If you run a small business, you've probably heard people talking about Custom GPTs and wondered whether it was worth the time to figure out. The short answer is yes, and the longer answer is that it's a lot easier than most of the conversation around it suggests.
This article walks through what a Custom GPT actually is, what kinds of problems it solves well, what it costs, and how to set one up in about twenty minutes. No technical background required.
What is a Custom GPT?
A Custom GPT is a version of ChatGPT that you've configured for a specific job. Think of it as the same ChatGPT you might already be using, except you've taught it your business, your tone, your products, and the answers you want it to give.
Once it's set up, anyone with a ChatGPT account can use it. You can keep it private for just yourself, share it with your team, or publish it for your customers.
You're not training a new AI model. You're not writing code. You're filling out a form that tells ChatGPT how to behave when someone uses your particular GPT. That's it.
What is it actually good for?
Custom GPTs are best for repetitive tasks that involve answering questions or producing similar kinds of content over and over. A few examples that translate well to most small businesses:
An internal Q&A assistant. Upload your employee handbook, your standard operating procedures, and your FAQ document. Now any employee can ask questions like "what's our return policy" or "how do I request time off" and get an immediate answer instead of waiting on a manager.
A customer-facing FAQ bot. Same idea, but published for the public. Your website visitors can ask the GPT questions about your products, services, or business hours instead of waiting on an email reply.
A draft writer trained on your voice. Upload examples of how you write to clients. The GPT can draft proposals, follow-up emails, or marketing copy that already sounds like you, saving you the editing pass.
A quoting assistant. Feed it your pricing structure, your past quotes, and the questions you typically ask new prospects. It can help your office manager produce a draft estimate that you only need to review.
A training tool for new hires. Upload your training materials. New employees can ask the GPT questions throughout their first month without bothering you for every small thing.
These are the low-hanging fruit. The pattern is the same across all of them: take knowledge that lives in someone's head or in a folder of documents, and make it instantly available to anyone who needs it.
What does it cost?
To create a Custom GPT, you need a paid ChatGPT subscription. The current entry price is ChatGPT Plus at $20 per month. That's the only required cost.
People who use your GPT need a ChatGPT account too, but a free one is fine. They can use any GPT you share with them at no cost.
If you're already paying for ChatGPT Plus, you can build as many Custom GPTs as you want with no additional charge.
What you need before you start
Have these ready before you sit down at the computer:
A ChatGPT Plus subscription, signed in on a desktop or laptop browser. The mobile app lets you use Custom GPTs but does not let you build them.
A clear idea of what job the GPT should do. "Answer customer questions about our HVAC services" is a good starting point. "Help with my business" is too vague.
Any reference documents you want the GPT to use. PDFs, Word docs, text files, and spreadsheets all work. Common examples are your FAQ, your service menu, your pricing sheet, your standard contract, your employee handbook, or example emails you've sent in the past.
Five to ten test questions you'd want the GPT to answer well. You'll use these to check whether it's actually working.
That's it. You don't need any technical skills. If you can fill out a form online, you can build a Custom GPT.
How to set one up
The process takes about twenty minutes the first time and ten the second.
Step 1: Open the GPT builder
Go to chatgpt.com on a desktop browser and sign in. Click your profile picture or the menu, and look for "My GPTs" or "Explore GPTs." Click "Create a GPT" or visit chatgpt.com/create directly.
You'll see two panels. The left panel is where you configure the GPT. The right panel is where you test it.
Step 2: Configure it conversationally, or fill out the fields directly
The builder offers two modes. The conversational mode walks you through it by asking questions like "what should this GPT do?" and building the configuration based on your answers. The configuration mode gives you a form to fill out directly.
For your first GPT, the configuration form is faster. Click "Configure" at the top of the left panel.
Step 3: Fill out the basics
Name. Make it clear and specific. "Smith Plumbing FAQ Assistant" beats "My GPT." This is what users will see.
Description. One or two sentences explaining what the GPT does and who it's for. Example: "Answers common customer questions about Smith Plumbing services, hours, and pricing in the Columbia, SC area."
Profile picture. Click "Generate" to have ChatGPT create one based on the name and description, or upload your own logo. This is cosmetic but worth doing.
Step 4: Write the instructions
This is the most important field. The instructions tell the GPT how to behave. Write them like you're training a new employee on their first day.
A good template to start from:
You are the customer support assistant for [Business Name], a [type of business] serving [location]. Your job is to answer customer questions clearly and politely using only the information in the uploaded files.
Guidelines:
- If a question is not covered in the uploaded files, say "I'm not sure about that one. Please call us at [phone] or email [email] and someone will help you out."
- Do not make up prices, hours, or services. Only refer to what's in the documents.
- Be friendly but concise. Most answers should be two or three sentences.
- Always end with an offer to help with another question.
Adjust this to fit your business. The more specific the instructions, the better the GPT performs.
Step 5: Add conversation starters
Conversation starters are example prompts that appear when someone first opens the GPT. They help users understand what they can ask.
For an HVAC FAQ GPT, good starters would be:
- What are your service hours?
- Do you offer emergency repair?
- How much does a standard tune-up cost?
- What areas do you serve?
Write four. Make them sound like real questions a customer would ask.
Step 6: Upload knowledge files
This is what makes the GPT actually know about your business. In the Knowledge section, upload your reference documents.
Some practical tips here:
Keep the files focused. A single PDF with your top thirty FAQs is better than fifty separate documents. The GPT can search through anything you upload, but it works best with clean, well-organized information.
Remove anything sensitive. The GPT will reference whatever you upload, so don't include employee personal information, internal financial details, or anything you wouldn't want a customer to see.
Stick to common file formats. PDFs, Word documents, plain text files, and spreadsheets all work well. The total upload size is generous but keep individual files under 10 MB if possible.
Step 7: Choose capabilities
Below the instructions, you'll see toggles for capabilities like Web Browsing, DALL-E image generation, and Code Interpreter.
For a typical small business GPT, turn all of these off unless you have a specific reason to enable them. They add complexity and slow down responses. You can always turn them on later if you find you need them.
Step 8: Test it
This is where the right panel comes in. Try the test questions you prepared earlier. Ask the GPT something easy. Then something harder. Then something it shouldn't know.
Watch for these problems:
- Does it answer using your information, or making things up?
- Does it sound like you, or like generic ChatGPT?
- Does it admit when it doesn't know, or invent an answer?
- Does it follow your instructions about referring people to your phone or email?
If anything is off, go back to the instructions and tighten them. This back and forth is normal. Most GPTs need three or four rounds of adjustment before they feel right.
Step 9: Save and share
Click "Create" or "Save" in the top right. You'll be asked who can access it. Your three options:
Only me. Use this for personal productivity tools or while testing.
Anyone with the link. Use this for team tools or for sharing with select customers. Nobody can find it through search, but anyone with the URL can use it.
Publish to GPT Store. Anyone on ChatGPT can find and use it. Use this only when the GPT is fully polished and you've tested it thoroughly.
For most small businesses starting out, "Anyone with the link" is the right choice. You can post the link on your website, email it to customers, or print it on a card.
A few honest warnings
Custom GPTs are powerful, but they have real limits worth understanding before you put one in front of customers.
They will sometimes get things wrong. No matter how careful your instructions are, the underlying AI can occasionally invent details or confuse facts. For anything that involves money, legal commitments, or safety, the GPT should be a draft tool, not a final answer.
They are not a replacement for an actual conversation. A customer who's frustrated about a botched job doesn't want to talk to a chatbot. Use Custom GPTs for the easy questions so your team has more time for the hard ones.
They forget between conversations. Each new chat starts fresh. The GPT does not remember what a particular customer asked yesterday. If you need that kind of memory, you've outgrown Custom GPTs and you're into custom development territory.
They live inside ChatGPT. You can share the link, but users have to sign in to ChatGPT to actually use it. If you want a chatbot embedded directly on your website with no sign-in required, that's a different tool and a different conversation.
Next steps
If you've never tried this before, the best thing you can do today is pick one repetitive question that comes up over and over in your business and build a GPT to handle it. Start small. The point isn't to automate everything in one shot. It's to learn how the tool works on a problem you already understand.
If you build one and want a second pair of eyes on it before you share it with customers, get in touch. I'm happy to look at it and tell you whether it's ready or where it needs work. That kind of review is exactly the sort of thing we cover in a Coyote Automations assessment, and the call to Annie is free for the first ten businesses.
The next article in this series will cover email drafting assistants, which are even simpler than Custom GPTs and arguably more useful for most owners. Stay tuned.
Coyote Automations is based in Lexington, SC, serving Columbia and the Midlands. We help small and mid-sized businesses figure out where AI fits in their operation, then help them implement it. Call Annie at (803) 843-0359 to start a free 48-hour assessment.