, write copy, and even innovate new products faster than before.”
At Little Chief & Co., the benefit has largely come from Google’s free tools. The McKennas rely on Google Analytics and Gemini to understand what types of content resonate with customers, so their team creates more of what serves their needs. As a result, the company grew its online traffic by 25 per cent last year, he says, which in turn had a positive impact on sales.
“We use Analytics and Gemini to identify [the products customers are searching for], then we target them in our social marketing, which does help with conversion,” Mr. McKenna says.
Placing a big emphasis on personalized service, Little Chief & Co. invites customers to book consultations and follows up with them directly – with some help from Gemini.
“It enhances how we capture and communicate with our community after consultations – not to replace our consultants, but to improve and personalize customer interactions,” he says.
“It’s steps for us. As we grow, we’re trying to find efficiencies using Google AI tools. It’s about ‘how do we have better client service within that?’ But also ‘how do we find efficiencies within our own operations?’”
These data-powered tools are enabling growth at a scale small businesses couldn’t manage otherwise.
Using data to inform business decisions is a strategic boon, but it comes with responsibilities, says Laurence Therrien, Public Affairs Manager at Google Canada.
“The way Google approaches this is by establishing privacy as a foundational design principle for every product we build, which is what we call ‘Private by Design.’ It’s not an afterthought; it’s the starting point,” she says. “We build products that are secure by default, meaning we use technology to protect user information before a user even has to think about it.
“Crucially, we are also thoughtful about the data we use, how we use it and how we protect it. We are constantly looking for ways to reduce the data we use in the first place, and where data is needed, we invest in and share advanced privacy technologies to make it less identifiable.”
That’s key as the McKennas and their team look toward expanding across Canada, particularly through marketing and content creation, and as they start to investigate what it would mean to develop their own products, whether grooming items, treats or supplements – and using Gemini to help.
No matter where Little Chief & Co. goes in the future, dogs and the people who love them will remain at the centre of the company’s strategy.
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio with Google Canada. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.
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